At first she didn’t react, because she didn’t know how to. Didn’t know if she should. But then she looked at him, her heart tripping over itself. He was staring at her with deep, focused intensity. Hehadsaid it.
But what did those words mean?
Was iteverythingas he was to her?
That seemed impossible.
“I trust you,” she said. “I know you won’t let anything happen to me.”
“You didn’t even want me to go with you.”
She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell him why she had wanted to leave him behind in Basilia. Why she was almost desperate to put distance between them. Did he have any idea how painful it was for her to go on and marry another man while he was right there. While she still had to see him. While she was still close enough to touch him, but never, ever could. Just like always.
Just like always.
“Ineedyou to go with me,” she said, finally, the closest thing to admitting she neededhimthat she would allow. “I see that now. Though, I do think you’re going to have to look a little bit less suspicious of everyone and everything.”
“I am there as your personal bodyguard. I don’t think I need to look less suspicious at all.”
“I do. Don’t you think it would be better if they underestimated you. I mean, if there is going to be a problem.”
“Perhaps. But if you’re suggesting that I should play incompetent, I should warn you that I do not know how to do that.”
“Incompetent at being incompetent? That sounds about right.”
He made a short sound in the back of his throat and reclined in the chair. He crossed his arms over his broad chest, and she thought not to linger and notice every detail.
The strength in his shoulders, how his suit jacket pulled on his muscles. Andrei and her brother were addicted to the gym in the palace. They spent hours lifting weights and doing hideous amounts of push-ups and burpees.
They enjoyed pushing themselves to their limits.
Emerald did not.
Occasionally, she would watch a movie while walking on the treadmill. That was her version of fitness, and she was comfortable with it.
She often felt like Andrei and Onyx were attempting to sweat their demons out. Her demons took a different form. They didn’t dog her physically. They were in her head, swirling around continually, day and night. Asking what her value was. Asking what she had done to make her life worthwhile.
At twenty-four, her mother had been a mother. She had been a queen. By thirty-one, she was dead. She wondered if all of that had felt like enough for her mother. All the things she’d done. By comparison, Emerald hadn’t done very much.
“What do you see your legacy as, Andrei?”
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, but otherwise didn’t move. “My legacy?”
“Yes. Surely you feel like there’s something you need to accomplish. Something you want to leave behind. We both experienced death at a very young age. I feel like it makes you think about it. And you experienced two times what I did. It makes me think. About what it is I’ll leave behind, because the simple truth is we are only here for such a short time. Some of us much shorter than others, but there is no guarantee.”
“My legacy, my hope, has always been in preserving your family. Keeping you safe. Keeping your brother safe.”
“That’s all? What is it that your parents wanted when they came to Basilia?”
“Safety,” he said, his words hard. “They were on the run.”
He’d never told her this before. The idea of him being a boy, running away from one danger and sinking in another…it burned.
“They saw Basilia as a potential safe haven,” he said. “Though they never reached the shores, it was a safe haven for me. And because of that I fight to preserve the royal family.”
“And because you like us,” she said.
“Some days more than others,” he said, his voice hard.
