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“I can’t speak for your emotions,” he says, “but I’m certain Albert would have fallen for you. How could he not? If he’d met you even once, he wouldn’t have had room in his mind for Holly.”
My hands form fists in my lap, and I wrench my face away from him, leaving his thumb grazing only air. “It’s insulting that you think affection can simply bloom from proximity regardless of the parties involved. It’s even more insulting that you…that you consider your own feelings for me so shallow that just anyone could pick them up like a discarded glove and wear it like their own.”
Dante sucks in a breath, as sharp as if I’d slapped him. I wait for him to take it all back, to apologize, to repeat the far softer things he said to me in the powder room.
“I shouldn’t have confessed my feelings,” he whispers. My heart crumbles in reply. “I should have kept them hidden, as befitting my mission. Everything I’ve done since I met you at the Salty Satyr has been selfish. I could have persuaded Albert to join your engagement tour. I could have refused to attend in his place. It wasn’t required of me. I could have fulfilled my mission by protecting him as a guard. All it took was a single word of Albert’s refusal for me to jump at the chance of getting to know you. After the attack in the alley, I told myself the threat to his life was real, that my service as his decoy on our dates was tantamount to his safety. But even then I knew the attack was probably a coincidence. I let my feelings sway me from duty, and in doing so, I’ve made things worse. I’ve robbed Albert of the chance to earn your affection, gave him too much freedom which resulted in him compromising your reputation. Then I publicly assaulted a reporter. Then…then our kiss—”
“Dante,” I say, rounding on him with the full weight of my aggravation, “this isn’t one-sided. You aren’t the only one who engaged in…in what we have between us.”
He shakes his head and opens the cab door. “I take full responsibility just the same.”
I watch him exit the cab and belatedly follow in his wake. Panic compresses my insides as I find him several paces away, back facing me. He’s just…just going to leave? I run after him, ignoring the startled expressions of the passersby who look my way. The city of Lumenas is famous for being busy well into the evening, which means the sidewalks are still crowded with tourists. I can’t find it in me to care about being spotted running after a man. Once I reach him, I grab his elbow. “I’m not done talking about this.”
He faces me and frames my face with his hands. Relief sends my knees buckling. My lips part, expecting him to brush his mouth against mine at any moment.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he studies my face with a furrowed brow, as if memorizing it. I don’t dare move. Don’t dare utter a word that will prompt him to take his hands off me.
Finally, he speaks. “He will love you, Amelie. He will love you just like—” He snaps his mouth shut, throat bobbing. His voice turns hard. Formal. “This is the last time we meet. I will seek reassignment after you and Albert are married. You won’t see me again.”
He turns on his heel, but I encircle his wrist with my fingers. My throat tightens, seared by desperation. “Dante, wait. Please.”
“I can’t keep my promise not to hurt you, Amelie.” He refuses to look at me, his voice nearly swallowed by the noise of the crowd. “But I will protect you. Even if it’s from myself.”
Gently, he extricates his wrist from my fingers and weaves into the flow of foot traffic. I’m left gaping at the place he stood, my chest a hollow void. I expect pain to strike me, for agony to render me senseless, but I feel only empty.
For years, I thought I didn’t have a heart to break. That I buried it along with the dead body of my first love, determined never to love again. Now I know I was wrong. My heart wasn’t dead and buried. It was always here with me. Warming me. Teaching me to trust, to make friends again, to repair my relationship with my sister.
But now…
Now I fear I’ve lost it for good. For the man who holds it now is one I’ll never see again.
19
Two days later, I can safely admit Dante was right; he has made my life worse. My name has returned to the scandal sheets, linked both to the story about my fiancé assaulting a reporter on the red carpet and the widespread rumors of my powder room kiss. Thankfully only the former comes with photographic evidence, although I’ve seen several hand-drawn renditions of me and the false prince locked in a vulgar embrace. I suppose it would be worse if word was spreading about Albert and Holly Abercrombie too, but not a hint of that scandal has been uttered. It seems Dante’s threat to Eaton Farris was enough to silence him, not to mention all the work he did before the premiere to halt the story in its tracks.
My chest squeezes at the thought of Dante going through all that effort. For me.
I release a sigh, a sound that has filled my cottage like a melody on repeat for the last two days, and try to focus on my work. I’ve been fluttering about a pale blue gown for hours, sewing its final embellishments of silver buttons and seed pearls on the bodice, but my heart isn’t in it. I can hardly look at the gown without my eyes straying to the one gracing the dress form in the corner of my living room—the dusty rose dress I wore to the premiere. I should have thrown it away for all the trouble it caused and for the bad memories it carries, not put it on display. I told myself I needed to check for stains and tears, but the truth is, I wanted to see it. To honor it, if only for a little while. The memories it carries are more than just bad ones. It holds good ones too. The kiss, of course. The sweet words Dante said beforehand. The way he looked at me when I walked down the stairs to the atrium.
Dante aside, the dress also reminds me of my incredulous discovery that the dragon silk lace adorning it catches aflame without burning the fabric beneath it or my skin. What a stunning display that would be, to showcase a dress covered in literal flame!
A flicker of excitement sparks within me, but I quickly tamp it down. Flaming gowns might excite my fae clientele, but they would never go well with the humans I’m currently trying to impress. Not that I have much hope of impressing them at all now. Bartleby’s next showcase is five days away, and I haven’t heard a word from them regarding my participation. With my reputation in tatters, I doubt my upcoming wedding to the prince will mend it.
I clench my teeth against the nausea that turns my stomach and thread my next seed pearl a little too aggressively. My needle comes through far harder than I anticipated and pricks the tip of my finger. I give a start at the sudden bite, but the wound heals before a bead of blood can even rise to the surface. Still, it’s enough to force me to pause. I drop my needle, letting it dangle from the pale blue thread now hanging from the bust of the gown, and begin pacing the length of my living room.
Four days. That’s how long I have until I marry a stranger. A stranger I’ll be meeting tomorrow night.
That is, if I decide to go through with the final stop on my engagement tour—a ball held in my home court of Autumn. It seems so futile now. What could the real Albert and I do to counteract the damage done at the premiere? Sure, we could show everyone how in love we are, how prim and proper we can be in public without letting our passions get the better of us. Albert can prove he isn’t the violent prince the scandal sheets are now saying he is.
Hope swells in my chest, but it’s a hollow one. Even though I know this final tour stop could sway public opinion, it does nothing to alleviate my grim mood. Because everything inside me dreads meeting the real Albert.
My eyes flash to the letter lying open on my tea table, half buried beneath bolts of fabric. It arrived yesterday, bearing word from the prince that he would be attending the ball with me. I tried so hard to convince myself the letter was from Dante, that it was his way of telling me he’d changed his mind and would take Albert’s place one last time. But I knew better. The handwriting was slightly off from the previous two letters I received in Albert’s name, and as I read them in my mind, I could not reconcile the voice as Dante’s. Which means I’ll have to face the real Albert—my real fiancé—at the ball tomorrow.
And then marry him two days after.
My lungs constrict as anxiety crawls through me, raking invisible claws over my insides. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to marry the prince with detached resolve. I was supposed to use Dante as a tool to improve my reputation, not…
