Chapter 9
Nine
CAMILLO
“Oh fuck. Fuck yeah. Camillo. Yeah, fuck me in half! Please, baby. Wreck me. Make me forget my name.”
It wasn’t that Roget was bad in bed, because he wasn’t. He was the person who taught me how to orgasm after my accident. I was a slightly gangly, slightly swollen, barely legal teenager when I set eyes on him for the first time.
He’d been this tall, imposing figure with two bulky leg braces, forearm crutches, and a cerebral palsy speech impediment, which most able-bodied people found off-putting. He was incredibly good-looking, with hair that had that naturally windswept look and not a single pimple on his face back then, even though he was only two months older than me.
He’d swaggered up to my chair, plopped his ass down on my lap, and kissed me at a party after a basketball game.
I didn’t see him again for years. At least, not long enough to speak to him. But after the incident—the one I refused to talk about. The one that threatened to define me and any relationship I could have after my accident—he was there. I’d been out for drinks with Erik, and Roget appeared like some kind of avenging sex angel.
He took one look at me, leaned in, and said, “You need a good orgasm.”
I would have been terrified if it wasn’t for the fact that he was both disabled and casually fucking half the basketball team. I wasn’t sure about my body. There had been a man who had gotten me to trust him. Who had convinced me to open up before systematically destroying my faith in humanity.
But Roget offered me the chance no one else had: the ability to reclaim something that asshole had no right to take from me. I was terrified at first, but Roget was patient, kind, and needy—just the way I’d always wanted a partner.
It had been a goddamned religious experience, and I understood for the first time what it meant to see God.
For a little while, I thought I was in love with him until I realized he would be the world’s shittiest boyfriend. But he genuinely loved his friends, and he was very charming and amazing in bed. My crush faded, but he was a great booty call whenever I was worked up.
He always knew how to take the edge off, even if his performance in the sack could get a little…over-the-top.
Normally, the dirty talk worked for me. I needed more than physical touch, and he was good at understanding that. But it all felt like a damn clown show now that I’d touched Aleric. Now that I’d tasted him. Now that his hands had rubbed against my most sensitive erogenous zone and almost had me coming right there on his sofa.
The moment had been shattered, almost like the hand of God coming down to metaphorically spank my ass for shitting where I ate. I took it as a sign, and I told myself to be grateful that Aleric was going to pretend like it never happened.
That’s what I needed.
What I wanted.
Wasn’t it?
Never mind that his words felt like an ice pick straight into my heart. I called Roget to come take the edge off, but right now, it just felt like he was wriggling all over my body. It wasn’t sexy. It was annoying.
“Cheri, what’s the matter?” He turned on his side and started to stroke my ribs, but I didn’t want his hands where Aleric’s had been.
Fuck, what was wrong with me?
“I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re worked up. An orgasm always calms you down.”
I shoved him off my lap and used my hands to pull my ass toward the headboard so I could rest my back against it. “Not tonight, apparently.”
Roget rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin up on his fists. “Talk to me.”
“No. That’s not a thing we do.”
He looked hurt. “I thought we were friends.”
“Friends do more than give each other orgasms, Roget.”
He snorted. “Special friends, then. But I can be the different sort if you need me to be.” His legs went through a series of spasms, which he promptly ignored, and normally, I did too.
Only now, they triggered the memory of my own spasms and the way Aleric had dropped to his knees before even realizing what was happening. The way he’d reached for me like…like he wanted to touch me? To soothe me?
I’d reacted poorly, and then I’d reacted entirely out of character by kissing him, even though I couldn’t stand him.
At least, that’s what I needed to keep telling myself because the truth was, I wanted to see him again. Badly. I missed him. I sat in the car, hating myself for leaving and hoping he’d pull out one of his classic asshole moves to make it easier to walk away.
Instead, he’d reacted with hurt. As he should have.
Why did I have to be such a dickhead?
“Putain, something’s actually wrong, isn’t it?” He carefully crawled onto all fours, then swung his legs off the bed. His feet hit the floor with a dull thud, and he adjusted them before turning to face me. He reached out a hand, then pulled back when I flinched. “Someone hurt you?”
Technically, yes, because I counted as someone, and I was the goddamned master of hurting my own feelings. “Bad day on set.”
“That little twat who’s dressing up in disability costume?”
I winced. It felt wrong to say that about Aleric now. The more I spoke to him, the more I understood why he’d auditioned for the role. He couldn’t fool me. I knew the wheelchair bit was part of it. I’d seen the way people responded to disabled characters. I’d seen all the movies that won major awards for them.
But he wanted more than just an Oscar moment, and it was wild that he was using my life as an escape from his own. Like my life was somehow so much bigger and better. God, what would he think if he knew the truth? If he knew how sorry and small I was compared to everyone else in my family.
