Stealing Cinderella(71)
“Ella,” Thor whispers again, his fingers brushing against my arm.
The shock of his unexpected touch startles me, and the painful sound of grief gets caught in my throat.
“What is it, gudinne?” He leans up and turns on the lamp, studying my tear-streaked face. “You’ve been crying?”
He looks so utterly broken, and I can’t understand it. How can he feel this way about me when he broke me too?
“Please say something,” he begs. “Tell me what I can do to make this right.”
“Nothing.” My voice feels rusty when I finally answer him. “There’s nothing you can do to make this right.”
“No.” He leans over me, dipping his forehead to mine. “I will fix this. Just tell me how. I need to know how.”
“I was wrong.” Another tear spills from the corner of my eye. “I thought I could withstand anything you threw my way, but I can’t. I can’t survive you.”
“Don’t talk like that.” He silences me with his lips.
I let him kiss me, allowing myself to feel him for the last time. It would be so easy to get swept up in his intoxicating power all over again. He is the embodiment of addiction for me. But I can’t keep fighting for something if I’m the only one fighting for it.
“I just want you to be happy,” I whisper against him.
Whether it’s with or without me.
“Ella—”
“I’m very tired.” I close my eyes and roll away from him. “I need to sleep now.”
Thorsen slips out of bed early in the morning, just as he has done every day for the past two weeks. Usually, in these early hours, I can hear him conducting business on the phone while he paces the hall. He doesn’t like to leave, but inevitably, his duties call him away for the better part of the afternoons. It’s a difficult concept to grasp that things have changed so much in such a short period. He’s the king now, and he should be at the palace, living his life, taking control of the situation there. Yet every night, he’s here with me.
We haven’t spoken about his father’s death, and a part of me feels guilty for that. I couldn’t be mentally present at a time when he really needed me. But I’m emotionally bankrupt right now, or at least, that’s how it feels. I think the part that hurts the most is what he told me himself. I was never anything more than a toy to him. Now, he’s engaged to Lavinia, and even if I could help him, there’s not room for me in this picture.
It’s that sentiment that coaxes me from the bed after he leaves this morning. I’m functioning on autopilot when I pack a few outfits from the closet in my guest suite, stuffing them into one of Thorsen’s backpacks. When I’m done with that, I grab the purse I had on me when he brought me here and the messenger bag with the two blue bottles.
As I look around the room where it all began, it feels like my chest is caving in on me. I don’t think I’ll ever get over him, and as hurt as I am, it still takes all my courage to walk away. I shed one last tear for my loss. A loss so huge I’m not certain I’ll ever recover.
From my bag, I retrieve the letter I wrote yesterday, explaining my actions. It’s messy and raw, with lines scratched out where I tried to wish him well with Lavinia. As it turned out, everything I wrote was a lie. I couldn’t understand why he did this. And I couldn’t tell him I forgave him because he never apologized in the first place. In the end, the only thing I could say was that I wanted to walk away. Perhaps the biggest lie of all.
With an unsteady hand, I leave the letter for him on the bed and step out onto his balcony, tossing my things over the railing. I don’t want to draw any attention by walking past Lisbet with my things. But fortunately for me, she never seems to be all that concerned about what I’m doing anyway. When I get to the kitchen, she’s at the counter doing some food prep.
“Good morning.” She averts her gaze after she hears me come in. A part of me wonders if she feels guilty for leaving me in the bed when I begged her for help, but it doesn’t matter now. I can’t change what happened, and as awful as it was, I believe it happened for a reason.
“Would you like some breakfast?” she asks.
“No, thank you. I’m not hungry right now.”
She nods and goes back to her work, and I step out onto the terrace, closing the door behind me. Following the dirt path, I head for the slope beneath Thorsen’s balcony. Once I’ve collected my things, I take one last mental picture of the house that started to feel like a home. My eyes swim with unshed tears, but I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry anymore. So, I turn away and lift my chin and head for the beach.
After Dr. Blom gave me some money, which I reluctantly accepted, he made a casual observation. Thorsen has a rowboat he sometimes uses to cross the bay to the other side of the city. I didn’t ask him for any more details, but I suspected it was his way of telling me I had an out if I wanted one. He didn’t want to hurt Thorsen, but he didn’t want me to feel as though I had no options either. It was a difficult decision for him, I could tell, but I’m grateful when I find the rowboat easily.
It turns out to be a small vessel, just big enough for me and my things. After a few moments of struggling to get it into the water, and soaking myself in the process, I climb aboard and sit down.