Page 90 of Fallen Crown

It’s not me he wants. He wants what he assumes I can provide him. The one thing he wants more than anything, I’m incapable of, and I won’t rake myself over the coals about it again, not even for him.

Even if we could have a baby together, his proposal is so much less than what I’d need to be happy. In an ideal world, if I looked five or ten years down the road, our relationship wouldn’t be shared parental duties and two separate houses. His idea of perfect would never be mine. Complete emotional detachment might look nice from the outside, but it’s a lonely existence, and it’s not a life I want to lead forever, not even after what happened between me and Enzo.

That, in some ways, is the hardest thing to reconcile about his request. I want the relationship and love, and Brice only wants the baby.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Brice

I wake up to Jag standing over me with a coffee in his hand. My mouth is full of cotton balls, and a raging headache pounds my brain. Worst fucking hangover in a long time. Of course, it’s been ages since I drank that much. All the training and hanging out with a teetotaling Tucker made sure I lost my tolerance.

Thinking of Tucker, so often the first person who comes to my mind, causes what I said to come back in a rush of word vomit followed by actual vomit when I dash to the toilet just in time.

“Good night, then?” Jag asks from the other room.

“Quite possibly the worst night of my life,” I mutter into the toilet bowl. What the fuck was I thinking asking her to have my babies? Should have known better than to get that drunk around her. Surprised I didn’t fall to my knees and beg her to never leave me. Likely would have been a better outcome than suggesting she bear my children after she just got a tattoo marking her miscarriage. I’m a colossal fucking idiot.

When my legs seem like they’ll hold me, I get up and stare at myself in the mirror. I’m clad only in boxers, and there are dark rings under my eyes. Even drunk me didn’t sleep well. My subconscious must have realized how badly I fucked up. Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

Sober me would have never done what drunk me did last night. While this isn’t the first time I’ve stared into a mirror and had that same thought, I’ve never regretted anything as much as blurting out my insensitive request to Maren last night.

I’m not even sure what my drunken self was hoping to accomplish. Her response was never going to be an enthusiastic “yes” under the circumstances. Not sure I expected quite that firm of a dismissal, though. Given how close we’ve gotten, having her suggest I find, quite literally, anyone else for the job seemed a tad extreme.

As I brush my teeth, I try to come up with ways to fix things between us once I’m back in Bellerive. There’s not much I can do for the next five or six days while I’m in Denmark for their climate change summit.

After I’m done in the bathroom, I sit on the edge of the bed, and I scroll through my phone.

Jesus. I’m a stalker. I must have sent Tucker a hundred messages last night of varying degrees of cringe. Some of my jokes are funny, but the majority of them are decidedly not. All of them sit unread. At least she hasn’t turned on her phone yet.

There really needs to be some sort of breathalyzer for operating a phone when you’re drunk and upset. Perhaps that’ll be my next venture. Figuring out a way to save myself from myself.

“Have you ever wished you could suck words back into your mouth or somehow rewind time?” I ask Jag as I keep scrolling through the obscene number of messages I sent Tucker.

“What’d you say to Maren?” he asks.

“Nothing.” There’s no way I’m speaking those things out loud to anyone. They’ll bury me with them. I check my outgoing calls.

Or perhaps they won’t be buried with me. Other than speed-dialing Tucker obsessively, I also drunk dialed Brent, Nick, and Posey. I close my eyes when I catch sight of the last number. Rory. I drunk dialed Rory.

Alex is going to fucking kill me.

Why do I always need witnesses to my idiocy?

“You all right, Your Highness? You’ve gone pale.”

“Next time I pick up a bottle of tequila to drink, can you just, like, tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Your Highness, tequila is no longer your friend,’ and I’ll know. I’ll know exactly what you’re talking about.”

“If you and tequila are in a fight,” Jag says, “I can’t even imagine what happened last night.”

“We’re not just in a fight. We may very well be mortal enemies.” Of all the stupid things I’ve done in my life, last night takes the top spot. “When do we need to leave?”

“Thirty minutes.” Jag consults his watch.

I’m throwing on clothes and trying to block out the pounding in my head. In my bag, I find a package of aspirin, and I throw them into my mouth before taking long gulps from my water bottle.

“I have to go talk to her,” I say more to myself than Jag.

“I’ll load the vehicle.”