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The blood drained from JK’s face. “You can’t do that!”
“Yes, we can. Tabitha will lose everything. She has no qualifications, no money in her own name. She won’t ever be queen—she won’t ever be anything. Her life will be in ruins.”
Tabitha swayed on her feet. She was going to have to go along with this for now. She and JK would have to think of a plan once Richard was pacified. “Fine, I’ll take another bodyguard, Richard. Now will you please leave me the fuck alone? I believe J and I need to say goodbye.”
Richard gave JK a withering look. “You have three hours.”
JK and Tabitha walked into the house and closed the door. Tabitha peered through the curtains to be sure Richard was driving away before flinging her arms around JK, tears springing back to her eyes.
“J, what are we going to do?”
JK hugged her back tightly. “We always knew this was going to happen, Tab. I’ll admit, I hoped we would have more time, but now that it’s here, we’ll just have to accept it.”
Wait, what?
“What are you talking about?”
JK frowned. “I’m talking about the fact that we need to part ways.”
“Are you mad? Did you seriously think I was accepting that? I was just saying that to get Richard off our backs for a while so that we could come up with a real plan!”
“Tabitha, there is only one realistic plan. We have to cut ties. Two people like you and me can’t ever be together in the real world. We have been living in a bubble. They will never accept me.”
Tabitha pulled back to look at JK. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you being disowned! I’m talking about an international scandal. I’m not going to let that happen. You’d lose everything.”
“Youaremy everything, J!”
“You may say that now, but you don’t understand the realities of the world everyone else lives in. You’ve lived an incredibly sheltered life. The real world would eat you alive.”
Hurt bloomed in Tabitha’s chest. “You think I can’t handle it?”
“I think you shouldn’t have to.”
“What if I don’t want to lose you?”
“That was always an inevitability.”
Tabitha wanted to scream. She wanted to shake JK and demand that JK fight for her… but JK wouldn’t and no amount of screaming or demanding would change her mind.
“Please, don’t go,” Tabitha whispered. “I…”
I love you.
She couldn’t say that again now though. She had said it already in the heat of the moment and it hadn’t made any difference to JK’s decision. She wasn’t going to put that on JK now again in an attempt to make her stay. When she said it again, she didn’t want it to be part of a desperate attempt to keep JK. She wanted to say it knowing that JK was as committed to her as she was to JK.
“I’m so sorry, Tabitha, but this is the way it has to be. We said from the beginning that it was just sex.”
Tabitha recoiled as though JK had hit her. “Is that really all I am to you? Just sex?”
“No,” JK admitted. “No, I think we’ve gone past the point of denying that much… but we were both wrong to get feelings involved. It was always going to end in disaster. It’s my fault. I should have been stronger. If I had resisted you from the beginning, none of this would have happened.”
“This isn’t your fault, JK! It’s my stupid family and their stupid expectations!”
“Regardless of whose fault it is, this has to end. I’m sorry, Tabitha. I should pack up my stuff.”
Tabitha stared stupidly after JK as she walked to her room, the room she hadn’t used much recently since she had practically moved into Tabitha’s room.
