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I wrinkle my nose, saying nothing.
Silas sighs. “Sorry about Gerhard.”
Pinching my lips together, I hold back the wave of emotion that threatens to rip me apart. I swallow past the tightness in my throat and shrug. “It was my own fault for getting close to him.”
“You know that’s not true, Pen.”
“Do I? I lost Xavier first, and I was so desperate for affection that I latched onto the first man who made me feel something. It’s pathetic.”
“It’s not.”
“What do you know about it?”
“I know how hard it is to be alone.” My brother’s words are so quiet I almost miss the pain in his voice. “You deserve to find someone. Just because you’re a queen doesn’t mean you have to be on your own.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that.”
“You don’t have to agree for it to be true.”
“Maybe I need to be alone in order to be a good leader.”
Silas snorts.
I grit my teeth. “Look what happened the first time I tried to be with someone other than Xavier. I got played for a fool, and now I’m waiting for the story to break in the newspapers so the whole kingdom can ridicule me.”
“Just because things didn’t work out with Asher doesn’t mean that’s the end of the line for you, Pen.”
“So what do you suggest? I go on Tinder? That would go over well with the tabloids.” Bitterness soaks every word. Even the birds quiet down. The wind stills, as if the landscape itself wants to show me how it feels to have nothing to keep me company.
“Jonah told me Asher lied about the merger with Donovan. Is he…Is that going ahead? Gerhard is acquiring Donovan Enterprises?”
“When I spoke to him, he didn’t deny it. He also didn’t deny the fact that he’s going to step into his father’s role. There’s no other way to look at it—he used me to advance his own career. I let him use me.”
Silas glances at my stomach and clears his throat. “And…”
I pinch my lips. “Yeah. You’re going to be an uncle.”
He nods, then stretches an arm over my shoulders. “It’ll all work out, Penelope.”
I don’t answer, because I’m not sure it’s true. I wrap my arms around my stomach and try to stuff down the worst of my fears—the slithery, quiet voices who whisper to me that my pregnancy won’t work out, either. My body will malfunction again. Something will go wrong.
Memories that were buried deep start to surface again. The months and months when I failed to conceive. The heartbreak of fertility procedures. The…desperation. The breathless sort of panic that made me feel on edge about everything, all the time. Those years were the worst years of my life. I was lost.
And afterward, resignation.
After years—years—of feeling like that, how can I allow myself to hope? In the face of what Asher did, how can I let myself think things will be okay? Even this baby inside me, who’s to say my body will work how it’s supposed to? All the evidence in my past points to disaster.
Tears burn my eyelids and I pray Silas won’t notice. I don’t want to have to explain that I’m fighting my own mind and not trusting my own body. How can my brother possibly say that things will work out? He and I have lived different realities. He’s the carefree playboy, the party animal who can do no wrong in the eyes of the public.
But me? I’m the villain. Always have been, and I always will be because it’s who I need to be in order to rule this kingdom.
Things have never worked out for me. When I dared to think they might—that day in the living room at the Summer Palace—it was Fate’s way of playing a cruel joke. I got to see everything I longed for the most. A child. A man to love. A family.
Then it was all taken away from me.
Pushing myself off the bench, I straighten my top and give Silas a tight smile. “I should get back. There’s lots of work to do.”
“Why don’t you take time off, Pen? Jonah and I can handle things here. Go back to the Summer Palace and enjoy the last of the warm weeks there. Take a break.”
