Chapter 1 #2
“I am welcome to stand in the corner while Beatrice explains the intricacies of trade deals to you,” I said, turning to face him. “I am welcome to be a spectator in our marriage.”
Henrik sighed, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated across the vast space. He walked toward me, gripping the crystal glass. “It was protocol, Natalie. The cameras required a specific optic. You know this. We discussed the seating arrangements of the gala weeks ago.”
“We discussed me standing beside you,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor running through my hands. “We did not discuss you telling me to step back like a disgraced servant.”
“I did not treat you like a servant.” He took a slow drink of his whiskey, his eyes dark and focused, calculating the level of my anger like a threat assessment.
“I was protecting the crown. Parliament is looking for any weakness, any breach in tradition. The economic summit is next week. I cannot afford a scandal right now. The factions are too unstable.”
“A scandal?” I laughed, a short, bitter sound that echoed off the stone walls. “Standing next to your wife is a scandal?”
“You are not royal,” Henrik said, his tone blunt, factual.
It was the truth, but it hit me hard nonetheless, knocking the breath from my lungs.
“Beatrice is a Duchess. The protocol dictates she has a place in the procession. It is tradition, Natalie. Duty. It means nothing. It is a visual requirement for a dying establishment.”
“It means everything,” I whispered, the fight draining out of me, replaced by a hollow, terrifying ache. “She stood with you. She comforted you. I saw you in the study, Henrik. I saw you fall apart, and I saw her put you back together.”
Henrik’s jaw tightened. “You were spying on me?”
“I was looking for my husband,” I countered, refusing to back down. “But I found the Prince holding court with his true partner.”
“Do not speak of things you do not understand,” he commanded, his voice dropping into that low, authoritative register he used to end cabinet meetings.
He closed the distance between us. “She understands the burden. She knows the pressure of these events. I am carrying the weight of this country’s future.
I need someone who understands the terrain. I need counsel, Natalie, not a crisis.”
“And I cannot offer counsel? I cannot share the burden? Am I nothing but a liability to you? An administrative error you have to manage?”
“You prefer the dirt,” he said, gesturing harshly toward the massive windows that looked out over the distant, unseen vineyards. “You prefer your vines and your soil. You hide out there while I build a foundation for us. You isolate yourself in the mud while I secure a legacy.”
“I rebuild the rot your family left behind,” I fired back, anger flaring bright and hot.
“I heal the land. I work until my hands bleed to coax life out of dead soil, replacing the sickness with something that can actually grow. You sit in rooms of glass and stone, surrounded by people who would cut your throat for a title, and you call it building a future. You call it a legacy. It is a graveyard, Henrik, and you are just decorating the tombstones.”
Henrik set his glass down on the vanity with a definitive, aggressive thud.
“Enough. You need to get a grip on this paranoia. Beatrice is an asset. A political necessity. She navigates the channels you refuse to learn and serves in a position you cannot. I will not apologize for managing the realities of my position. I will not apologize for securing our future. I am doing this for us.”
I looked at him. I really looked at him, stripping away the title, the tuxedo, the practiced rhetoric.
I searched the harsh lines of his face, the cold calculation in his eyes, searching for the man I had married.
I saw the prince, the future king, the man who calculated every move on a grand chessboard.
I did not see my husband. I saw a man who outsourced his emotional intimacy to a woman who wanted his crown, while treating his wife as an administrative problem to be solved.
He believed he was protecting me. He believed his ambition was a shield, a grand sacrifice he made on my behalf. He could not see that his ambition was a blade, and he was burying it in my chest every single day.
I slid my right hand down to my left ring finger. I twisted the simple gold band, feeling its familiar weight.
“I am not jealous of Beatrice,” I said quietly, the truth ringing clear and devastating in the silent room. “I am mourning us, Henrik.”
He frowned, a flicker of genuine confusion crossing his stoic features. The politician faltered; the man surfaced for a fraction of a second, lost and unmoored. “What are you talking about?”
“You tell me to step back,” I said, my voice empty. “And I have. I am stepping back.”
I turned and walked toward the adjoining bathroom, my bare feet silent on the floorboards.
“Natalie,” Henrik barked, a command disguised as a plea, the gravel in his voice returning. “Do not walk away from this conversation. We need to finalize the schedule for tomorrow. The ministers require our presence at the charity luncheon. We need to coordinate the optics.”
I ignored him. I walked into the bathroom, the cool marble tiles shocking my feet. I closed the solid oak door behind me. The click of the lock echoed like a gunshot in the grand, empty space of the suite.
I leaned against the solid wood, sliding down until I hit the floor.
I pulled my knees to my chest, burying my face in my arms. The silence pressed in on me, dense and suffocating.
I did not cry. Crying required hope, a belief that tears could wash away the pain and leave something clean and new behind.
I had no hope, and there was no one left to comfort me.
I only felt the cold, hard reality of the stone walls closing in around me, burying me alive in a tomb of my husband’s making.
I sat in the darkness, feeling the phantom weight of the crown Beatrice so desperately wanted, a crown Henrik was slowly, meticulously fitting to her head while I tended the dirt outside.
The fracture in my chest settled, the pieces shifting into a new, permanent alignment.
The love was still there, trapped beneath the rubble, but it was suffocating.
I rested my head against my knees, listening to the muffled sounds of Henrik moving around the bedroom, the clink of glass, the firm tread of his footsteps.
He was pacing. He was calculating the fallout of my reaction, formulating a strategy to manage my withdrawal.
Tomorrow would be a new day.