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On the contrary, she had cried.
A lot.
Her tears had been indistinguishable from the rain and she’d taken that as a kind of blessing. But she’d still slid all the way down to the base of that palm tree, cradled her head in her arms, and cried.
Because everything in her life had been taken away from her and it didn’t matter whether she’d wanted those things or not. She’d spent twenty-five years believing they were hers.
Her mother being one of them.
And yet all the commentary—whether from so-called news sources, or the Queen’s inner circle of courtiers and aides, or even Joaquin—all seemed to be in agreement on one thing. That this was all somehow her fault.
As if she, at three days old, had set out to usurp a throne located halfway across the planet.
As if, a voice had whispered inside her while the rain poured down,your entire goal during your first summer here was to hurt Joaquin as much as you could.
When the reality was, she had been so naive that it had never occurred to her to guard herself against him. She had fallen so fast and so hard that it had been all over in a single glance. And the only reason she’d managed to force herself to do what had to be done in the end was because she had been so besotted with Joaquin that she couldn’t bear the thought of the alternative.
Which was Queen Esme doing what she could not.
She might have channeled her mother when she’d spoken to him, but she had still been far kinder to him than Esme would have been. Yet how could she explain that to him?
Amalia had been the Crown Princess of a pretty little island that most people treated as if it was a real-life fairy tale. No one would believe, ever, that she hadn’t known what she was doing. That she hadn’t been fully in control of everything that had happened here.
Deep down, she suspected Joaquin still thought that, too.
And that day in the rainstorm, the injustice of it all had left her heaving with sobs she usually kept locked away deep inside.
She’d cried and cried.
But then, eventually, the sobs had stopped.
Amalia had let the rain wash her face clean. She’d sat there, letting the storm pound into her, and she’d let go of the injustice. The unfairness.
Maybe, she’d whispered to herself,this is what you deserve.
Because she hadn’t always been a good person, had she? She’d let her mother guide her too completely. Any enemy of Esme’s had been an enemy of hers, that went without saying. Esme’s opinions, on everything and anything, had been her guide. Even when she’d had the opportunity to act any way she pleased, in a situation Esme knew nothing about and could never know anything about, she’d defaulted to cruelty.
How could Amalia blame Joaquin for refusing to engage with her now when she’d treated him that way back then? Surely if she had half the heart she liked to pretend she did, she would not have been capable of saying the things she’d said to him then.
It didn’t matter that she’d hurt herself, too.
Maybe what she really needed to accept was that she’d come here, not because she was after freedom. But because she needed forgiveness.
And maybe the only path to forgiveness available to her wasn’t the one she wanted. Maybe she and Joaquin really would throw themselves headfirst into this passion until there was none left, and it would all dissolve into indifference.
Maybe, at the end of the day, that was the best version of forgiveness she was going to get.
That was why she’d gone to find him in the shower that day. That was why she’d simply accepted everything he’d said to her.
And in the days since, she hadn’t attempted to provoke him. To poke or to prod for answers she liked, or to get him to admit that the intensity between them meant something. Because even if it did, he didn’t want it to.
She supposed after the way she’d treated him, she deserved that, too.
Tonight, when she was out of the shower, she took her time with her toilette. She didn’t often get the opportunity to dress here, and she’d missed it. Carelessly romping about in the Spanish sun was all very well, but she also liked the sultry lick of bold lipstick across her lips. The slick of mascara on her lashes.
Amalia knew he didn’t like her chignon, so she gathered her hair up in something much looser and more inviting on the top of her head, letting tendrils fall where they would. Then she slipped into a shimmering column of a dress that she had bought on a whim but had never worn to any official function, because it was cut much too high on the thigh, and had no back to speak of.
Queen Esme would not have approved.
