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He nodded. Then realized she couldn’t see him. “Yes.”
But his voice sounded like the croak of a frog. He’d been a king, but when the woman of his dreams kissed him, he turned into a frog. Wasn’t that irony?
Esme turned back to him. Her features were scrunched in confusion. “Truly?”
Leo tilted his head back and looked at the sky. There were no answers there. No dragons came to swoop them both away into a fairytale world where they could be together. Reality was closing in on all sides.
“But we have a thing,” she said.
He looked back at her. “A thing?”
?
??Yes. Between us.” She motioned with her hand at the empty space between them. “There’s a thing.”
“What thing?”
Now she threw her hands up. “I don’t know. It’s unnamed. But it’s there. You know it’s there. It’s butterflies in your stomach. It’s fireflies in your head. It’s sparklers in your heart.”
Oh, that thing. The thing he’d imagined for the past couple of days. The thing that was all too real but could never survive in the harsh reality they found themselves in.
“Yes, I know what you mean,” was all he could manage.
“So, you can’t marry someone else.”
“I have to.”
“Have to?”
It was such a simple question. But the answer was so complex. “I must produce a male heir for Cordoba. My wife has to be of noble blood.”
“Has to?”
He huffed in frustration. “This is just the way things are. I can’t change it.”
“Why not? You’re the king.”
Leo opened his mouth. Then closed it. He had no words for her.
“Why did you kiss me? You were, what? Sowing your royal oats with a commoner?”
He reached out and grabbed her forearm. He wanted to shake her for saying such a thing. “You’re more than that to me.”
“Yeah, I know.” She stared him down, her brown gaze accusatory and unapologetic. “Do you?”
He knew he had to let her go. Instead, he cupped both her shoulders with his hands. “Esmeralda Pickett, you are the most magical thing that’s ever happened to me. I kissed you because I just wanted, for one moment in my life, something for me, something I dreamed of, my own fairytale.”
She nodded as though that made sense. “But now you’re going to push me back into the real world? Do you think any man is ever going to live up to you?”
He hated the idea of Esme and another man. “Esme, I would give anything for things to be different.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” She broke from his embrace and stepped beyond his reach. “You have everything. And what you don’t have, you can get. You’re a king, Leo. Change the rules.”
“It’s not that simple.”
She shook her head at him reminding him of every teacher he’d ever disappointed with a low grade or work below the standard they held him to. Instead of another reprimand, Esme turned on her heel and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” he called out to her.
