AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t say her name.” She frowned…no, pouted, and it was a bit cute. “If you have to bring her up at all, call her Ms. Franziska.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded.
“I dislike her. I think I dislike most of them,” she went on but smiled. “I dislike them because they either knew you before me or dated you, slept with you—”
“I did not sleep with every woman in the land.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “Either way… I’m not trying to shame you. You did nothing wrong.”
Well, I was not that innocent, either. But I was going to keep that to myself.
“I’m just…like I said…possessive. Look what you’ve done to me, Gale.”
I chuckled. “You wear possessive very well. In fact, if this is the outcome every time you meet an ex, I will—ah.” I hissed when she smacked my chest.
“If I haven’t met them already, I do not want to meet them or hear of them.” She pointed her finger at me, glaring. “They don’t exist.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I tried not to laugh, but again, she was cute to me.
“Anyway, it was fine. Nothing major happened. What of you? How was your talk with the prime minister?”
I groaned in disgust.
“That bad? Balduin was telling me that it was just a simple formality.”
“If only,” I grumbled, shaking my head. “That man is…the walking opposite of everything I believe and want to do. We are polar opposites in everything but our desire to fight the other. You should have heard the nonsense he brought up today.”
“What did he say?” she asked, placing her hand on my shoulders, trying to relax them again.
I stared at her and shook my head. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk or think about it. What time is it?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “1:22 a.m.”
“We should rest. We can’t look as if we just screwed each other’s brains out for our first portrait.”
“Gale.”
“What? Don’t pretend to be all innocent now.” I leered as she rose out of bed, and I helped myself to a view of her backside when she bent down to get her robe. “Where are you going?”
“To clean up a bit and wrap my hair, so I have less to fix in the morning,” she said as she tied the belt around her.
I frowned. “Come back quickly; it’s cold without you, and I won’t be able to sleep.”
She leaned over on the bed and kissed my lips. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Careful, or you won’t get any sleep, either,” I said, reaching for the belt of her robe.
“No!” She giggled, jumping back, and I just pouted watching her retreat to the bathroom.
Sighing, I lay there for only a second longer before sitting up and grabbing my journal from the drawer in the bedside table. I found less and less time to write nowadays. And it was even harder to describe what I was feeling.
November 29
As I said last night, I am King. And I do not know what to say about it other than the fact that Shakespeare might have summed it up better than any other king or royal I had heard of before. “Uneasy is the head that wears a crown,” he wrote. The phrase had been modernized and “uneasy” replaced with “heavy.” I never paid much attention to it before. But now that I was King, the original word—uneasy—fit the best.
I wish to be good and do good. I want to honor my family’s legacy, my brother’s legacy. I didn’t even have time to think much of him yesterday. The fact that it has only been a year is so surprising to me. Sometimes it feels as if he has been gone for years, and others, just days. We are all moving on from him.
I truly believe he would have been pleased that I made Sophia a princess. Yes, there is so much to being a princess. But the thought of Sophia just disappearing with nothing, after all she has given to this family, felt cold. I didn’t know if the title warmed up anything. But at the very least, I hope she knows she is still seen and will forever be part of this family. I’m glad she and Odette seem to have at least come to some understanding now.
