Chapter Fourteen
She knew immediately that it was going to change.
But she’d try to remind him anyway. But she had sensed the subtle shift in her husband’s behavior as the end of their honeymoon had drawn close.
But of course, the palace was the site of so many terrible things for him.
Here on the island he had been buoyant. Carefree.
On the island, it had been like he was a different person.
But she could feel a heaviness to him once they boarded the plane to take them back to Basilia.
It lasted the entire flight, and when they arrived back, she felt it settled in her own breast.
It was a strange thing now, to be going back to the palace unified with him. Sort of.
She took a deep breath, and pasted a smile on her face for the walk inside. Princess Emerald was there, along with Andrei. And Elizabeth.
She rushed to Elizabeth, and threw her arms around her. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Good to see you too.” She looked at her, her expression filled with concern. “Are you well?”
“I’m quite well,” she said. Smiling. Because she could. Because she was here with Onyx. Because even though he was a difficult sort of man, he was a wonderful one.
And they’d had great times, and undoubtedly, would have some difficult ones coming up. Because that was how life was.
So she was just going to have to deal with it. Get over it. Brace herself for whatever would come, and stay open, because you couldn’t protect yourself from pain. Well, you could. You could embrace all that anger, like she’d done before the honeymoon, but it didn’t heal anything.
The honeymoon had been healing.
But she had a feeling…
She just had a feeling that he was headed for an absolute crash out, and she was going to have to be ready for it.
Was going to have to be as strong as she ever was.
“Do you think you’ll have time to take tea with me this week?” Emerald asked, smiling at her. She hadn’t spent very much time with Emerald, owing to the fact that she had been so angry with Onyx.
“I would love to,” she said.
If she was going to count her blessings, then having Emerald as a sister was going to be one of them.
Because she knew what it was like to have terrible sisters. Emerald wasn’t that. She had been firmly on Birdie’s side from the beginning. Standing against her brother when he had brought her in here with all that rage and indignation.
Emerald was a deeply good person.
“I’ll make a tea time, then. We can have it in my parlor.”
“That sounds excellent.”
“I’ve some work to do,” Onyx said, touching her arm.
“Okay,” she responded.
She tried not to overreact to that. To the immediate distance he was putting between them.
“Come to the kitchen,” Elizabeth said.
“I’d love to,” she responded.
“So,” Elizabeth said when they had some distance. “Things are going well?”
“Yes. They are. Though, I feel him pulling away. Everything was fine on the island. He…” She swallowed hard. “I do love him, Elizabeth. I fear that I do love him, and it’s going to hurt me. Like it always does.”
“Life is nothing without love. And it’s even less without hope.”
“Is that why you never tried again with Adam?”
Elizabeth swatted her arm. “No. It’s because I didn’t want to take a risk, didn’t want to damage my pride. Sometimes you have to be willing to soften yourself. When he can’t. I wasn’t willing to do that. And I regret it.”
“But if I soften myself, I could get hurt.”
“Yes. But you’ll hurt either way, won’t you?”
“I think you’re going to have to take a risk.”
“Then I think you should,” Birdie said.
“Me? I’m old now.”
“Elizabeth, I haven’t talked much about my mother.
But I’ve been talking to Onyx about her, and it’s made it all feel closer than it normally does.
She died when she was young. She didn’t have the chance to be old and in love.
She didn’t have the chance to be old at all.
Aging is a gift. You being here is a gift.
As long as you’re here, you should make it the most glorious, joyful experience that it can be. ”
Elizabeth put her hand over Birdie’s. “Oh, you sweet girl. I know you’re right.”
“Then I’ll be brave. And you can be too.”
After that conversation, she went to her room. She wondered if he would come in. But part of her knew that he wouldn’t.
The problem with Onyx was that he had spent his life being unchallenged as far as his authority went.
He’d had terrible things happen to him. But he was in a secure place.
They were things that were beyond his control.
So many of the situations that Birdie had been in hadn’t been in her control.
Even if she had to fight, there was something she could do to make them better, or worse.
