Chapter Thirteen
It all happened quickly, so quickly that Livia barely had time to process it.
She had woken up sated, her body pressed against a man she was contemplating a life with, a man who was beautiful and flawed.
A man she could love. Now the yacht’s tender was carrying her to shore, where a car would drive her to a remote airfield.
Gustav’s private jet was waiting for her.
As the plane took off over the Baltic Sea, the lush green patchwork of farms and forestland of Isrikesland behind them, all she could think about was the accusation that Gustav had left her with.
I am the Bastard Spare. Weren’t you the one who decided I couldn’t escape who I am?
She had been seventeen when she had thrown his title—his existence—in his face, even if she would never even contemplate using the term Bastard Spare.
But had she left him because of who he was?
Maybe it had been true eight years ago, but this time it was his actions.
She had left because of who he decided to be.
Someday the vengeance would consume him, maybe so gradually that she would not see it until it was too late.
And yet she was falling in love with this man.
It was only after she had left him that she could fully let the weight of this revelation sink in.
Vengeance and love. These two irreconcilable truths settled inside her, heavy and immovable.
The flat shoreline of Europe turned to rolling hills and forested valleys, and then she caught a glimpse of the familiar peaks of the Alps jutting toward the sky.
The jet landed at an airfield not far from the Institut Monte Vue’s grounds, the school Adele now attended, where another car waited.
She gave the driver instructions to enter the back way, through the groundskeeper’s entrance, with a code that Adele managed to figure out.
The one-lane road wound through the mountain, lined on both sides with trees, their long branches hanging over them.
“You can drop me off here,” she said to the driver as the road curved around a boulder so much like the one she remembered from illicit visits to another forest, and he brought the car to a stop. “I’ll be back with my sister in an hour or so.”
He gave her a dubious glance, then nodded.
Livia climbed out of the car, and the musty scent of damp earth and sweet, rotting leaves surrounded her.
And suddenly memories of Gustav surrounded her, too.
This was why she had avoided the forest after he disappeared.
Her body was heavy with the weight of the way he had coldly shut her out this morning, piled on top of the burden of the long-ago loss she somehow still shouldered.
But she wasn’t here to mourn Gustav. She was here for her sister.
Livia quickened her pace along the soft dirt path over roots and over a spread of flat rock.
When she reached the forest edge, she paused, taking in Adele’s school.
Ivy climbed the side of the stately brick building that rose up from the neatly cut grass, and in the center of it was an arched walkway to the quad at the center of campus.
Livia ignored the strange sense of nostalgia for another school at another time and focused on the clusters of girls walking through the walkway.
It was later in the day, which meant there was a good chance Adele was in her room, reading.
If she could slip into the dormitory hall without attracting attention, she could go up to Adele’s room, help her sister throw a few belongings into a bag and sneak her out.
Then, when they finally got to Greece…well, Livia wasn’t sure what would happen next.
Maybe they could talk some sense into their parents.
The plan had always been to go Greece after Adele turned eighteen, after she graduated.
Leaving now meant neither of those things would be the case.
Livia pushed these uncertain thoughts out of her mind and focused on what she needed to do for her sister’s sake.
Livia kept her head down and her sunglasses on, hoping no one would look too closely at the fact she was not wearing a school uniform.
A few of the girls at the doorway stared at her, but they said nothing.
She climbed the stairs, running her hand over the old wooden banister, to the second floor, then hurried down the hall. She knocked on her sister’s door.
No answer.
She knocked again. Nothing. Livia slumped against the wall. She hung her head and tried to think, but the only thing that came to mind was the refrain You’re making a big mistake.
“Livia?”
Livia startled back to the present. She turned, and Adele was there. Her sister was walking toward her. Her hair was much shorter than the last time Livia had seen her. Messier. But she looked good. And also worried. Livia ran to hug her sister.
“What are you doing here?” Adele asked. “Are you okay?”
“I have a way out,” she whispered. “We can go to Greece now.”
Her sister pulled back a little. Adele looked more confused than excited. “I can’t leave. What about my passport? I’m a minor.”
