Chapter 38

I stared at him, startled. Did he actually think that I broke up with him to be with someone else?

He must have, because he returned my stare with one of his own.

“No.” I wished with all of my heart that he would believe me without an explanation. I didn’t want to lie to him.

But I knew him. So I knew it wouldn’t be enough.

“Then, why?” he asked, voice soft in the quiet room.

I couldn’t tell him the truth. He would hate me worse than he already did.

“Please don’t ask me that.”

His expression hardened. “I can only hope you learned from your mistake. Obviously the man you left me for wasn’t worthy, if he abandoned you and Elva.”

He had it all wrong. I would have never left Nicholas for anyone else. Who else could compare? Nicholas had my full heart from the start. Even now, I was still peeling parts of it away from him.

“You were short-sighted, chasing after selfish pleasures.” Looking away from me, Nicholas returned to aggressively scrubbing an already-clean dish. “You left your studies and your boyfriend behind, and for what?”

Gently, I reached over and removed the dish from him before he could break it. He froze, hands halfway into the sink.

I had suspected he’d hated me for my supposed betrayal, but I hadn’t realized before just how deeply I had hurt him.

I never thought I deserved him, even before I knew he was a prince. At the time, I had reasoned he would move on quickly, as jealous as that made me.

I had never expected the hurt would stay with him, even three years later. Unless, of course, this hurt was only the result of having his ego bruised.

“Your hands are calloused,” Nicholas said.

I’d only touched him for a moment just now. How had he noticed?

“I work hard for what little I have. I do my best to care for Elva.”

“She’s fond of you. You’re… a good mother.”

It was rare receiving such a compliment from Nicholas, so I eagerly accepted it.

“Thank you, but I feel like I never get to see her enough. I work long hours, and being here has kept me almost as busy. It’s worth it though, to see her happy. She had such a great time at the First Ball.”

“And what about you? Were you happy at the ball?”

I gave a small shrug. “At times. But it was tiring too. The political mind games in the palace are something else. I’m not sure why anyone would want to be Luna.”

He looked at me. “Most women would want the power.”

I shook my head. “All I want is good medical care for Elva. I wish I could afford it on my own.”

“Things haven’t been easy for you since you left the Academy.”

“To put it mildly,” I said, with a small laugh.

He didn’t as much as smile. If anything, he only looked sterner.

“Someday, perhaps, you will explain to me the reasoning behind the choices you made.”

“It was a long time ago,” I said.

He returned to the dishes, scrubbing more gently this time. Under his breath, he said, “Not to me.”

Nicholas’s dire expression remained throughout our morning together, yet when it came time to serve lunch to the children, his demeanor visibly brightened.

He could never manage the same vibrant, boisterous personality as Julian, but a smiling Nicholas was no less bright in his own way. Actually, he was even more stunning.

He spoke to the children with kindness, and listened carefully as each one talked to him. He nodded along at key points, even if the child was only babbling.

When one child took more than her fair share of rolls, Nicholas lightly corrected her with a few stern words. Yet when that same child’s eyes went wet with tears, he secretly sneaked an extra roll onto her plate when no one but me was watching.

The tears vanished into a look of amazement.

I shook my head at Nicholas’s soft heart, but inwardly, I found it endearing. He would make a great father. He’d likely have to depend on his partner to help with the disciplining though.

If that partner was me, I would…

No. I shouldn’t go down that path, even within the safe confines of my mind.

Nicholas and I would never be together again. I had too many secrets that he would never understand. Even if he knew the truth, even if he’d understood, he’d never agree with the choices I had made.

If he knew what I’d given away, he would never look at me the same way.

When Elva appeared for her lunch, she shouted from across the room. “Nick-lass!” Then she ran through the line, crawled under the table, and threw her arms out wide for a hug.

Nicholas leaned down to oblige. His smile was so warm, my chest ached.

If only Elva and I could have this all the time.

After lunch, and after Nicholas and I finished cleaning up, we joined the children out on the playground.

I pushed some of the kids on the swings, while Nicholas play-chased the children around the grassy lawn. He roared, pretending to be a monster. The children shouted with fake fear, broken with fits of giggling.

Elva herself often broke the illusion by running up to Nicholas and demanding, “You’re not a monster. You’re Nick-lass!”

Nicholas swooped her up into his arms and spun her around, while she cheered and laughed.

I’d never heard her so happy in her life. I could have cried bittersweet tears, so happy that she had this, so sad she would lose it.

Finally, Nicholas let the kids tackle him down to the ground.

Mark called from the sidelines, “Do you need assistance, sir?”

Nicholas pointed at him. “Ah, there! A new monster approaches, even more harrowing than the last!”

The kids immediately took to the new game, running and play-fighting with Mark.

With them distracted, Nicholas rolled up off the ground and walked to me near the swing set. He patted away much of the grass debris from his pants, but the back of his shirt was covered in it.

“May I?” I asked, motioning to his back.

“Is it bad?”

I held in my smile. “They might not let you return to the palace, looking like this.”

“Don’t make promises,” he teased, then turned his back to me. I brushed away the grass and dirt.

Only when I had finished did I realize the potential weight of what I had just done. I had touched him so casually. We had teased each other.

For a brief moment, everything had felt just like it had three years ago.

Nicholas must have noticed as well. His posture shifted, straightening. His smile slipped away.

“We should head back soon,” he said.

I agreed. We needed to end this fantasy as soon as we could. It was too dangerous, wanting what we had once but could never have again.

We needed to return to our reality. A prince and a commoner, with a canyon of secrets and misunderstandings between us, too large to cross.

“We can ride back together,” Nicholas said.

“Thank you.”

The ride home, we sat mostly in silence. Elva slept soundly, having worn herself out with play. She was curled into Nicholas’s side, with his arm wrapped protectively around her.

Outside, clouds were beginning to gather. In the distance, the sky was dark.

The fear I’d pushed down for the day began to once more coil within my chest. Tomorrow would likely be the day of my punishment.

“Looks like rain,” I said.

Nicholas’s jaw clenched.

“Guess there’s no escaping it.” I laughed a little.

He glared at me. “It’s not amusing.”

“I have to laugh, or I won’t survive. What would you rather I do? Cry?”

“No.” He frowned deeply. “I’d rather you not have to do this at all.”

I wasn’t entirely surprised by his words. After all, I knew the kindness in his heart. I’d seen it today, when he’d played with the children. Still, I hadn’t been sure it would have extended to me.

He was supposed to hate me.

“I thought you would have enjoyed seeing me punished,” I said.

His gaze fell away from me.

“If you believe that, then you never really knew me at all.”