Chapter Ten #2
Kyriakos tilted his head slightly to one side, regarding her in all her sharp, pointed fury. “And do you really think that this is the time for this discussion? You might remember that we have a busy schedule to uphold.”
“That’s all we have,” she shot back. “It’s always a busy schedule.
There are always so many appearances. But it’s not as if it would matter which Princess was doing these things, would it?
You could replace me tomorrow.” She smiled at him then, and it was that mask of hers, set firmly back in place.
He detested it. Because that smile was a weapon, sharp as a blade, and she meant it to sting.
“So I’ve decided that you ought to do that. ”
He couldn’t make sense of those words.
She inclined her head. “Replace me.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked through his teeth. “What replacement could there possibly be?”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Kyriakos,” she murmured, looking entirely too pleased with herself, to his mind. “I’m sure that once you put yourself out on the market there will be no shortage of noble Zaccarian women lining up to receive your favor.”
“The Princess of Zaccaria does not quit her job,” he bit out at her. “It’s a position you were chosen for as an infant. It’s not one with a lot of room for lateral movement.”
“Just because no Princess of Zaccaria has ever abdicated doesn’t mean that one can’t,” she retorted. “The only stumbling block would be if we had children. But we don’t.”
She slammed the book in front of her closed and stood. “I don’t see any reason why I should continue to waste my time here.”
“Because it is your duty,” he found himself saying like he was back in the Grand Cathedral, intoning the words of the vows she was to make to him. “Because that is what we do, Aikaterini.” He did not shift his gaze from hers. “We do our fucking duty.”
She moved then, but it was to advance upon him with a fire in her gaze that he had never seen before.
“That is all I have ever done,” she said, as if the words were like weapons and she’d been waiting all her life to thrust and parry like this.
Directly to the heart. “Practically since the moment of my birth, I have been a perfect Princess in every regard. My entire education was geared toward making certain that I was the soul of refinement and grace in every circumstance, as a Princess ought to be. Your cousin and I were linked since we were babies. And that was deliberate, of course, though I don’t think I realized how deliberate until recently.
Isolating us meant that there were far fewer opportunities for us to get into any kind of trouble.
We were engineered to be perfect paragons and nothing else. ”
“I am perfectly aware of that,” Kyriakos retorted. “Everyone is aware of that, but especially the man who was raised to step in at a moment’s notice. It is one more reason why you cannot possibly abdicate your position. What madness is this?”
“It’s a very simple madness.” She drew herself up and she looked at him as if he was the enemy, and he did know if he could bear it.
“It’s called waking up, and I have you to thank for that.
I would never have had the slightest idea what a lovely, happy little farce my life was if I hadn’t met you.
But now I know, Kyriakos. And I can’t go back. ”
“Your life was not a farce,” he gritted out, though he had not envisioned that he would be in a position to defend the version of marriage she’d had with his cousin.
Particularly when he could hardly comprehend it himself.
“Whatever else is true about you and Venediktos, your friendship was real. It mattered. And anything else it was or wasn’t is a secret you and I will take to our graves. ”
“And what will that grave look like?” She threw at him. “A stone with his name and your name and me in parenthesis on the bottom? Future generations will shuffle past and make up stories based on the dashes. Is this a life worth living?”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” He shot back at her.
“I spent my entire life preparing to be a footnote in someone else’s story.
Not a bad life, it turns out. Certainly not one for the storybooks.
Not all of us get to be main characters, Aikaterini.
But that doesn’t mean our lives are worthless.
It doesn’t mean we don’t have the same sense of duty or honor as anyone else. Or should.”
“Says the man who went from footnote to leading man,” she replied, that frown appearing between her eyes—but at least that was better than that mask of hers.
“Don’t mistake me. I don’t need to be the center of attention.
But what I realized this afternoon, after you left, was that staying in this life is actually a bigger abdication of who I am than leaving it.
Because I can tell you what I signed up for.
What I thought my life was supposed to be about. ”
She moved closer still and she was frowning at him the way she always did, but there was something wiser in her gaze now.
Or perhaps, more troubled. “I thought it was a gift to be able to live my life for my country. I thought it was a noble enterprise. I was proud that out of all the girls the palace could have picked for Venediktos, they chose me. I pledged years and years ago to do my very best to live up to the trust that was put into me.”
“I don’t see any reason at all why that should change.”
“What changed is that I was already in a sexless marriage and now I’m apparently in a loveless one.
” She said that with a certain devastating intensity that Kyriakos didn’t know quite what to do with.
He didn’t know why it hit him so hard, like bullets from a gun.
And she wasn’t done. “You seem to be under the impression that we should bring children into this. To what end? So they grow up to think that they deserve nothing better on this earth than these sexless, loveless, dutiful marriages?”
“My parents have done their duty for decades,” he managed to get out, though it felt suddenly as if there was a hand at his throat. And squeezing. “My grandfather put them together and they have stayed together. Their own wants and wishes never entered into the picture.”
Aikaterini let out the faintest sigh, as if she despaired of him. “But are they happy, Kyriakos?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He couldn’t recall any member of his family ever even addressing the notion of happiness. What did that have to do with anything? They were royal. That was what mattered.
She nodded as if he’d answered in a monologue, and drifted closer to where he still stood by the glass wall and door.
“Venediktos was my very best friend for many years. And one thing we always insisted upon was carving out our own happiness when we were alone,” she told him.
“I didn’t realize what else we were missing, but we had that.
Whatever the weight of the day, we would do our best to put it aside and think about the things we did have.
And I think, in the end, I would rather be happy than just…
have sex with someone who thinks there’s no point to it besides procreation, and more than that, it doesn’t mean anything anyway. ”
“This is ridiculous,” he managed to say, though his heart seemed to be pounding far too hard in his chest. He wasn’t sure why he was reacting like this, because on the face of it, she was saying exactly what he’d wanted her to say. What he’d wanted her to think, anyway. Hadn’t he?
It was only that it sounded so very different when it came out of her mouth.
“I don’t understand why you’re reacting like this,” she said, and she lifted up her chin as she said it. “After all, I’m nothing but a silly little virgin who misunderstood a handful of orgasms. You should be happy to be rid of me.”