“Camillo—”
“I think I need to be alone,” I snapped.
He looked hurt, but I struggled to give a shit, which I knew made me even more of a monster. It took more effort than I wanted to exude to roll onto my side, but I managed it just as I heard him slip off the bed.
After that was a slow symphony of his orthotics, his clothes, his crutches, and a quiet sigh when he was done. “I’ll see you later?”
“Mm.” I couldn’t say yes. The truth was, I wasn’t sure I could metaphorically get it up for him again. But I didn’t want to say no. If everything crashed and burned, I’d end up my same old needy self, and he’d be my first call.
“Take care, Your Highness.”
I cringed at the sound of my title on his lips. The only person who had ever made it feel like a gift was the person I had been the most unkind to for no reason at all.
I was halfway to the main kitchens where they kept the good sweets when I heard the sound of feet behind me. I didn’t bother pretending like I wasn’t being followed, and I was entirely unsurprised to see Cillian in his sweats, which were so long they almost covered his feet, and no shirt showing off the abs of a man his age had no right to possess.
He’d been one of my guards for a long, long time. He’d started when I was twelve—fresh-faced, right out of the military and a long tour, which had hardened both his gaze and his heart. But he was fierce, loyal, and protective.
And he still blamed himself for not being in the car with me the afternoon of the accident, as if somehow he could have shielded me with his body. It was something we’d gone round and round about until I gave up trying to convince him otherwise.
He was a friend to me in ways no one else had ever been and a father to me in ways neither of us acknowledged because it meant admitting my own father was absentee. Most kings were, of course. They were parents to an entire nation, so what was I? One small soul who would never represent crown or country?
But that was a big, fat, bitter pill to swallow some nights when I was in pain and lonely and needed comfort. Cillian had never been too proud or too full of himself to sit beside me and hold my hand while I cried.
And he never made me feel weak for it.
He had, however, made me feel a bit of an ass tonight—which I deserved after the way I’d left Aleric, then demanded that he keep it a secret.
“Conscience eating at you?” he asked as I started toward the kitchens again. He knew my guilty habits a little too well.
I ignored him until we were past the swinging doors. Luckily, no one was around, and luckily, there was a banquet coming up in the early afternoon, so the table was full of pastries. I grabbed a pain au chocolat and leaned back in my chair as I took a massive bite.
“You can’t stuff your face all night, Cam.”
I hated that I let him get away with shortening my name. “Watch me.” I chewed loudly, and he snorted.
“I’m not your nanny. Masticated food doesn’t offend me. You forget where I grew up.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, I stared at one of the kettles on the counter and debated about a cup of tea, but I was too lazy, and I wasn’t about to ask Cillian to make me one. “Trust me, I don’t forget anything about you.”
He smiled and walked over, flipping the kettle’s switch on like he’d read my mind. It glowed with the blue LED light at the bottom. “I know. Except when you forget I’m standing just outside an actor’s trailer, and even with my shit hearing”—he tapped his hearing aids, which became necessary after combat—“I can still hear noises like those.”
I flushed down past where I could feel it, and my cheeks began to tingle. “How many people know?”
“Two, and I’m sure that pretty little PA isn’t going to say a word if he wants to keep his job.”
Pretty little PA? I was filing that away for later. I rolled to the table and grabbed another pastry. I didn’t even look. I just shoveled it in my mouth and started chewing. It wasn’t helping the way it normally did.
This was becoming a goddamn problem.
Thinking about Aleric was becoming a goddamn problem.
“We can talk, you know.” He pulled out one of the chef’s stools and sat, kicking his feet along the sides. “I’m not going to judge you. He’s good-looking.”
“Yes.” That wasn’t up for debate. He’d been a tween dream and a teenage heartthrob, and he was going to become everyone’s favorite love interest once people realized that he wasn’t some has-been. He was raw, but he was talented. Watching him all day had killed me because it was like watching someone be better at my own life than I was.
It had taken hours for me to find one thing to pick at, and I’d only done that to get on his nerves because, goddamn it, I needed him to be worse at living than I was.
“What’s that face?”
Before I could answer, the kettle clicked off, and Cillian hopped up, rummaging around until he found the clay jar full of rooibos tea that the staff kept on hand, which was all I could drink. I indulged in caffeine during the day, but any more than that, and my heart went off the rails.
“Milk and sugar?”
“See if there’s any of that white chocolate creamer in the fridge. And don’t give me that bitch face. Save your Irish tea sensibilities for someone who isn’t trying to soothe their frayed nerves with sugar.”
“We listen and we don’t judge,” he recited.
“And stop letting your nieces ruin you with social media,” I snapped.