Livia shook her head. “Gustav’s royal jet doesn’t go through regular customs. We can just go.”
“Why do we need to go? Did something happen?”
“You called me,” said Livia. “I thought…”
She had thought it meant Adele needed rescuing, but the way her sister was looking at her suggested otherwise.
“I called to warn you, not for you to save me,” said Adele slowly. “I was worried about you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You.” Her sister frowned. “You were ready to marry someone you barely knew, then I find out through the tabloids that you’re instead now married to the guy you dumped back in high school. And I couldn’t reach you.”
Okay, maybe Adele had a point.
“You didn’t even tell me,” her sister continued. She sounded…hurt. “You left that message for me like everything was okay.”
“Cryptic messages only, remember?”
Her sister gave her a lopsided smile.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry,” said Livia. She ruffled her sister’s hair. “Nice cut, by the way.”
“Like it? I did it myself.”
“I never would have guessed.”
Adele laughed. “I asked some friends to do it, but no one would cut it this short for me.”
She shrugged. The hall was quiet for a while, as Livia digested everything her sister had just said. Her sister tucked a strand of Livia’s hair behind her ear. “You know you can lean on me, too, right? You’re not alone.”
Livia bit her lip. For as long as she could remember, Livia had worried about her sister, but the truth was that Adele had been doing well for a long while now.
She had friends in this school where she’d been since the Incident, and she seemed genuinely happy.
Still, Livia felt herself clinging to the past, as if she was waiting for the worst to come.
It was hard to let go of the image of her sister in that hospital bed.
But her sister had made it through, and now she was so much stronger.
Livia was holding so tightly on to the past that had hurt so deeply. Which was basically what she had accused Gustav of doing. In all her thoughts about their similarities, she had somehow missed this one.
She bit her lip. “I suppose I should have asked if you wanted to leave.”
“I know this is our plan, but I didn’t think it would happen like this.” Her sister looked down the hall as if she was far away. “What did Gustav say when you left?”
Livia had no idea what Adele saw in her expression, but her sister’s eyes widened. “You’re in love.”
Maybe she was. But she had left him. Livia blinked back that ridiculous urge to cry. “It’s complicated.”
“Let me guess. You decided to leave so that you and I could run away to that island in Greece and start over, and he wasn’t happy about it?” Her sister raised an eyebrow, but her smile was sympathetic. “How very you of you.”
Livia gave a little laugh.
“You could have talked to me,” her sister added quietly. “We made the plan before you married Gustav.”
Livia opened her mouth to say it made no difference, but as she flashed back to those last moments on the boat with him, as she told him she was leaving, she thought about the sadness she had seen underneath his anger.
He had demanded that she stay by his side.
And at the time, the comment had infuriated her—that he was ordering her to play the role that her father had created for her.
And yet now she could see that there was a possibility of another meaning.
He had wanted her to stand up for him. No one had been in his corner, and he had hoped that she would be.
Her lips began to tremble, and pressed them together.
There would be time for crying later, after she got them out of this mess.
“What if we both just said no to our parents, Livia?” Her sister sat down in the empty hallway.
Livia sat next to her, and the scent of polished wood felt like a familiar friend. “You know that Father will get mad, and Mother will make us feel guilty, and then you—”
She couldn’t complete this sentence. The last time things had gone so very badly wrong, and her sister had barely made it out of that.
“And then what?” Her sister’s voice was soft, but insistent.
Livia shook her head.
Her sister put her hand over Livia’s. “I’m not that child anymore. I know our parents don’t control my future.”
Livia could no longer hold back the tears. They spilled onto her cheeks, too many to wipe away. “I won’t let it happen again. I won’t leave you alone. I went away to college, and without me here…”
She would never risk that happening again.
Adele put her arms around her, pulling her close.
“I’m so, so sorry that I scared you. And I have so much guilt about you dropping out of college to be with me.
” Her sister’s voice faltered, and she sighed.
“I’m strong enough to stand on my own now, and I have been for a while.
Please don’t sacrifice your love for Gustav for me. ”