Majesty (American Royals, #2)(96)

Beatrice tugged at her hands. Chastened, Connor let go of them, but he didn’t step away.

His face was much too close. She could see each individual freckle and eyelash, could hear each shallow breath as it escaped his lungs. He was so familiar, yet at the same time he felt oddly like a stranger, like a shadowy figure from her dreams.

Except that he wasn’t a dream at all. He was here, real and flesh and immediate. Alone with her in a sealed room.

Beatrice backed away a few steps, and the panic flooding through her stilled a little. Without it she felt curiously uncertain, as if that frantic terror had been holding her aloft, and now that it had ebbed she had no clue what to do. The blaring of the alarm had stopped, but Beatrice imagined she could still hear it, echoing beneath the silence.

“Can you find out what happened?” she asked.

Connor’s hands drifted to his waist, then hooked uselessly in his pockets. “I don’t have my ERD anymore,” he said, naming the encrypted radio used by palace security. “But don’t worry; I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Beatrice nodded slowly. Her fear had thrown all her senses into confusion; she had no idea how long it had been since the alarm went off.

“You didn’t wear your Guards’ uniform,” she observed softly.

“I wasn’t sure I was allowed to wear it, now that I’ve left.”

Beatrice heard the lie in his voice. Connor knew perfectly well that he could wear the dress uniform at state occasions for the rest of his life.

Her eyes traveled again to his tuxedo. It fit perfectly—he’d clearly had it tailored—but the fabric was stiff in the way that new clothes always are, when they haven’t yet molded to your body. Beatrice wondered with a pang if Connor had bought the tux specifically for this wedding—if he’d decided against wearing his Guards’ uniform because he didn’t want to look like a member of security, but instead like a young aristocrat.

Like all the young men her parents had included in her folder of options, the night they’d asked her to consider getting married, what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Connor—where have you been? I mean, what did you do, after…”

“I went to Houston. I’m chief of security for the Ramirez family.”

“Chief of security for the Duke and Duchess of Texas? That’s impressive.”

“They know I used to personally Guard the queen.”

Beatrice looked away, at the folding makeup table with its brushes and lipsticks laid out on a white hand towel. “I’m glad you’re doing so well. Congratulations.”

“Damn it, Bee, don’t use your cocktail-party voice with me.”

Beatrice’s mind knew that he was no longer hers, but her body seemed to have reverted to an instinctive muscle memory and couldn’t keep up. She fought back an urge to step forward and hold him, the way she used to.

Instead she hugged her arms around her torso. Her dress felt so heavy: all that stiff boning, all the layers upon layers of weighty embroidered silk.

Connor was next to her in a few steps. “Bee, listen—”

She looked up sharply, her vision blurring. “I can’t do this right now—”

“But right now is the only time we’ve got!” His gray eyes burned into hers. “When I came here today, all I wanted was to see you one last time, to make sure you’re happy. I never meant to say any of this. But here we are, and I’ll probably never get another chance to be alone with you. Maybe I’m selfish, but I can’t not tell you that I love you. Which you already know.”

Connor leaned closer. There was an instant when Beatrice knew what was coming yet felt powerless to pull away, as if her mind hadn’t yet regained control of her bewildered limbs.

He settled a hand on her shoulder, the other tipping her chin to turn her face up to his. Finally Beatrice seemed to snap back into herself. She opened her mouth in protest—and Connor, seeing her parted lips, leaned in to kiss her.

She didn’t resist. It felt so powerfully familiar, because she had been here before, so many times: folded in Connor’s arms, surrounded by his tensed strength. The sheer Connor-ness of him overwhelmed her senses.

It was as if that kiss had slipped her back in time, to before she lost her dad—back when she wasn’t a queen, but simply a girl in love with the wrong boy.

Then reality crashed back in and she pulled away, her breathing unsteady.

A single tear slid down her cheek. Seeing it, Connor lifted a hand. His fingers were callused, yet he brushed away her tear with painstaking gentleness.

“Run away with me, Beatrice. Let me help you get out,” he said fervently. “Let me save you from all of this.”

It was precisely what Beatrice had threatened to do the night before her father died: to run off with Connor, abandoning all her responsibilities. And yet…

Let me save you. Connor didn’t understand that Beatrice no longer needed rescuing. She hadn’t been forced; she wasn’t trapped. If she’d wanted to escape being queen, the only person who could have saved her was herself.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“So that’s it? You’re going to get married, just because you think it’s part of your job description?”

Her heart broke at how fundamentally he’d misunderstood, and she bit her lip, searching for the words to explain.