There has been a tenuous thread between her and me. But her outraged tone, her angry gestures… they cause me to pull on that thread until it snaps.
I get to my feet, my voice gone to gravel. “Maybe weshould both do ourselves a favor and stop trying. Maybe we are just not suited.”
She stares at me for a second, her mouth opening. “What are you saying, Stellan? Are you saying that this…” She gestures to the air between us both. “Isn’t worth it?”
“Maybe I am,” I say, my gut twisting.
A fresh sheen of tears in her eyes tells me that I’ve hit her in a soft spot. “I’ve been daydreaming. I’ve been living a lie. Pretending… pretending that if I tried hard enough, I could make people forget that I’m a foreigner. Make them forget that I come from nothing.” She looks deathly serious, her little hands forming fists. When she speaks again, her voice is watery and rough. “I thought that I could make you forget. But that’s not quite possible, is it?”
I spread my hands wide. “Maybe not, Margot. Maybe we are just… two people that should have been together. Maybe in another life, if we were a little more similar…”
A tear breaks loose and runs down her face. She swipes at it angrily. “We are fundamentally different, Stellan. That’s what makes us… us.”
I close my eyes for a second. “So… what? We’re different. I’m still a royal. I’ll always be a royal.”
She crosses her arms. “And I’ll always be common, no matter if you marry me or not. You could bestow a thousand titles on me and I’ll still be…”
She trails off, unable to finish her thought. She looks down, ducking her head and wiping at her face.
My fingers itch to touch her. I ball my hands into fists. “All you have to do is leave,” I grate out. “All you have to say is that you can’t do it. If you don’t want me to chase after you, I won’t. I love you, but…”
Margot looks up at me, her dark blue eyes agonized. Her words leave her in a huff of breath. “But maybe love isn’t enough.”
Her words ring out, settling between us like shattered glass. I suck in a breath.
“Margot— “
“No!” she says, shaking her head fiercely. “No. I won’t ever be the perfect, quiet, submissive little wife you all expect me to be! You want me to quit my job… and be just… completely dependent on you…”
She breaks down in tears, a silent sob rippling through her whole body.
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to make this better. My heart is frozen in my chest; my lungs feel brittle when I draw a breath.
“So go then,” I utter. Margot looks up at me, tears running down her face. “Go!” I yell.
A final twist of the knife, cutting both of us to the bone. Her face goes white.
“If I leave—“ she whispers.
“Fucking go. Be done with it already,” I toss the words out, turning away from her. “This is over.”
I start to walk away. Behind me, I hear her gasped breath. And then she lets a sob escape her as she turns and runs away, out the door faster than I can draw a breath.
When I turn back to look, all I see is an empty doorframe.
“Fuck!” I shout, reaching out blindly to overturn a plain wooden chair. Then I angrily tip the whole table on its side, making a noise that isn’t half of the fury that I feel.
I storm toward the bedroom, needing to brood in silence.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Stellan
Five days.
It has been five days since Margot and I fell apart. Four sleepless nights, five agonizing, drudgery-filled days.
I sit in the backseat of another limo, my eyes closed, wishing… well, I don’t know exactly what I want. I want Margot to reappear, to explain why she was so wrong before when she said she couldn’t live like I do.
