22. “White Horse” - Taylor Swift #2
I sense rather than see her bristle at this implication. “You make it sound like I can’t think for myself.”
“I only meant that Henry is good at this. He has years of experience toying with women.”
“Most of those women are only looking for a fling. Hardly anyone would actually want to be married to a prince.”
I shake my head. “Regardless, Henry isn’t capable of being in a normal relationship.”
“He’s never tried.”
“He would destroy you, Bea.”
“I’m stronger than you think! You still look at me like I’m a little girl who can’t take care of myself. It hurts that you think I’m so weak I could be broken by the only guy I’ve ever loved. Why can’t you trust that I know what I’m doing? Why are you so convinced he’ll break my heart?”
“Because he broke mine!”
The room grows thick with silence as we stare at each other. Bea’s mismatched eyes widen slightly, and the blue one turns the color of the sea during a storm.
Slapping her would have led to less shock than this admission.
“Are you satisfied?” I ask. “I fell for it, every bloody bit of his beautiful charade. I love him. Like head-over-heels, sell-my-soul kind of love. And it’s slowly sucking the life from me.
” I grasp the handle of my luggage and yank it off the bed.
“I can’t hate him, no matter how hard I try. I have to get out of here.”
A knock at the door prevents Bea from answering. I step through the sitting room to open it to find Maisie on the other side, backup brain in hand.
“Good morning,” she says, scooting into the room. “Glad to see you feeling better today.”
Better might be a stretch, but I don’t correct her.
She doesn’t leave me time anyway. “I know it’s a bit early for our morning meeting, but I just got the news, and I knew you’d want to hear right away.
” She takes a dramatic pause. “Your petition for increased security at the ports has just passed through Parliament. It must have been marked high importance, or else there’s no way they could have rushed it through so quickly. It turns out—”
I don’t listen to the rest of her thoughts on the matter, because the significance of this is staggering.
I was expecting another year or two of working on this petition before making any headway on it.
There’s no doubt in my mind that my sudden rise in status is responsible for the priority of the request.
Maisie’s play-by-play of the Parliament session comes to a halt when Bea steps out of the bedroom to join us. “I’m so sorry,” my assistant says. “I didn’t know you had company. We can have our meeting as soon as you’re done.” The door closes behind her before I have time to say anything else.
“I’m actually leaving,” Bea says. “I just came to ask if you’ve seen Dad’s watch. I couldn’t find it in any of my boxes after the move, and Mum hasn’t seen it either.”
“Yeah, I think I know where it is.”
The ornate wooden box in my sitting room contains mementos of our father that I haven’t had a chance to go through yet.
Sure enough, the heavy wristwatch is among them.
I hand it to her, but my eyes stay on the picture of Dad at eighteen with his squad.
In it, he’s in danger of exploding with pride.
Pride at serving Wesbourne, no matter the cost to himself.
What would he think of me now, on the verge of deserting my country, fleeing just because my heart had been broken?
After his death, I used to comfort myself with the thought that our loved ones can see what we’re doing from heaven, and I’d think about him watching over my shoulder, murmuring words of encouragement when I took a difficult test at school or bit my tongue to keep from saying something nasty.
Now the thought fills me with shame.
I let the lid of the box drop, shutting away the image of his pride. I look up to find Bea still in the room, looking at me like she knows me from somewhere but can’t remember my name. I can’t handle her censure, so I move toward a cord on the floor and start winding it up.
“What are you doing?” she says.
“Currently, I’m packing my charger. A fugitive still needs her phone.”
She walks over and places both hands on my shoulders. The genetic gods probably snicker to themselves every time my younger sister dwarfs my five-foot-five frame. I’m not short, but Bea is willowy and graceful. And right now, she’s determined. “You can’t leave.”
“You can’t stop me.” It comes out much weaker than I intend.
“You’re the one who taught me to get back up when someone knocks you down.” I know she’s thinking of Stacey Evans in primary school. “Are you seriously going to quit that easily?”
“This isn’t a mean-girl fight, Bea.”
“I don’t care what it is. No man has the ability to destroy you. You’re about to become queen of the nation, for god’s sake.”
I’ve never seen her so dead set on anything. In fifth grade, she won a ticket to see Selena Gomez in concert for getting the highest score on a math test, then proceeded to give it to her classmate who’d thrown a nasty fit because she came in second.
No man has the ability to destroy you. “I think this one might.”
She shakes her head, and her hair flows over her shoulders like a golden cape. “I won’t allow it. You’ve always protected me. Now it’s my turn to do the same for you.”
A lump the size of Spain slips from my stomach and takes up residence in my throat. Little sisters aren’t supposed to be the ones doing the protecting. “I don’t know how to get through this. It hurts too bad.”
“I know.” She pulls me against her chest, and the scent of jasmine floats around me. “I’m here for you, I promise. Whatever you need. You’ll come out stronger on the other side.”
A sliver of suspicion threads through me. “You’re not just saying that to get Henry for yourself, are you?”
“Why would I want anything to do with a guy who can break my sister’s heart and then flee the country? You were right. He doesn’t deserve either one of us.”
I stay. And it’s bloody awful.
Over the next few weeks, the gossip rags are full of Henry’s exploits.
They feature articles with his picture front and center, always with a woman draped over him, always smiling in that way that suggests their plans for the evening are far from over.
The only thing that changes is the locale: he’s in Austria, Greece, France, Portugal, Belgium, even the United States—thank god I didn’t go—with a supermodel, actress, or celebrity in hand.
Playboy Henry is living large, and I’m a fucking idiot.
I pore over each article, desperate for news of him and dying to see who he rejected me for.
It’s a futile mission, but I have to know.
That’s the thing about addiction—it never makes any sense, but reason is the furthest thing from your mind.
In the same morbid way traffic slows to a crawl around an accident as people rubberneck, I’m drawn to this.
I analyze each woman’s hair, body, fashion choices, lip shape, eye color, makeup, and curves.
I question everything about them, then scrutinize myself.
It never helps. Seeing Henry’s face grinning at another woman makes me want to hurl. Their long nails and tanned skin touching him breaks my heart all over again, splitting the fissure even wider, if that’s even possible.
Why did I ever think for one second it would be different with me?
I warned Bea against the danger but didn’t see it coming myself.
If I could, I’d take it all back. I’d return to the day we sat in that room with the prime minister and he told us about the decision we needed to make.
This time, I’d tell Parliament I would have to be dead before I’d even consider marrying Henry.
But I didn’t agree to marry Henry because I was in love with him. I did it for Wesbourne, and—loathe as I am to admit it—I’d do it again to save her. Some things are just bigger than us, bigger than our problems, our love lives. Some things require sacrifice.
Loving him will always be my biggest mistake.
I want to tear his incredibly handsome head right off his shoulders, to scratch him until he bleeds, to hurt him as badly as he’s hurt me.
But at the same time I also desperately want to give him a chance to explain himself.
Maybe the pictures are photoshopped. Maybe I misunderstood him that night. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I’m delusional and refusing to see reason. An addict.
I miss him the way you miss your heart when it’s no longer in your body.
And that’s the most dangerous thing of all.