Henri’s eyes focus intently on my face. “There’s something else I wanted to tell you.”
“Me too! But you go first.”
He rakes a hand through his hair. “Back in Dordogne when you asked me about the real reasons for my anti-royal activism, I wasn’t completely honest with you.”
“Aha! I was right! It wasn’t merely political or ideological, was it?”
“No, it was mostly personal.”
I cross my arms. “Go ahead, hit me with your true motive, no matter how unpalatable. I can handle it.”
“You see, ten years ago, I was a rather insecure young man,” he begins.
“You hid it well.”
“I know.” He skews a half smile. “But when everyone advised me to be real about our relationship so as to spare myself miserydown the line, those words fell onto emotionally primed soil. They hit a nerve that was already sore.”
“Who told you those things? Your family? Mine? Our common friends?”
“Who didn’t?” He leans back on the pillows. “It doesn’t matter, Gigi.”
“Of course, it does!”
He shakes his head. “If I’d been the man I am now, the entire world could’ve told me day in and day out that your infatuation would pass—that there were dozens of young men in the country more deserving of you than I was—and it wouldn’t’ve affected me.”
“It did back then?” I search his face.
“Yes, it did. So, it got me thinking about how I could stop being your lowly subject and become your equal.”
I pinch my chin, entertained despite myself. “How, indeed?”
“I figured there were two ways to achieve that.”
“Do tell,” I urge him, suppressing a smile.
I don’t doubt Henri’s sincerity, and I appreciate he’s finally opening up, but there’s no denying that the highly anticipated truth isn’t nearly as ugly as some of the things I’d imagined.
“I could relinquish my Evorian citizenship and ask for political asylum in another country. Or I could join an anti-royal movement and work with them to strip you of your royal status.”
“Sounds like you went with the latter.”
He squints at me. “Now do you see now why I resisted telling you about it?”
“Why?”Spell it out, darling.
“Because it’s so fucking embarrassing!” He rolls his eyes. “My plan was to run for president as soon as the royals stepped down and Mount Evor became a republic.”
I do my best to keep a straight face. “Nice plan.”
“I know, right? I was going to become Mount Evor’s first elected president, and my amazing first term was going to earn everybody’s admiration—especially yours! I was going to get reelected for a second term, and then, at the top of my game, I was going to ask you to be my wife.”
My hands drop to my sides. “Wow.”
“Yeah, instead of addressing my own issues, my emotional insecurity and inadequacy, I chose the way of the revolution.” He screws up his face. “Pathetic!”
I give it some thought. “Twisted, yes. Messed up, too. But I wouldn’t call it pathetic. No, it’s actually…”—I pause, looking for the right word—“sweet.”
“Sweet? Did you just say ‘sweet’?”
