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I grinned, shifting to sit on the couch. How do you vex me? Let me count the ways. One, you vex me in sight. Your face haunts me day and night. Two, you vex me in might. Your wit matches mine fight by fight. Three, the most vexing is how amused you leave me. —Gale.
It was not a very good poem, but I enjoyed sending it to her nevertheless. Because just as I thought, she was struggling with what to say back. I could tell by the way the three dots appeared and disappeared over and over again.
Checkmate.
Write me a poem, sing me a song, tell all the world of my beauty, dance for me from dusk till dawn, and they will say I am lucky to have you. But I will ask, did you love as you wrote, as you sang, as you told, as you danced? —Odette.
I stared at the phone, frozen. Her words were like ice water in my veins and spread a chill from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I was only joking, and she brought a bomb to a word fight. All the amusement and teasing, she flushed it all out in two sentences so that anything I said in return would feel inadequate. However, I did not want to say nothing in return, either. Unfortunately, she beat me to it, adding:
You do not have to keep flattering me or keep sending flowers, Gale. They are nice. But if you do it too much, I will only think you are pretending and using your playboy moves on me. —Odette
Okay. It was all I could come up with.
She did not reply, and I was a bit grateful because my mind was still reeling. I glanced over at her flowers. She wrote that it was the symbol of those who stood strong in his or her sacred values. That was her for sure.
“Are you all right, sir?” Iskandar asked.
“Did she reject you again?” Wolfgang questioned far too gleefully.
When I shot him a look, he went back into the kitchen. Iskandar, however, stood there just watching. I noticed he had changed. When and how I did not notice—proof of how transfixed I was while talking to her.
“She did not reject me,” I said, rising from the couch and standing in front of her flowers.
She merely reminded me that words are empty when said without feeling. Growing up in the palace, I was used to people flattering me, especially when I was younger. They would go on about how handsome, or smart, or talented I was. But I soon realized, it did not matter if I was ugly, stupid, or inept, they would still flatter me.
It also made me realize I did not have to try so hard to be better than anyone. Simply by being a prince, everyone would treat me as if I were great. There was no need for much effort. If I wanted friends or women, all I needed to do was utter a few compliments and offer a gift, and they stuck by me until I got tired of them, and I had to leave. I told myself I had grown bored of them. But I think I always knew that it was the fakeness of it all that I grew tired of. Behind their actions was only the desire to be the friend or the lover of a royal. They took whatever I gave and then gave nothing back but empty words.
But Odette did not want a royal, and her words were not empty.
“I doubt she will want to see me today. So, let us go to this city,” I said, lifting one of the flowers and smelling it.
“Sir—”
“I am not just going to sit here all day and wait for her. I am not on house arrest. Figure out a way,” I replied, putting back the flower.
I needed the air, a good walk in the cold to see her city. Maybe that would help me figure out what more I could do for this woman. She was tougher than I expected. “Maybe I can find someplace to take her for the weekend?”
“This weekend will not work. Her concert is this Friday, and I already have tickets.”
Both Iskandar and I looked at Wolfgang as he texted on his phone. It took him a few seconds to notice, as we had not replied, and when he did, his gaze shifted between us both. “Yes?”
“Why do you already have tickets to her concert?” I questioned.
“I thought you might want to go at some point and saw she had one coming up, so I took the initiative. I am your personal secretary to have your needs met,” he answered.
Something was off. However, I let it go.
That settled this weekend. What was I supposed to do until then?
