“So do you,” I tell her. “I wish things were different. I wish I weren’t?—”
“Don’t say that. I like all of you, okay? Even the shitty royal parts.”
Our mouths crash together, and we kiss like this might be the last time we’re ever together.
“I’m still choosing you,” I whisper to her. “I’ll find a way.”
“Promise?”
“On my grandmother’s grave.”
I want to hold on to her until the end of time, but if we linger any longer, my mother will return with guards, and neither of us needs the attention. I kiss her forehead and force myself to release her. She slips out the door.
“I love you,” I whisper.
I stand alone in the empty study while the afternoon light fades.
My mother thinks she can force my hand. She couldn’t be more wrong.
22
ADDISON
The queen’s private sitting room smells of fresh lilies and furniture polish. It’s the same scent that greeted me last week when I first started painting her, per her request. The velvet chair is positioned in the same spot near the window where the afternoon light filters through sheer curtains. A spare easel stands where I left it. The canvas is about sixty percent finished, and it’s what I’ve been working on now that I won the contest. Everything in this room looks the same, but the woman in front of me is someone I’ve never met before.
Last session, she asked about my family and laughed when I shared about accidentally spilling paint on a client’s Hermès scarf. She shared stories about Henri Beaumont and how he used to sneak chocolates into their sessions because he knew she enjoyed them. She complimented my brushwork and told me I reminded her of herself at my age—ambitious and unafraid to take up space. I left that day thinking maybe the queen of Montclaire wasn’t the ice sculpture everyone had warned me about. I thought maybe she was just a mother who worried about her son finding happiness.
That warmth is gone now, replaced by something cold. It makes my skin prickle as I unpack my supplies.
“You may begin whenever you’re ready, Miss Cross,” she says, and her voice is polite. It feels like a warning.
I squeeze burnt orange onto my palette, then a dark red to warmthe undertones. Next to it is titanium white for the highlights I’ll build up later. The familiar routine steadies my hands while I try to read her body language. Her spine is too straight, her shoulders too rigid, and her hands are folded in her lap. Those manicured fingers are laced tight enough to turn her knuckles pale. She’s holding tension in her face, and I find myself wondering why things couldn’t be different.
“The light is good today,” I say as I load my brush and approach the canvas—because someone has to break this silence, and she clearly has no intention of doing it herself. “I should be able to make real progress.”
She doesn’t respond or smile. She doesn’t offer any of the easy conversations that filled our first session. The queen watches me with eyes that track my every movement, studying me the way I’m studying her. We’re two women trying to figure out what the other one is hiding.
I touch my brush to the canvas and start building up the shadows. The scratch of bristles against the textured surface mingles with the faint tick of a clock on the mantel. Outside the window, I can hear birds singing.
“I love my son very much,” she says.
My brush pauses before I continue painting, letting the words settle into the space between us.
“Louis has been the center of my world since the day he was born,” she continues, her gaze fixed on the middle distance. “Everything I’ve done, every decision I’ve made, has been to protect him and prepare him for the life he was born to live. I know he thinks I’m controlling. I know he resents the pressure we’ve put on him. But everything I do comes from a place of love, Miss Cross. I need you to understand that.”
I rinse my brush and load it with a cooler tone near her hairline, keeping my hands busy while I try to figure out where this conversation is going. “I believe you, Your Majesty.”
“I want him to be happy.” Her voice cracks slightly on the word. When I glance up, she’s composing herself with the control of someone who has spent decades never showing weakness in public. “That’s all any mother wants for her child. But happiness isn’t always possible when you’re a royal. There are obligations, responsibilities, and expectations that cannot be ignored, no matter how much we might wish otherwise.”
I don’t trust myself to speak yet, so I continue working.
“This arrangement with Tatiana …” she says, and I feel my shoulders tense at the name, even though I try to hide it. “I know it’s not what Louis would’ve chosen for himself. I know he doesn’t love her. But he will. She is what’s best for him, for this family, and for Montclaire. The alliance will strengthen our position in ways that matter more than his feelings.” She pauses, and when she speaks again, her voice is almost pleading. “I need you to trust me on that.”
I set down my brush and meet her eyes because this conversation deserves my full attention. “I can’t.”
“Miss Cross?—”
“I can’t trust that this is what’s best for him.” The words come out steadier than I expected, fueled by frustration rather than anger. “I’ve seen what this arrangement has done to him. I’ve watched him run through the motions with women he feels nothing for, performing happiness for cameras while his eyes stay dead. I’ve seen what he looks like when he’s actually present, actually engaged and alive.” I take a breath. “Those are two different people, Your Majesty. And the version of your son that exists in this arrangement isn’t the real one.”
