Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(86)
After the punishing tightness I subjected myself to last night, I probably ought to. It’s never hurt so badly to come out of my corset.
When I hesitate, Saber adds, “I’ll hold you tight,” and all I can do is nod.
Soon Saber and I are spooned in the bed, me under the comforter getting warm and him on top of it, his arm tight around my waist like he promised. I gave particular orders to M.A.R.I.E. not to let anyone in, but even these few stolen minutes in the middle of the day are risky. M.A.R.I.E. is always watching. After a fit like the one I just threw, I can imagine amused security workers paying particular attention to this room. But I can’t bring myself to care. Slowly, haltingly, I tell Saber about Molli. I don’t tell him about the King last night. Or that I chose him over revenge; tried to, anyway.
It can hardly matter now.
“Danica,” Saber says hesitantly, “your mother died yesterday. The woman who raised you. I know you were close to Molli, but I’m worried that you’re in denial about your mother.”
I’m already shaking my head. “I ceased to be a person to my mother years ago. I was a thing. A tool. A road like that goes both ways. Eventually, I stopped thinking of her as a person too.”
“But—”
“Saber, do you hate your parents?”
“No,” he says instantly and with a vehemence that assures me his words are true.
“Why not?”
“They had no choice,” Saber says, emotion making his voice husky, and if this conversation weren’t so serious, I’d find it incredibly appealing. “They had to sacrifice one child to save four others. If I—” He takes a long breath. “If I’d been in their shoes I’d have made the same choice.”
“That’s the difference.” I turn now so I can see his face—our lips only a few centimeters apart, though I don’t lean closer. Not now. “My mother’s been grooming me as a tool for years. Since I was about fourteen.”
“Because she dressed you so pretty and made sure you had all of your…poise lessons?”
I smirk. “That as well. This isn’t the nose I was born with, Saber.”
His eyes widen. “Really?”
“At fifteen.” My amusement fades and I meet his eyes. “I became a thing. A thing to help launch her into social and political success. Every aspect of my life was shaped for the sole purpose of luring the King. And then she put my life in danger for the prestige of being the Queen’s mother. She didn’t do it for me; she did it for her. And if I’d been in her place, I would never have made the same decision.”
“But—”
“I tried, Saber. I tried to remember good things, to feel a spark of the love I know I used to have. What child wants to give up on her mother? But…all I can see is the way she looked that night as she bargained me away to the King.” I clamp my jaw down as my throat begins to burn. “I hate that I stood by and didn’t make a decision at all.”
“You were powerless, though.”
I shake my head. “I could have done something. I should have done something. If I had, Molli would still be alive.”
“Maybe. But where would you be?”
“It doesn’t matter. Molli was innocent. So innocent.” The tears leak down my temple. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Never is a long time.”
“I’ll never deserve it.”
Saber kisses my skin, right where the path of my tears runs. Tucking my head into the space just below his chin, I curl against his warmth and try to let it seep into me.
I doubt I’ll ever feel warm again.
IT DOESN’T TAKE warmth to sell Glitter. Which is fortunate, as I seem to have lost my ability to feel anything at all. I smile, I curtsy, and I peddle my illicit cosmetics as though my life depended on it—which was, of course, always the point. I approve wedding plans and have a final fitting for my amazing dress, which can no longer ignite within me even the smallest spark of pleasure. And when the day’s whirl is over, I tuck myself into my rooms with Saber and imagine it all away.
It’s the last Thursday before my wedding, and Saber and I climb into our carefully watched sedan for my final trip into Paris—my final “dancing lesson.” His Highness tried to get me to fob it off, what with the wedding in two days, but I’ve scarcely spoken to him since that awful night in his private office, and have used clipped, careful tones whenever conversation has become unavoidable. The language I used to reply to this particular suggestion was probably more vulgar than I should have allowed myself. Still, it’s the clearest way to decline a suggestion in two words.
Saber’s messenger bag is round with just over half a million in euros, and each of my pannier pockets is similarly lined. Almost a million and a half between us—the biggest take I’ve ever delivered to Giovanni, and my nerves are clanging at the prospect of being caught. Of having it all taken away, when I’m so close.
Once we add this to the pile, I’ll have four and a half million euros. With two more days until my wedding, though, sales have gotten…complicated. Cash is increasingly scarce in Sonoman-Versailles, and unwanted jewels are going out the doors with personal servants in a river of trade that has devolved quickly from gray market to black. Orders didn’t drop off this week, but neither did they grow. It’s a carefully balanced pile of stones waiting to collapse at the slightest provocation.