Chapter 13 #2
Firmly ignoring the voice in his head, Ruben said, “First question. Who’s your favourite person in the world?”
“My sister,” she said immediately. “Who’s yours?”
“Agathe,” he said, just as fast.
“The housekeeper?” She sounded incredulous. “I mean, she is really lovely, but—”
“She’s not the housekeeper,” he laughed. “She’s my grandmother.”
“Um… What?” Her voice came out as a squeak. “Wow. We really do need to get to know each other. What the hell? Why does she do all your cooking?”
“Because she’s my grandmother.”
She scoffed. “I’ll ignore that. Why don’t you call her grandma? Or whatever you guys say?’ ”
“ Mormor ,” he supplied. “And I never got into the habit. I only met her…” He calculated quickly. “Seven years ago.”
“What?”
“Well, no, that’s not accurate. I knew her for the first five years of my life. Then I didn’t. Then, seven years ago, I did.”
She shifted beside him, the mattress rolling. He imagined she was looking at him now. So she hadn’t been before. “Forget twenty questions,” she said. “Explain that.”
“Well… She’s my mother’s mother.”
“Okay. And?”
“Did you… Google me at all?”
He could almost hear her eye roll. “You think that’s what I do with my free time? Research you?”
“Truthfully, I had imagined you would. I mean, why wouldn’t you?”
She paused. Then, with a huff, she admitted, “I kind of did. I started to, but the first thing that came up was—”
“Kathryn,” he finished grimly. It may have been eight months, but that particular scandal would never fade. He wondered how much she’d seen. How much she’d read. If she’d watched...
“I didn’t look,” she said quickly. “I wouldn’t do that. I just saw the headlines. And then I stopped.”
“I see.” He lay back, staring up into the darkness. Waiting for questions. But none came.
Apparently, she wasn’t going to push that particular issue. Still, he felt the need to move on before she changed her mind. “So, my brother, Harald. The king. And my sister, Sophronia. They’re my half-siblings. We have different mothers.”
“Okay,” she said, softly. As if she was treading carefully. As if she could already tell this was a difficult topic. Had his voice given him away? He’d thought it was admirably steady.
Actually, it was probably the fact that he’d been separated from his own grandmother for most of his life that clued her in. Yes. That made sense.
“My mother was a maid. Then she met my father, and I suppose they fell in love. He divorced his wife, the Queen Consort—my brother’s mother.
This is when my brother was, I suppose, fifteen, and Sophronia must have been thirteen.
My father abdicated the throne, and my parents married. I arrived soon after.”
“Your father abdicated,” she murmured. “Doesn’t that mean—”
“Harald’s mother was Queen Regent for five years,” Ruben said. His tongue felt dull, numb, too thick for his mouth. “Then Harald became king.”
“Only five years? That’s a lot of responsibility for a twenty-year-old.”
“Yes. But there wasn’t much choice. After five years, Johanna—the Queen Regent…” He hesitated. “Well, she took her own life.”
Cherry exhaled softly. It was barely a breath, but it contained a wealth of meaning. Before she could say anything, he forged on.
“She did so the day after my father’s death. My father and my mother.”
He heard her swallow. The tiny sound was loud as thunder in the stillness of the room.
And then, out of the black emptiness, her fingers came to brush against his cheek.
Tentative, searching. After that first contact, she touched him fully, her soft hand cradling his face as if he were a child.
He realised too late that she would feel the dampness there. So much for keeping his voice steady.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
Ah, what a question. Still, he’d come this far in the spirit of honesty. And something told him Cherry valued that.
Ruben recited the story that had changed his life with as little inflection as possible.
“They liked sailing. Had a house on the coast. And my mother liked to sneak out—that is, she hated being watched all the time, followed all the time.” He hated it too, even if he understood the need for security.
He should learn from his parents’ mistakes and stop trying to disappear.
But then, if he wasn’t his reckless mother’s reckless son, he probably wouldn’t be here with Cherry right now. “They went sailing in the middle of the night, a storm struck, and they drowned. Tragic accident. Mundane, really.”
“I see,” she whispered. “I… I’m sorry.”
“They only married because of me. I was born six months after the wedding. Eight months after the divorce. And they only died because they were together—”
“Stop,” she said softly. “That’s enough.”
He sucked in a breath, familiar dark thoughts like a jagged knife scoring his gut. Slicing open the same scar tissue. “Is it? I should tell you all the sordid details, really—”
“Ruben.”
“At least then you’ll understand why I can’t—why I have to avoid disgracing myself any further. The family name, you know. My existence alone already makes things… messy. If I could, I’d renounce my title completely. But I can’t. Because then I’d be just like—”
“ Ruben .”
“I’m too much like my parents—like my mother, that’s what Harald always says. Reckless. But I know that, and I handle it. I had everything under control. It was all going well, until I chose wrong.”
Her breath caught, and her hand pulled away, and it took him a minute to realise what she thought he meant.
“No, not you!” He caught her hand, tugged it back to his cheek. As if he needed it. As if he needed her. “I’m not talking about you. I meant something else. Before.” He didn’t want to say Kathryn’s name. He was tired of hearing it, even from his own lips.
“Okay,” she said finally. The tension in her wrist eased, and she touched him again. He fought the instinct to rub against her like an animal. He’d embarrassed himself enough for one night .
They were silent for a while. So long, in fact, that he might have thought she’d fallen asleep, if it weren’t for the slow glide of her thumb over his cheek. Then, suddenly, she said, “I’ve been trying not to like you. But I’ve decided to stop.”
He hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” There was a smile in her voice. “I wanted to hate you for making everything so complicated, but honestly, I’m bored of it. Being angry all the time is exhausting. And you’re right; we need to get to know each other.”
“We do,” he said slowly, fighting to calm the rapid beating of his heart. “But it’s easier like this, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” she said simply. “Everything’s easier in the dark.”
Ruben rolled towards her, wrapping an arm around her waist. And for once—even when he felt the soft curves of her body beneath the blanket—his mind stayed out of the gutter. He pulled her close and whispered against her forehead, “I’ll come back. If you want. Tomorrow.”
He didn’t think he imagined the way she leaned into him. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. Then he let her go, and got up, and left.
It didn’t feel right, but he did it anyway.