“Yes!” they both squeal because these girls have boundless energy. Being cooped up in the palace will do that. I can’t wait for the new renovations on the pool to start. I plan to have them help me with all of the planning.
“Your Highnesses, that’s really not?—”
“Come now, you don’t want to disappoint princesses, do you?”
If Marcella could flip me off right now, she would. “Of course not, sir.”
“Zayer, lad, how about you sit next to Mommy and the two of you hang tight for a few minutes? If you’re good and stay with Mommy without trying to run off, I’ll get you one of those incredible pastries from the stand we just passed. What do you say?”
He nods enthusiastically. “Yes! Yes!”
“I thought so. All right, one last ride before lunch.”
Zayer climbs off Marcella, and she stands, throwing daggers at me with her eyes. Bellamy gives her a wink I don’t understand that makes Marcella’s lips thin.
“Which roller coaster should we take her on?” I ask the girls. “I’m inclined to really get a scream from her, so I’d say the upside-down one.”
“Yes! The upside-down one,” Sabrina agrees, coming on the other side of Marcella and taking her hand. It startles Marcella, but she recovers quickly and offers her a kind smile. “If you’ve never been on a roller coaster before, it’s a fun one to start with.”
“No way!” Phaedra chimes in. “I say the up-and-down one that has the twist. That’s better.” Phaedra glances up at Marcella inquisitively. “Do you get sick on rides?”
Marcella pales. “I don’t know. I’ve never been on one before. And I just ate. Is it common to get sick on rides?”
“Oh.” All three of us pause.
“Maybe, we shouldn’t?—”
“No,” Marcella cuts me off. “I want to go on the biggest, scariest one you’ve got. I can handle it.”
“All right,” I agree. “Let’s do it.”
We get back in line for the upside-down one, and because people are kind and genuinely awed that the royal family—particularly the children—are here, they allow us to cut. Even when we try to tell them no over and over again, they insist, and somehow we end up at the front of the line in the first car in record time.
“I’ll ride with Marcella,” I tell the girls. “You two go behind us.”
The girls are in on the plan, wanting Marcella to have the best first experience possible, and something about that hits me.
“You’re a virgin,” I state as we get into the car and are harnessed in place.
“Excuse me?!”
I chuckle. Wow, that came out wrong. “I meant a ride virgin.”
“Your Highness, if this is your way of trying to distract me?—”
“Rowan, and I’m not trying to do that. I simply realized you’re a virgin.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Not anymore. You’ve officially popped my cherry.”
It makes me smile, only for it to slip as I study her. “Are you sure you want to do this? You look a bit…sweaty and gray.”
She gnaws on her lip. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I shouldn’t be nervous. It’s just a ride.”
I can’t tell if she’s talking to herself or me.
“I’ve done a million things. A million dangerous things and yet…” The ride starts to move, heading toward the rail that will slowly take us to the top. “Oh bloody fuck!” Her head swivels in my direction. “I hate you. You need to know that, and I likely shouldn’t be telling you this, but if I die on this ride, I can’t die without you knowing it. I hate you. You did this to scare me or make me sick or whatever twisted plot you had in your head. It’s why you asked me to come with you all today. You’re trying to sabotage me.”
There are a million things in that speech to focus on, but they get cut off when she repeats herself.
