Chapter 13 – Bellamy
BELLAMY
“When are you going to meet someone and fall in love?”
I choke on my sip of coffee, half of it regurgitating and flying out of my mouth in a spray of mocha, the other half managing down my esophagus on a sputtering cough and wheeze. My father leans back in his chair, completely unfazed by my reaction. Me, not so much.
He pulls a couple of tissues from the box on his tray table and hands them to me before grabbing a few more and mopping up my mess. I wipe the trail of drool and coffee from my chin and around my mouth, forcing myself to get control.
“Is this reaction your way of telling me you already have?”
I laugh, helping him clean everything up and throw out the soiled tissues. “No. It’s not. You’ve just never asked me that question before.”
He shrugs. “A father should know these things about his daughter, and you’re not a little girl anymore.”
Today is a good day. Typically, when I come on Sundays, I only stay about an hour or two, depending on where his mind is.
But today is Thursday, and his nurse called me early this afternoon and asked if I could come see him because he’s, well, lucid.
He’s himself. So I asked Emily and Althea if they wouldn’t mind watching Sabrina and Zayer, and Javier flew me over here.
I sent him back to the palace about an hour ago, telling him I’d take the bus because I had no idea how long I’d be, and he gets Phaedra from her school building since it’s about a quarter mile from the main palace.
I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
“I have no time for love,” I tell him.
He gives me an unimpressed look. “That was always your excuse.”
I don’t tell him it’s because it’s true. That as a teenager, he moved us from one town in France or even Spain or Belgium to the next after only a few weeks or months. Sometimes less. That by the time I entered university, if I wasn’t in class, I was with him, making sure he was okay and safe.
“You should be out enjoying your life,” he continues when I don’t follow that up. I want this conversation to be over. “You spend it all working and tending to me. It’s not healthy. You have to have some happiness.”
“I’m happy,” I reply indignantly.
“You are twenty-one, Amy. Twenty-one-year-olds should be out meeting people. They should be going on dates and spending time with friends.”
It all sounds so easy and fun when he puts it like that.
And maybe part of me longs for it, even.
I’ve never done any of that. I’ve never gone to a bar with friends or picked up a guy for a night of sweaty no-strings sex.
I tried once. Shortly after I put my father here, I was broken.
Sad and so fucking lonely and dejected I could hardly stand to be in my own skin.
So I went alone to a bar and ordered the cheapest rotgut they had.
A man came up to me and we talked. It wasn’t much and he wasn’t all that interesting, if memory serves.
I let him take me into the bathroom and kiss me.
His breath smelled like stale beer and his hands were sloppy and gropey over my dress.
I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t even like I had someone better to imagine.
I’d never had a boyfriend. No first crush or lost love I could pretend I was with.
He pressed me into the stall door and started lifting my dress, and then reality hit.
I’m a virgin.
And this guy wanted a quick, hard fuck in a public bathroom.
I may be physically innocent, but I’ve done enough research into sex to know that a quick, hard fuck is not what a virgin should have.
Still, I was tempted to simply get it over with and be done with my v-card.
I just couldn’t work up the nerve with that guy.
Hell, he didn’t even make me wet. So I left.
That was it.
The culmination of my sexual experience. Which is sad and sucks, but it is what it is. Doesn’t stop me from lusting after my boss like a horny teenager.
“Find love, Amy. One day, promise me you’ll do that. Promise me you’ll love and live and laugh.”
His earnest, almost begging expression knocks me out at the knees. My eyes smart with unshed tears. I clear my throat. “I’m fine, Dad.”
“You are better than fine. You are strong. I know I’m sick and I know you’ve sacrificed everything to care for me. I see it in you constantly, even if I’m not fully aware that I am. A father who loves his daughter as I love you never wants to see her sacrifice everything for him.”
“You’re seeing too much.”
He shakes his head. “The heart is built to love, and the mind is built to hurt. They’re rarely balanced and aren’t always fair. Choose your heart and follow its passion and eventually your mind will have no choice but to follow.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“Ah, no tears, Amy. I love you too. Now go. Go find a life. Go live and love. Please. For me. For you. I’m fine. It’s you who is not, and that needs to change.”
