AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And yet, I couldn’t be happier. As much as I loved being with my Kings, I was excited to spend the day surrounded by those we love.
CHAPTER9
“I can’t believeyou got me a real Birkin bag,” Penny gushed later in the day when we were alone. The cabin was large, and there was the front open space with an attached kitchen as well as another rec room at the back, but it still felt crowded with everybody milling around. Penny and I had snuck off to my bedroom to sit in my big, cozy velvet chairs and catch up on our lives since the last time we’d seen each other.
“You deserve it,” I said. “And it was one of the only couture gifts I gave. The rest were all bespoke items from small artists and craftspeople. I wanted to spread my money around to people who needed it. But this bag, I know how much it means to you!”
I didn’t know why I said that. I meant to illustrate how special she was to me, but instead, I sounded like a snobby rich bitch. I’d always sworn I’d never let the money change me, but maybe it was inevitable because of the differences it made in my life.
“I’m sorry, that made me sound like an uppity asshole,” I laughed. She was still admiring the bag on her arm, and it looked good on her, especially with her broad smile.
“Not at all,” she reassured me, glancing up. “I know your heart is still the same, even if you’ve changed dramatically since high school.”
“Have I really changed that much?” I asked.
“You’re much more serious now,” she said. “You take life more seriously, I guess. I don’t know, that doesn’t seem right because you were serious before. Okay, let me try again. You take life more seriously than before, but you’re not depressed. You don’t have that dark cloud hanging over you like in high school. I used to worry you’d go home one night and never come back. I thought you’d self-harm.”
“I thought about it more than once,” I said quietly. “I never knew you saw that about me. I thought I was hiding it so well.”
“I guess you must be happy you never went through with it because look at your life now. That’s the thing with feeling the darkness weigh you down, it can feel insurmountable at the time, but once you get through it, you look back and can’t believe it almost ended you,” she said. “Imagine if you had, I wouldn’t have this gorgeous Birkin on my arm today.”
And then she raised her eyebrows and giggled, letting me know she was kidding. She was just trying to direct the conversation away from heavy things on this, of all days. A day of celebration and joy.
“You’re right. And think about the tragedy if I’d died a virgin,” I grinned back.
“Oh, even worse,” she gasped. “Imagine all the ugly bitches these guys would have hooked up with. Or the society snobs they would have married by now!”
“That’s emotional damage just thinking about it,” I gasped with her, holding my hand to my chest. “They’re the luckiest of all. I saved them from some nasty, evil women!”
We were laughing together by then, and as we started to describe the horrible people my Kings would have chosen if they didn’t have me, we started laughing even harder.
We had tears streaming down our cheeks when Neve found us, and we laughed harder as we explained it to her and got her to join in.
It felt good to giggle like I was a teenager again. It was such a release to let it all out. To let my happiness and joy bubble over inside my chest until it could no longer be contained.
When we walked back out into the main room at the front of the cabin, I was more relaxed and happy than I’d been in a long time. I had missed my Kings, and I had missed my friends and family. Even Nat, with her bigger-than-average ego, had me smiling on Christmas as she described the way her girlfriend had burned pancaked for them that morning.
Mom was finally okay with Nat being bisexual and even stayed sober long enough to tell her part of the funny story.
Ivan was flirting with her until she got too busy making dinner and directing a few others to help, so he cornered me at one point to tell me I was going to take over everything for him one day.
“I want to retire before I’m too old to enjoy it,” he said and nodded as if encouraging me to agree to anything he said.
“You should have thought about that ten years ago, old man,” I smiled at him.
He exclaimed, “Hey, now, that hurts,” before he carried on. “I want you to take it all over, you know. The entire empire will be yours and your boyfriends. All four of them have a place at our table.”
“They’re not my boyfriends anymore,” I said, narrowing my eyes to gauge his reaction.
“Oh, thank god, you finally dumped them?” he said, exhaling a huge sigh. “It’s about time. I couldn’t stand any of them.”
I tensed up and was about to give him a piece of my mind when Amara ducked over my left shoulder and said, “He knows about the engagement, so he’s reversing the joke on you.”
My eyes flitted back to Ivan and saw the huge grin on his face, and I realized it was true.
“You knew, and you were going to let me try and trick you?” I scoffed. “I was dying to tell you they’re not my boyfriends anymore. They’re my finances, you jerk!”
He laughed again, and Amara stepped around him to stand with us. “I take it he’s told you his plan?”
