Fuck.
How much her eyes shine when she gives a genuine smile.
“Thank you, Nicolas of Harlington. You’ve saved my ass more than once today. Maybe it won’t be so bad with you after all.” She looks at me, still smiling, and I swear the world could end right now and I’d be a happy man. All because of that smile.
Fuck.
I clearly have a problem.
Amelia is still asleepwhen I leave the castle the next morning and take a detour through the cemetery. And that’s probably for the best, because I don’t know how to deal with the latest development between us.
I wanted to pounce on her and devour her completely, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be too thrilled about that. So I had to get out. Also, I have a few things to take care of.
I stop in front of our crypt and stare silently ahead for a long time. My heart still refuses to accept that he will never laugh again. Never ride a motorcycle again, never be angry at me again. The tightness in my chest grows heavier and it hurts. It aches endlessly.
“I miss you, big brother. I could really use you right now, because I keep messing up one thing after another. Especially with Amelia,” I say into the void, and I know it sounds ridiculous, but it feels like he’s still here. But he isn’t. He never will be. And that realization always makes the grief and despair about how unfair everything is flood back again.
“You know, an instruction manual for her really wouldn’t have been bad. Although I have to admit that I was wrong about her. In many ways. But what am I supposed to do now? You took so many secrets with you. So many that I don’t know how to unravel everything. They’re crashing around my head so hard right now that I don’t know which way is up.” I take a deep breath in and out, briefly run my hand over my face.
“I’m the worst possible successor you could have had, and I have no idea how to do this without you.”
“By simply doing it. Phil didn’t do it any differently either. He didn’t have a guide on how to do it right,” Damien’s rough voice sounds behind me, and I slowly turn to him.
“You look like shit,” I let him know as I glance over him briefly. His face is completely bruised, one eye swollen shut, butthe cut is cleanly bandaged. He stands next to me, moving quite stiffly. I can see he’s in pain.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Actually, I’m surprised to see him here at all—he’s avoided me for weeks.
Damien looks at me sideways, and his gaze is so torn and full of pain that I automatically clench my fist to keep my own grief and anger in check.
“Phil wasn’t just my friend, Nic. Your brother was the love of my life. And I betrayed him.”
I stand there hearing his words, taking in exactly what Damien is saying, but my mind needs a moment longer to process. Then it hits me like a cold wave, and in an instant, I am swept away by the force of a tsunami. I was completely unprepared for it.
“What? What are you saying?” My voice sounds strangely hollow, and Damien grimaces painfully as my steely gaze lands on him.
“Your brother was gay, Nic. Just like me. We had been a couple for over a year. Only Amelia knew, no one else.”
The blood in my veins starts to boil, the bitter taste of betrayal and disappointment spreading through my body. Not because my brother and he were a couple, no. Because they didn’t trust me with it. Because they kept it from me, and because Amelia has been keeping it from me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Now I definitely sound cold, and I know I’m hurting my best friend with that, but dammit, it hurts. That I obviously wasn’t worthy to share that happiness with them hurts so damn much, and I can no longer think rationally or logically. It hits me hard, and my shields go up, even if it’s unfair to Damien.
“We wanted to. Believe me. It almost killed your brother not to tell you. But the situation for people like us kept getting worse.Your father… the political climate, you… I’m sorry,” he answers weakly, looking at me pleadingly.
I want to tell him it would have been completely fine with me, that I would have even been really happy for them. But I can’t. The feeling of being betrayed has already spread like poison in my veins.
“Amelia wanted…”
Yes, Amelia.
That she kept it from me, let me believe my brother was the love of her life, feels disgustingly bitter and almost even worse.
“Keep her the hell out of this. I’ll deal with her later. You’re my best friend, Damien. You know everything, really everything about me. Fuck. This is really hard. I… sorry, but I need to digest this first,” I cut him off sharply, no longer willing to listen. The reasons are flimsy, and I don’t want to hear them.
Not now.
And as for my fiancée: Well, Goldilocks, we definitely need to have another serious talk.
When I wake up, Nicolas is already gone.
