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“It is!” I hollered back. “Because I saw her for a state issue.”
“How is seeing her a state issue?”
“Because she is embarrassing the monarchy!”
“No, she is embarrassing you!”
“I am the monarchy. How do you not get that?”
She stood there, glaring at me. “Sorry, I’m just the stupid, ignorant American here, Your Majesty.” She curtsied and tried to walk around me.
“Odette!” I called out, trying to snag her arm, but again she smacked me away.
Spinning around angrily, she got back into my face. “Tell me, though, would it still be a state issue if I did it? If I secretly brought my ex somewhere to talk privately and not tell you? Would you just understand? Would you be completely fine with it?”
“That is not the same.”
“Why? I’m part of this family, this monarchy now, too, right? Why isn’t it the same?”
I didn’t answer.
“So basically, the rules are, you are allowed to do anything and I must understand, but if I do that same exact thing, it would be wrong, right?”
I couldn’t find the words because there were no good ones. So all I could do was repeat the truth. “I didn’t betray you in any way. I swear, Odette.”
“You just made me feel like I can’t trust you. No matter what anyone posted anywhere. No matter what anyone said. I always felt like I could come to you and talk to you, and you would tell me the truth. That finally, I’d found someone else I never had to doubt. You knew how important that was to me, and you broke that trust, Gale.”
My shoulders dropped, and it felt…like something had just broken between us. I didn’t want it to.
“Odette.”
“I need to go get myself together before dinner,” she muttered, walking out the door…leaving me powerless to stop her.
How did everything keep getting messed up?
I didn’t understand.
Chapter 14
When she didn’t come down for dinner, I was sure this wasn’t a small fight. Truthfully, I knew it while we were fighting, and she looked at me so…heartbroken. Anyone who saw her would have actually thought I’d had an affair. Gelula had said she had fallen asleep, but I didn’t believe her. She would have woken her. The truth of the matter was she didn’t want to see me, and I couldn’t bring myself to go see her. So I was hiding out in the castle library, with a glass of brandy, pretending I had work to do and was leaving her to rest.
We couldn’t have everyone gossiping more, but I knew they were talking. Someone must have heard our fight. So I couldn’t go to the room because she was there. I couldn’t go to a separate room because that would look bad. I couldn’t wander around. And therefore, the library was it. However, I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing her face.
“And now I have a headache,” I muttered to myself and drank. And it hit me for the first time that I didn’t really have anyone to talk to. Before, when I was upset or frustrated, I’d call Arthur, or I’d go bother my father. Neither of those options was available now, but I never felt lonely because I could talk to her.
The only male member of my family I could speak to who was close enough or married was…Hadrian. However, he and I weren’t as close as we were when we were teenagers.
I sat there, thinking for a while before sitting up and pulling out my phone. I mean, what was the harm of reaching out now? Dialing, I lifted the phone to my ear and looked at my feet. It rang and rang and rang to the point I was just about to hang up when he finally answered.
“Gale?”
“Is your phone normally not next to you?” I asked him, lying back on the couch. “You’re now third in line to the crown. You should have it on you at all times.”
“To think there would be a day you lectured me on things like this.” He chuckled. “But if you must know, sir, I was putting my girls down for bed.”
“Oh, that’s right, you have two daughters.”
“Gale, they were flower girls at your wedding!”
