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She got out of the bath, swathing herself in the silk robe, and looking in the mirror. Her eyes were bright, her skin pink. She looked a bit sallow, beneath the color that had been brought on by the bath, and she let the robe fall away, examining her body in the mirror. She looked at her stomach, and tears filled her eyes. Stretch marks. A bit of extra skin.
A scar where the child had been delivered...
So that was how she’d had the baby when she’d been asleep.
Tears filled her eyes.
She had carried a baby. Achild. And she couldn’t remember...
There was a firm knock on the door. “Miss?”
And after that, there was no time to be standing there feeling sorry for herself in front of a mirror. She was hurriedly dressed and her hair brushed. Makeup applied to her face, and when she looked back in the mirror, she was yet again staring at a stranger, but not for the same reasons.
She made her way from the room, led by her entourage to the dining room.
And there he was, standing at the head of the table, wearing a dark suit. The room was vast, ornate, and heavy like the other room she had been in was. Not like that stunning bright bedroom of hers.
There was something old money about this. Something dark.
“There you are,” he said.
But there was a weight beneath the words that set off a fire in her stomach.
“Yes. Is Soriya here...”
“She is down for her nap. She often takes a small nap just at this time then wakes again for a snack before going down for the night.”
She couldn’t deny she was disappointed by that. But suddenly she was ravenous. And her hunger overtook everything else.
Dinner was beautiful. And for a moment, she forgot about all the things she had forgotten. For a moment, she allowed herself to believe that her last memory was yesterday, and today she was standing in this beautiful, palatial home with the most glorious spread of food in front of her that she had ever seen.
For a moment, she allowed herself to believe that her life had simply transformed in an instant.
And she felt like...not like a sad, confused girl, but for the first time like perhaps she was a secret princess.
The idea made her eyes sting.
She had seen a movie when she was a teenager all about that. About a girl whose long absent father was secretly a king.
And she, secretly a princess. And sometimes, Riot had wished that was her life. That she was royalty. And someday somebody would come and take her away from her mother and give her a completely different life.
Instead, she carved out a life for herself, once she had accepted that fairy tales weren’t real.
But now she felt like she was in one, and just for a moment, she wanted to embrace it. Wanted to feel it.
“Have a seat,” he said.
She did as she was told, taking a seat in the chair across from him.
Being this close to him... He was even more beautiful than she had realized.
“You are...remarkable,” he said. “I should imagine that most people who have gone through the ordeal you have do not come out of it looking half so well.”
“I bet there aren’t very many people who have gone through what I have,” she said. “This seems more like a soap opera than real life.”
“I told myself that quite a few times while you lay there. It was... A low point.”
“For you?”
