Majesty (American Royals, #2)(46)

“That’s why you’re on my team. I’m the best player here; I can cover your mistakes,” Livingston declared. His brothers each made a low “ohhhh” sound at the challenge. But when Beatrice still hesitated, he backtracked. “Or you can play with Teddy, of course.”

She took another sip, then set her mug on the coffee table. A new lightness had stolen into her head, casting everything in a delightful golden glow.

“No, you’re right. I want to play with you, against Teddy,” she decided. “I want to see the look on his face when we completely destroy him.”

There was some hollering and heckling at her declaration, a few good-natured jokes at her fiancé’s expense. Teddy shot her a taunting grin. “What do you say, Bee, should we bet on it?”

“Absolutely,” she said, feeling reckless. “What are the terms?”

Teddy’s eyes met hers, and heat coursed through her; not the tickling warmth of the vodka but something wilder and more dangerous. Beatrice wondered if he was going to bet her a kiss.

She wondered what she would say, if he did.

“We could do a round of truth-or-dare,” Teddy suggested. Another high school game that Beatrice had never played.

“You’re on,” she said, more bravely than she felt.

It took a few minutes for Beatrice to get the hang of the game. But her competitive nature quickly took over; and soon she was perched on the edge of the couch, shouting just as loud as the boys as she stabbed frantically at her controller. Time seemed to stretch out indeterminately, all her energies focused on that massive screen.

With only a few minutes to go, she and Livingston were about to win—until Teddy’s receiver caught Lewis’s pass and sprinted into a touchdown, just as the clock ticked down to zero.

It took a moment for Beatrice to realize that the room had erupted in shouts of excitement and outrage, and that hers were loudest of all. She put down her controller, feeling self-conscious.

“Hey, you played great.” Livingston knocked his fist against hers in congratulations.

“Thanks.” No one had ever fist-bumped her before. No one had ever given her a night like this before, either—a night of pretending she was any ordinary person.

Teddy clearly knew her better than she’d realized.

“So,” he said, turning to her with a half smile. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth?” After the truths they’d already shared tonight, it sounded easy to go ahead and share one more. Certainly easier than whatever wild dare Teddy and his brothers might come up with.

“What would you be, if you weren’t the queen?”

If she weren’t queen. Beatrice’s brain could hardly wrap itself around the notion. The only time she’d allowed herself the luxury of imagining it, she had wanted a future with Connor. That felt like very long ago, now. And besides, Beatrice realized, that dream was built around someone else.

It was time she dreamed something for herself. What would she, Beatrice, do if she had the freedom to choose? If she stopped listening to people like Robert Standish and actually did what she wanted, for once?

“I’d go on a backpacking trip, all over the world.”

Lewis leaned his elbows onto his knees with a puzzled frown. “But haven’t you been all over the world?”

“Sure, inside ballrooms and stuffy conference rooms! I’ve never traveled like a normal person.” Beatrice’s words were faster now, more urgent. “I want to learn to skydive. And scuba dive. And make a dry-ice bomb!”

The boys laughed at her declaration. “Let me get this straight,” Teddy summarized. “You want to throw yourself out of a moving plane, and learn how to make holes in your wall.”

Beatrice nodded vigorously. “Yes, exactly! That all sounds fun.”

“You’re so much cooler than the magazines make you sound,” Livingston remarked, then immediately winced. But Beatrice knew what he’d meant.

Teddy nodded at his brother’s words. “I know. Isn’t she?”



* * *





“You okay?” Teddy started down the stairs next to Beatrice. It was late; Lewis and Livingston had gone back to the main house a few hours ago, leaving the two of them alone.

“I’m fantastic,” Beatrice declared—but at the bottom of the staircase, she halted. A low, whimpering sound came from across the barn, tugging at her heartstrings. Beatrice set out in search of it.

“Bee?” Teddy asked, trotting to keep up.

At the end of a hallway, a yellow Labrador lay surrounded by a squirming, playful pile of puppies. They tumbled over one another in blithe confusion.

Beatrice sank to her knees on the dusty ground, and one of the puppies started toward her. She sighed contentedly as it crawled onto her lap.

“You didn’t tell me that your family has dogs.” Her new friend set its paws on her shoulders and began licking her face, little exploratory kisses as if to figure out who she was. Beatrice couldn’t help it; she laughed. The kind of easy laugh that floats through your body like magic.

Her chest almost hurt from it, as if she’d been compressing that laugh inside her since before her father died.

Teddy knelt down next to her. “I didn’t realize that we still did. I mean, I knew Sadie had her puppies a couple months ago, but I thought we’d have given them away by now.”