Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(76)
And just like that, I’m angry at him all over again—we’re back at the beginning, with him treating me like a gross bug on his shoe. I didn’t like it then, but now? I’ve seen those eyes turn to me in adoration, in acceptance and desire. To lose that would be far worse than the look of scorn itself.
I should have told him sooner.
“Five months ago,” I begin, but my voice is shaking so hard I have to clear my throat and try again. “Five months ago I watched the King put his hands around a young woman’s throat and choke her to death.”
If Saber’s shocked, he certainly doesn’t show it.
“My mother stumbled on the scene and, like the harpy she always is—was—sold me and our silence to the King in exchange for the power and prestige of being the mother of the Queen.”
Saber flinches—a reaction I don’t quite understand.
“A week later I stole the jewels you saw at the catacombs and ran away. When that didn’t work…” I wave my hand about vaguely. “Well, you know the rest.”
“Why not just speak up? Tell someone what you saw?”
“It’s too late for that—my mother is gone. Unless I can figure out what she did with the video, it would be the King’s word against mine. And who do you suppose they’ll be more inclined to believe?”
“But why let yourself get dragged into this whole thing to begin with?”
I shrug, reliving the despair of that night. The regret. “I was frightened. I didn’t think fast enough. I was afraid no one would believe me. I’d been raised to obey my mother in all things. Pick a reason.” I run my finger along the edge of the desk. “I hate that I was so weak. I promised myself I’d never be so again. Looking back, I think of other things, though. They’d both have stood against me. My mother, in hopes that she could still patch things up and make me Queen, the King because…well, because he did it. I was seventeen—still am seventeen. I have so little power, Saber, and the power I’ve managed to accumulate still might not be enough to keep me alive.”
“That should make you more inclined to take his offer, Danica. Not less.” He’s leaning forward, his hands splayed on the desktop, and I feel like a little girl for what must be the hundredth time today. But his eyes don’t condemn…they plead. “Help me understand. It was a way to get everything you wanted. And, to be totally blunt, to leave that stupid little King to deal with the Glitter mess you created. We created,” he amends. He sounds shockingly near tears as he looks at me and asks, “Why?”
At that terrible edge in his voice, I suddenly want so desperately to defend myself. For him to understand. “There are a lot of reasons,” I retort, but I hear the bristle in my voice and force myself to calm down. “There’s my father’s life, for one. Do you think he would survive three weeks on his own? With no Glitter? Would he live, Saber? For three weeks, with no one understanding what’s happening to him—would he survive it?”
Saber hesitates but shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen Reginald push such a high dosage on someone so fast.”
“But you know me too well to believe me to be entirely altruistic.” It hurts to even say those words—to admit that’s the kind of person I’ve become. But it’s true. “The King’s solution seemed generous. I almost took it. But even if he followed through and divorced me in two years, he’d have no reason to leave me alive—much less continue supporting me. What would I do? Where would I go?”
“You’d have two years to figure that out,” Saber points out in a growl. “And you could stop selling Glitter. Stop hurting people.”
“I’m going to stop in two weeks anyway. I’ve been doing this for months, Saber. Months! The damage is done.” And you were right. But I don’t say it. He knows. We both know. The truth is that I should never have started this in the first place. But that choice is gone. And if I were to stop now, I’d accomplish nothing. What I’ve put everyone through, what they’ll go through when I leave, it would all be for nothing. It shouldn’t be for nothing!
“But—”
“The withdrawals are going to be a bitch even if I leave tomorrow. That ship has sailed. But if I just go, he gets away with everything.”
Saber doesn’t buy it. “Once you run, he gets away with everything anyway.”
But I’m already shaking my head. “That’s what I realized. Why I can’t say yes. This isn’t just about me anymore. The King is about this close to losing his position as CEO of Sonoma Inc.,” I say, holding my fingers a few millimeters apart. “Something that hasn’t happened to a Sonoman-Versailles Wyndham in four generations. He’s depending on my father’s votes and my votes as Queen to help him maintain it. But imagine this: the night before my wedding, I leave. Then, despite the confusion and scandal, there will still be a meeting of the board. They’ve been secretly planning it for months. And at that meeting they will vote to overthrow the King. Without me, without my father, he will lose everything. Everything, Saber. I can make that happen.”
“Judge, jury, and executioner, are you?”
“Are you forgetting that there’s an innocent dead girl here?”
Saber is quiet for a long time. “And that’s worth it to you?”