19. Alejandro #2
That was the problem with Gabriel: he made so much noise that it was easy to miss the small things he did. I couldn’t decide if I was simply impressed, or irritated that I was impressed.
As we all took our places, my father at one end of the table and Nicholas at the other, I thought about how strange it was for the six of us to be together like this.
The scene was breathtaking, but it was an illusion that masked all the ugliness that had happened.
Between us. Between our kingdoms. Nicholas had brought Noah with him, and no matter how much I could begrudgingly understand why he would choose love over an alliance, I could still feel the old wound when I looked at them.
It wasn’t sharp and bleeding anymore, just a scar that remained.
I lifted my wine to my lips as Noah leaned in to say something private to his husband, and whatever it was had the tight line of his mouth relaxing. It was easy to see the connection between them, even as Noah sat to the right of Nicholas like I’d once been expected to.
There wouldn’t have been the warmth and affection that obviously connected them, but it would’ve been a strong match, an alliance of power. I would’ve played my role, and then when it was time to take my father’s place, we would’ve been two kings of two powerful countries.
Gabriel’s soft laugh at something my mother said had my attention moving to him before I could stop it. His eyes met mine across the table, and I felt it. Heat. Desire. Want.
It was incredibly inconvenient.
Because I was supposed to be focused on the situation at hand, on Nicholas and Noah and my parents, and the fragile line that had existed between our kingdoms for months. All the oh-so-carefully worded statements and polite smiles while everyone pretended I hadn’t been made into a punch line.
Instead, Gabriel’s laugh pierced my thoughts and had my body reacting, and I didn’t know what to do with that here.
He held my gaze as under the table his foot moved against mine.
For a man usually full of mischief, his touch wasn’t trying to provoke something more scandalous that I would’ve been tempted to kick away.
Instead, it felt grounding, like he was letting me know he was there, that we were in this together somehow.
It felt both comforting and entirely too dangerous.
Still, I didn’t move away.
“So,” my father said as the staff came around to fill everyone’s wine glasses, “we should discuss why we’re all sitting here.”
Nicholas straightened slightly, and Noah’s hand moved beneath the table. I didn’t see where it landed, but I saw the effect it had on Nicholas, like it was a reminder he wasn’t alone.
The same way Gabriel had just silently reached out to me.
“The official answer,” Nicholas said, “is that we’re here to reaffirm the special relationship between Valoria and Solterra.”
My father nodded. “And the unofficial one?”
“It’s the same one I told Alejandro earlier today. That I should’ve come to make my apologies sooner.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Nicholas, to his credit, didn’t look away from my father’s intense stare.
“Because I was ashamed. I told myself I was giving everyone space, that anything I said publicly would draw more attention to what happened, and anything I said privately might feel too late to matter. But the truth is, I didn’t know how to face the harm of what I did without sounding like I regretted the love that caused it. ”
He looked at Noah, who nodded at him to keep going.
“I don’t regret Noah,” Nicholas continued. “I never could. But I regret that my happiness became publicly damaging to you, Alejandro. I regret that Valoria took advantage of Solterra’s grace and silent acceptance when you had every reason to be upset.”
I wanted to hate the apology, the same way I had in the sunroom earlier, and it would’ve been easier to do if it sounded forced or rehearsed. In truth, Nicholas was owning up to being wrong, and showing up here to put himself in the line of fire when he didn’t have to was anything but performative.
My mother looked at me, and she didn’t have to say anything for me to know what her eyes were asking. What do you want from this, Alejandro?
For months, I’d known the answer to that. I wanted the world to stop pitying me, for the headlines to fade, and for everyone to remember I didn’t need a king when I myself would take the crown one day.
Then Gabriel had arrived. Gabriel, who’d been sent to mend fences, who never once pitied me even when he saw the wound his brother’s actions had caused.
“What I objected to,” I said slowly, aware of every eye on me, “was never that you chose him.” I looked at the him in question, and Noah’s face was nothing but open and sincere. “It would be very easy to resent you,” I told him.
He nodded. “I know.”
“But I don’t.” The words surprised the hell out of me even as I said them, especially because I found they were true. “No one who has seen the two of you together could think Nicholas made the wrong choice, and that was part of the problem.”
Nicholas’s brow furrowed.
“I thought you were foolish, reckless, maybe infatuated and selfish, but when I saw you, you looked…free.” I swallowed and had to force myself to keep going. “And I looked like the thing you had escaped.”
I heard the way my mother’s breath caught, could feel the weight of Gabriel’s foot against mine, and when I looked up, I saw Nicholas’s stricken face.
“Alejandro—” he started, but I waved him off.
“I know that wasn’t your intention,” I said. “I know that now. But intention doesn’t matter much once people begin telling the story for you.”
Gabriel’s fingers curled around the stem of his glass.
He knew exactly what I meant, perhaps better than anyone else here except me.
He was the spare prince, the charming one.
The one who got a little too mouthy, caused a little too much trouble, but kept things entertaining for all.
At least, that was the role he’d been assigned, the label he wore and lived up to.
My father looked between Nicholas and me. “Then the question is not whether we can pretend the story was never told, but whether we allow others to keep telling it for us.”
“Exactly,” Noah said. “Because if the press frames this as Valoria asking for forgiveness and Solterra graciously accepting it, it still leaves Alejandro in the same position.”
Huh. Noah Bennett, former footman and now royal consort, sitting at my family’s table with an insightful take like he’d been part of these circles his whole life.