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“Thank you for trying, Anthony,” Magnolia says as she stands and shakes his hand. We all follow suit before walking out of our father’s office and into the hall, where we wave Anthony goodbye and watch him disappear down the castle’s corridors.
“This isn’t fair,” I moan as we walk hastily down the hall back to our bedrooms. I can’t wait to scream and shout in private. “How dare he sell you like that?”
“I don’t want to hear it, Rose,” Magnolia snips angrily at me as she storms on up ahead of us toward her room.
I’m surprised at her reaction.
Magnolia opens her door to her bedroom and gives us a look before slamming it shut behind her, effectively blocking us out of whatever turmoil is going on inside her.
Skylar and I stand there in shock, staring at one another, then at the door, wondering what just happened.
“Today has been a shock for her. She’s processing the information,” Skylar adds as she turns the handle to her bedroom, and we stroll in.
I wait until she shuts the door behind me before speaking again. “You don’t think she wants to marry Dante?” I ask, knowing that at one time she and Dante were in love until they weren’t, which neither one of us knows why.
“Want is probably a strong word. Father had high hopes of linking our family with the Carandinis for some reason. He and Valerius always had the plan that Magnolia and Dante were to rule Aegina. Then something happened, and he never signed the change in succession. Bet Valerius is upset over all this. His master plan didn’t work because of our father’s incompetence,” Skylar explains as she sits back on her bed and stares up at the ceiling.
“What happens if he doesn’t know that Magnolia isn’t going to be Queen?”
Skylar’s eyes widen with surprise as she sits up in bed. “Shit,” she hisses before her brows pull together. “But their wedding is in the will?”
That’s what I don’t understand. He made sure that clause was in but not the succession plan.
“You think he forgot to amend the succession plan?” she asks.
“Why would he have gone to such trouble to change one thing and not another?”
Skylar shrugs. “Who knows half the things our father does?”
“You don’t think Valerius had a hand in his death because he found out that our father didn’t change the succession plan in the will?”
“No, they were best friends,” Skylar states.
“Valerius is a bad guy.”
“So was our father.” My sister sighs.
Very true. “There must be a way around this. Magnolia was meant to be Queen.”
“Where the hell would we start looking for that kind of thing?” Skylar asks, flopping back against the bed again.
“I have no idea.”
“You might need to leave this to Anthony, Rose. He knows what he’s looking for.”
Maybe my sister is right. I feel so helpless. I hate feeling like that. It’s the emotion our father made us feel our entire life, and I thought it would vanish when he did.
2
ROSALIE
“What are you doing out here?” Magnolia asks, walking over to where I’m standing in front of our father’s grave, kicking some loose dirt.
“I can’t believe he did this to us,” I say to her as tears fall down my cheeks. “I hate him, Maggie.”
She reaches out and wraps her arm around my shoulder to console me, but I shrug her off as my rage takes over. I keep kicking the dirt angrily, again and again.
“Even in death, he’s continuing to mess us over. I hate him for the stinking pile of shit he has left us with. I hate that you must marry a man you don’t love.”
