“Okay,” I say, because he’s right. “How do you propose we tell everyone?”
He gives me a wolfish smirk. “I have an idea.”
“Oh?” I challenge, smiling for the first time all day.
“I was thinking about having a Christmas ball.”
My eyebrows shoot up as my eyes bug out of my head. “I’m sorry, I think I just blacked out. Too many feelings today. I could not have possibly heard what you just said correctly.”
He chuckles, taking a piece of my hair and twirling it around his finger. “We used to host one every year.”
“You’re going to allow people into the palace?”
“It’s usually heads of countries and state. High-profile people and celebrities in Messalina and throughout the EU. It’s an exclusive guest list of folks who require their own security. We’ll make the necessary safety arrangements, but I want to start living again. I want my children to start living again. And I want all of us to do that with you. Out in the open.”
Woo. My head is spinning.
“But this morning…you said about Nora…” I don’t even know how to say this.
He tilts his head, his expression inquisitive. “What? What did I say about Nora?”
“That you regret bringing her into your life.”Making her your queen.
“Oh. Well, that was different. She was different. The situation was different.”
I’m completely confused, but I don’t think my heart can handle delving deeper into that. He wants to tell the children about us. He wants to tell the world. He’s here now with me, holding me, telling me he’s not going anywhere and that I can trust and rely on this. On him. On us.
“You’re sure about this?” I question, my brows scrunched as I search his handsome face for doubt. He twirls my hair around and around his finger.
“I’ve thought of little else since our weekend away last week. Phaedra’s words this morning about breaking the curse threw me over the edge. I can’t have my daughter thinking so much about that. Worrying so much about that. It’s not good for her, and it’s my fault she’s like this. I have to change that for her. For all the children, even if it makes me scared or uneasy. That’s what a good king and a good father would do. Besides, Rowan seems to think us falling in love is a curse breaker.”
I roll my eyes at that. “He doesn’t believe in the curse.”
He tugs on my hair. “Neither do you, but you told Phaedra just this morning you were going to break it with her. I know she’s afraid of it. I know it plagues her terribly. Rowan thinks when I make you my queen, that will seal the deal.”
Now I choke. On absolutely nothing. “Your queen?” I wheeze, falling back against the steering wheel and accidentally turning on the sound system with my back. Opera blasts through the speakers, and Sebastian shifts me on his lap in the small space and turns it off, all the while giving me an amused, indulgent look.
“What did you think telling the world we were together meant? Did you think I was just going to toss out the bomb that I’m in love with the nanny and leave it at that? No. That’s not how this works in my position. It’s marriage or bust with me, baby.”
“Wait!” I hold up my hand. “Are you…are you fuckingproposingto me?”
For the first time since I met him, I think he looks a bit nervous. “Well, not exactly. I wanted to feel you out a bit first.”
“That’s not how it’s done,” I snap indignantly, slapping at his shoulder.
He laughs, catching my hand and kissing my knuckles. Over my ring finger, damn him. “How is it done, then?”
“Don’t you watch movies or read books or live in the world?”
“Not in a while, no.”
“Kings,” I mutter sarcastically, rolling my eyes, but I divert the conversation away from that because it’s a bit too much of a mindfuck for me to handle right now. My heart is stumbling around in my chest like a blind, drunk fool, and it’s already too much of a mess as it is. “You can’t just make a nanny your queen.”
“Why not? You just said it, I’m the king. Who’s to tell me whom I can make my queen and whom I can’t?”
“Sebastian!”
“Bellamy,” he mocks.
