“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Maybe you just need more time, E…”
“Maybe.” I press a hand to my heart, as if that might stop its aching. “Or maybe this will just be my life. Forever. Perhaps anguish is my new constant.”
“Do you think, if you had a chance to say goodbye to him properly… To tell him all the things you didn’t get the opportunity to before… Would it make it easier on you? Would you be able to move on for real?”
“I don’t know, Chloe. And I can’t think about it, because it’s never going to happen. He’s in Switzerland, moving on with his life. And I’m here. Keeping calm and carrying on, no matter the cost. That’s just… the way it has to be.”
We’re both silent for a long time. My mind is reeling a million different directions at once. Zinging back and forth between two extremely different futures that play out in my mind in a diametrical daydream.
Alden, Carter, Alden, Carter.
They say love is a battlefield. If that’s the case, my heart has become the bloodiest of war zones, where two very different men fight for purchase without reprieve.
The one I should want.
And the one I can’t claim.
Alden.
Carter.
Alden.
Carter.
Chloe has no reason to lie to me. She, more than anyone else, has my best interests at heart.
So, perhaps she’s right.
I have to move on eventually. Why put off the inevitable? Why wait to accept Alden’s proposal, when the end result will be the same?
Everything in this world worth having comes at a price. Marrying Alden Sterling may well be the one I’m forced to pay to keep my kingdom.
Chloe’s deep sigh brings me out of my reverie. “Boy drama aside… If I know my mother, and I think I do, the interview she gave today is only the beginning of her blitzkrieg. She’s going to be on every nightly broadcast and morning talk show, spreading the Ludwig gospel.”
“And illustrating the merits of my forced abdication,” I grumble. “Bitch is just bitter I took her crown.”
“But you look so much better in it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe all of this is a sign.”
“A sign of what?”
“That I’m not meant to be queen. That I’m supposed to step away from this role. That I was never meant to have it in the first place.”
“Okay, first of all, that’s bullshit. You are a kick-ass queen — and I don’t just say that because I love you. Secondly, the onlysignI see here is the one that says my mother is a terrible person who must be stopped.”
“I’ve been a bit busy organizing the referendum. Haven’t had time to plot your mother’s destruction lately.”
“Don’t you have an entire Queen’s Guard at your disposal for just such tasks?” She arches her brows. “Delegate.”
“I suppose I could have Riggs look into Octavia’s recent dealings…”
Chloe nods. “If you find enough dirt on her, you might be able to get her to back off. The woman does not understand the termcompromise. Mutually assured destruction is the only language she speaks.”
I laugh a bit darkly. “And here I thought things were going to slow down after the vote was done.”
“Things never slow down. Life is like a game of musical chairs — the older you get, the faster the music plays.”