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“Bevilën, you could have called someone to bring it to you; you didn’t have to sneak downstairs, alone in the dark! You could have gotten hurt.”
“I didn’t want to be a tyrant,” she grumbled, walking over to the kitchen chair with her tray of ice cream I was sure the chef was saving for dessert tomorrow. She lifted the first glass she’d been eating from, snatching up her spoon before stuffing a large bite into her mouth angrily.
“You are still mad about that article?”
“Since when is vanilla ice cream an exotic dessert!” she snapped at me when I came to sit beside her. “Are the sprinkles imported from the Virgin Islands? These!”—she held the ice cream to my face to see the rainbow sprinkles in her glass—“I thought I had gotten rid of all the gossipers! But apparently not…and leave it to those dickwads at The Morning Eagle to twist everything to make it worse. Also, emotional fits? Do I look like I’m going into an emotional fit?”
“Not at all,” I lied, watching over her….and this fit.
She finished the first cup and grabbed the second one. “We should sue them.”
“Then more people will read them,” I reminded her.
She pouted and stuffed another big bite in her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. “It was the doctor who suggested the milk bath because my skin was getting itchy and red.”
“I know,” I said gently.
“And I’m not asking anyone to massage my feet!”
“I know,” I said again.
“Tyrant queen!” she grumbled, angry. “I’ll show them a tyrant!”
“Let’s not do that. Let’s do what we’ve been doing. Ignoring the articles—”
“You weren’t ignoring them when we were doing polls about whose hand was grabbing your crotch!”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Oh…I couldn’t wait for this phase to be over…
“Sorry, that was mean,” she said, dropping her shoulders and looking at me. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
She was currently out of her mind, so I was just letting everything go. Plus, she wasn’t wrong. It was hard to ignore the press sometimes.
“When are they going to be tired?” she asked me gently. “I keep thinking at some point they will stop. At some point, they will run out of things to say. But every time something happens, every time I show my face or not show my face, I’m doing something wrong. One moment I’m an evil genius trying to take over the monarchy, and then the next, I’m doing nothing, and I’m just a little rich girl who wants to bask in luxury all day.”
“They will always be there, Odette. We can’t do anything about it.” I really wished we could. Truly, I wished there was some way to beg them to see us not just as monarchs but people. But they would never. It was the price we paid as royalty.
“I understand, but it makes me scared for this one.” She glanced at her stomach. “They attack me not because I’m royal, but because I’m black, too, I know it…so it makes me wonder what it is going to be like for this one. It’s the first one—boy or girl—that would be your heir, right? Is this country ready for a biracial sovereign? They deal with me because they have you. But—”
“We will make them ready,” I said, taking her hand. I wish I could say I hadn’t wondered this each time I noticed her stomach getting bigger. The only solution I could think of right now was this: “I plan on living a long life, Odette. Some might call me greedy or whatever, but I won’t get off the throne until I know for sure that our child is old enough and the public is more than used to them. Hell, they might not even get a chance until they are at least seventy.”
“Gale! So, you are living to one hundred?”
“A hundred and one, actually. Why not?” I asked her back. “And you have to live just as long. I’m not doing it without you. That is an order from your king!”
She laughed at me, shaking her head. “I’m trying to imagine what you’d look like in your nineties—”
“Deviously handsome, I’m sure, and not looking a day over sixty-five.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll make sure to look forty then.”
I made a face. “Let’s not push our luck, sweetheart. You are older than me, remember.”
“By a couple months! And have you seen my mother? We don’t age the same. I’ll be fine.” She scoffed, lifting her ice cream happily. “In fact, you might start looking like my sugar daddy at some point.”
“Wow!” I laughed in amazement. “Okay, the bet is on.”