He burst into laughter as he fixed my cup. “So…we’re not going to mention how you know the trend?” Walking over, he gestured me closer to the table and set the mug on the edge where I could reach it and more pastries. I didn’t bother though. I wasn’t hungry, and it wasn’t helping. “Seriously, Cam. Are you angry at me for interrupting you and him?”
“I’m angry at myself for letting it get that far.” And I was angry at him—at Aleric—for being everything I’d ever wanted in a man because he was the one person I couldn’t have.
“He wasn’t…unkind, was he?” Cillian’s voice was low and full of warning. He’d been around for him—the man who had nearly destroyed me—but he hadn’t seen what happened, and I still refused to talk about it.
I knew it was one of his big regrets.
“No. He was the furthest thing from unkind.”
“Has he texted?”
I covered my eyes with one hand and sipped my tea with the other. It was too hot and not strong enough, but what the fuck did I really care this late in the night.
“Ah. So you were the asshole.”
I set the mug down so hard it sloshed over the rim and burnt my hand. Pain where I could feel it tended to be worse than it was before the accident. And after kissing Aleric, all my nerves felt like they’d been flayed alive.
“I think I hate myself. I swear I’m going to spend every moment until I die sabotaging my chances at being happy.”
“You could always say sorry. I’ve found that works pretty well when you fuck up.”
I gave him a flat look. “This isn’t about me being sorry. This is about me wanting to fuck a man I have no business fucking.”
“Because?”
“He’s an actor? He’s literally in the media all the time? He’s a?—”
“Commoner?”
I scoffed. “You know I don’t care about that. And my parents would throw a damn ball if they found out I was actually interested in someone who wanted me back. They wouldn’t give a shit who he was or where he came from.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Closing my eyes, I took a long breath. “He’s a good person. And we both know I’m not. I wouldn’t know how to be a good partner if my life depended on it.”
“That’s not true. You just don’t want to believe in yourself because it’s easier than letting yourself down when you screw up.” He stared at me over the rim of his own mug, his eyes narrow and challenging.
“When did you get that therapist degree again?”
“It’s honorary from solving all your royal problems for the last two decades.”
I couldn’t help a small laugh. “Fuck off.”
“No.” He grinned back.
Silence settled around us, and I finished half the tea before it became too tepid for me to enjoy. Clicking my nails on the mug, I listened to the sound echo off the walls, and it was easy to become aware of the profound silence in the palace.
The upgrades were modern, but the stone was ancient. Half the history had never been written down in books—just told as rumors and myths from parents to children, over and over until they were distorted and fantastical and…wrong.
It never did feel like home, and I knew it never would.
I was not built for this life, but I had no idea what kind of life I could hope to have outside of it.
“My parents would love him for all the wrong reasons.” The words I used to break the silence were ones I had been hoarding in my chest, afraid to say them aloud.
Cillian tilted his head to the side. “Because he’s famous.”
“And he’s so good-looking.” I smiled, though it hurt a little. “And because he wants me. They’ve always stood by me and told me to be myself—that the right person would come along. But when they think I can’t hear them, they talk about arranging a marriage for me because they don’t actually think anyone wants a disabled husband.”
Cillian’s face fell, but I could see it in his expression. He’d heard the same talk over the years. “What they want for you shouldn’t matter. And you shouldn’t reject someone you like to spite them.”
“But spite feels so good.”
He rolled his eyes with his laugh. “Oh, believe me, I know. But it’s also lonely, and you deserve better than to be lonely.” He tipped his mug all the way back, slurping it down before setting it on the table beside mine. “What can it hurt to try?”
Everything. I could let myself be truly vulnerable for the first time in years, and it would ruin me. I was strong, but I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to put together my own shattered pieces for a second time.
“I should apologize,” I eventually said.
“You should. He looked like you’d ripped his heart out and shown it to him.”
Normally I would have liked that power over a man who wanted me, but somehow, it felt dangerous in my hands. How could I trust myself with something so delicate? “Do you think he’ll forgive me?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But what do you lose if he doesn’t?”
He was right, I supposed. I’d already done my best to ruin everything. I’d settled on that moment between us being a onetime thing. Never again. So what did I have to lose other than a bit more of my pride?
“I think I can try to sleep now.”
“Want me to push you back?”
Some nights, I did say yes, when the day had been long, and my arms were exhausted. And that was today, but in this moment, I didn’t want to be a pampered prince. I wanted some penance. “I’ll be alright.”
He smiled and stood up, leaning over to kiss me on the forehead. “A simple I’m sorry really does work wonders, Cam. Sweet dreams.”
I sat there until I couldn’t hear his feet on the tiles anymore. And it was only when I was a hundred percent certain I was alone that I turned on my wheels and headed back to my room to contemplate how much strength I actually had in me to right my wrongs.