I leave the facility, the air chilled and the evening already getting dark. I should immediately get on the bus. It’s Thursday and I need to get back to the children. To the palace. But I find myself wandering around a bit, my father’s words heavy on my mind. On my heart.
I think about who I am. The things I want. What’s important to me.
What I don’t do is think about what I’ve sacrificed or given up on. That’s useless. It’s toxic. I don’t regret taking care of my father and I never will.
Instead, I focus on potential.
I want to finish university. I want to impact people’s lives somehow.
Maybe work for a charity. Maybe work in a library or go back to teaching, but have it be something other than English.
I don’t know. But as I wander along, I also realize that I love what I’m doing.
As unexpected as it all is, I love being at the palace.
I love being with those kids. I love helping them find happiness and joy again.
And…well…I might also love the king. I mean, not a lot. Just a small bit.
Especially when he sends me a text that reads…
Sebastian: Don’t rush back. Spend as much time as you need. Glad your father is having a good day.
That’s honestly the warmest, kindest thing the man has ever said to me.
Kinda sad, right? And yet I am epically crazy about him.
Since we called our truce last month in the bathroom, things have been good between us.
He’s trying. I mean, he’s still him. Crass and broody and abrasive.
I won’t even lie and say I hate that about him because I don’t.
I like talking back to him. I like our back-and-forth.
I like his impassioned gaze on me, invasive and brutally fucking intoxicating as it is.
There is so much beneath his layers. I’m dying to peel them back one by one and explore each hidden fragment of him.
A thousand-piece puzzle that frustrates you and exhausts you, but at the same time, you can’t quit it, because you know once you put that final piece in place, it’s going to be the most gorgeous thing you’ve ever seen and worth all the blood, sweat, and tears that got you there.
I want to be the one to put his pieces back together. To see what sort of masterpiece he can be.
I know I’m not the only one feeling this either.
He so much as admitted he wants to fuck me.
But it’s more than that. I catch him watching me when he doesn’t think I notice.
He smiles at me, and his eyes…they’re different with me than they used to be.
Some of his ice thawing. When he looks at me, there is fire there instead.
Not the kind that burns, but the kind that draws you in, warms you from the inside out until you’re craving more of its magnificent heat.
Still, I’m no fool. Falling for Sebastian is asking for more loneliness. More heartache. More pain. I’m falling in love with a family that’s not mine. A family that will never be mine.
I try to stop it. I try to rationalize it away. I tell myself I’ve survived worse, I’ll survive him.
For now, I pop into a café and grab myself something to eat. Enjoying the solitude and quiet for once. Until something catches my attention.
I don’t think twice. For the first time in my life, I decide to truly follow my heart. I race across the street. High with a druglike euphoria. Ready to start doing what my father said. Ready to take the first step for myself and start living the life I choose.
An hour later I’m all smiles as I exit the shop.
Giddy and excited with a bubble of energy inside me as I make my way to the bus stop.
I text Emily and Althea, letting them know I’m heading back now.
I hit Send just as an expensive-looking SUV with black-tinted windows pulls up in front of me.
The window slides down, and someone leans over the passenger side, his face coming partially into the light from the streetlamp.
I nearly gasp aloud. “What are you doing here?”
“I was worried,” Sebastian admits, frowns, and clears his throat. “Visiting hours ended at the facility your father is in two hours ago and I hadn’t heard back from you.”
“What do you mean, you hadn’t heard back from me?”
“I texted you asking where you were almost two hours ago, and you never replied.”
I blink at him, a little surprised. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t see it.”
“Are you going to get in?”
I smirk. “I thought I’d take the bus instead. Seems safer.”
He rubs at a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Be that as it may, I’d like you to get in the car now. Please.”
Please? Did he actually use that word with me? What in the absolute fuck?
He glances around, and I realize there are people watching this exchange. They can’t see him, he’s too well hidden, and the windows of the car are nearly black. But if they heard his voice or realized who he was, it wouldn’t be so good for him.
The king hasn’t left his palace in—