In some ways, she wondered if that made him stuck.
If it made it difficult for him to know what to do.
If he was just sitting there, waiting for the next blow.
The idea of that, the image of that, made her so desperately sad.
And that was when she decided she wasn’t going to wait for him.
That was when she decided it was okay that she was the one that was making the moves.
That she was the one deciding on this particular brand of bravery.
Onyx was brave. But there were things she understood about herself, about her feelings and about her emotions that she had a feeling he didn’t quite get yet.
So she was willing to put herself out there for him. For that.
That was when she decided to use the adjoining doors. They hadn’t used those here. And in the Bahamas they hadn’t used doors at all.
But that had been a different place. They had been outside of this. Outside of time in a way they weren’t now. This was their life. She was going to make it the best she could.
She was going to speak the language he understood. This was how she had reached him the first time. But this time he knew who she was. This time he knew who they were.
And she believed in what they could be.
She moved through the door, and he turned sharply. He was standing by his dresser, shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of dark slacks.
“I missed you today.”
“Sorry. I had a lot of work to do.”
She began to strip her clothes off, wordlessly. He didn’t turn.
“I spent some time with Elizabeth.”
“I’m glad.”
She was completely naked then, standing there in the open.
“But mostly I was thinking about you.”
He turned then, and whatever he was about to say died on his lips. She was satisfied by the look on his face.
“Here we are. With the lights on.”
There was nothing unusual about that, of course.
They’d had each other with the lights on, out in the sunshine, any number of times when they were in the Bahamas.
But here, here she was making a stand. Making a statement.
This had been a palace filled with so many terrible memories.
A palace filled with his grief. With her sorrow.
She was wanting to change that.
While they could.
She breathed in. The scent of him, heavy in the air in his room. She looked at the way he drew breath, the shift of his chest, the way his lips parted.
She was entirely in the moment. With Onyx.
There was nowhere else that she would rather be. And no one else she would rather be with.
“Be with me,” she said.
“I’m with you,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. Be with me in this moment. And nowhere else. There’s nothing but us.”
She moved toward him, putting her hand on his bare chest, stretching up on her toes and kissing him on the mouth.
She could feel the moment he surrendered. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close to him, and she capitulated in return. Opening for him. Softening for him.
Inside, she made a vow that it would always be like this. That she would always do this.
That she would be his, and she would give whatever he needed. Whenever he needed it.
Onyx might have to learn.
That love was worth the risk.
Do you even know if it is?
Maybe not. But she hoped that it was. It was the world that she wanted to live in. The love she wanted to believe in.
He was a good man. He was a good man whose life had been upended by loss and tragedy. And complicated by his position.
His grief around his marriage was so complicated.
So much about what they hadn’t been, but then also the sudden loss of his wife had affected him.
He dismissed it, in conversation, because they hadn’t been in love, but she could see that it was another thing that hurt him.
That made it hard for him to trust the world. To trust life.
To feel safe with anything.
She moved away from him, reached down and undid his belt, undid his pants, dropped down to her knees slowly in front of him and palmed his glorious cock. Then she leaned in, testing the length of him with her tongue. Before taking him in deep.
He moaned, gripping her hair, holding her fast while she lavished attention on him. She loved this man.
She loved him. She would get on her knees before him like this, to beg, for anything he wanted.
She had said to him on that flight to their honeymoon that she would not be a doormat. She wasn’t a doormat. She knew exactly what she was doing. She chose this.
She chose him.
She chose to be brave in the face of uncertainty.
She chose to be strong because she could be. She couldn’t lose him. Which was a great and terrible thing.
He wouldn’t divorce her. She was pregnant with his child.
Their marriage would never split up, but for her, it wasn’t about the marriage. Not about the legality.
It was about the way she felt for him.
It was about the love.
She breathed in, sharp and deliberate, and then continued to pleasure him.
He was lost in it, she could tell. She wanted him to be. She wanted him to surrender to this. To surrender to them.
She wanted everything.