“I have to go, Dad.” I bark the words into the phone as I turn toward a pale and stricken-looking Lola.
“Don’t you dare hang up on me. We’re not done here—”
“We are, absolutely, done here.” I swipe my phone off, then toss it on the nearest couch as I head toward the only woman I’ve ever loved.
“What did you just do?” she demands, wild-eyed. “Call him back. Tell him you didn’t mean it. Tell him—”
“What? That I don’t love you? That it’s okay for him to try to force me to break up with you?”
“Yes!” she says, her voice strangled. “Yes! Do
that!”
“I can’t.” I’m right in front of her now and I reach for her, determined to pull her into my arms so I can be holding her, touching her, as we hash this out. But the moment my hands touch her shoulders, she pushes me away.
“You have to! Garrett, he’s just offered you everything you want—”
“No, he didn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I love you and I want to be with you. To hell with my father and his bullshit machinations.”
“No! Don’t say that. You want the throne. You’ve always wanted the throne. That’s what this whole thing has been about—”
“That’s how this whole thing started,” I correct her. “It’s not what it’s been about. Not for a while now, and I think you know that.”
She’s shaking her head wildly, backing away with a hand held out in front of her. “Stop saying that!”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
“It’s not. It can’t be. Garrett…”
I reach for her again and this time she doesn’t fight me. Instead, she lets me pull her into my arms, against my body. “What, Lola?” I whisper as I press kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, her lips.
“This is wrong.”
“No,” I whisper against her skin. “It’s not. It’s exactly how it should be.”
“The throne.”
“Fuck the throne,” I tell her, and though there’s a pang deep inside me at the knowledge that I will never be king, it’s followed by the knowledge that I don’t want it. Not if I have to grovel at my father’s feet every ten seconds and live with his threats to pull the rug out from under me whenever I do something he doesn’t like. And not if it means having to give up Lola.
I’ve spent my whole life searching for someone who sees me, wants me, and not just the future King of Wildemar. Now that I’ve finally found her, all wrapped up in this brash, beautiful, exciting package, I’d be a fool to ever let her go.
“He wasn’t wrong. My mother was a dancer in Vegas and my father barely acknowledges I exist. That’s not the background the next Queen of Wildemar should have.”
“I’m sorry your father treats you like that—he’s an ass. But the fact that he’s an idiot doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
“No, but it might change how your people feel about me.”
“You think they don’t already know? The papers have talked for days about how you were raised by a single mother. They don’t identify your father—I presume because he’s not listed on your birth certificate—but they have talked about all the rest. The people don’t care. And even if they did, I don’t care. I love you and I want to be with you. To hell with everything else.”
She shakes her head vehemently. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I do mean it.”
I kiss her then, really kiss her, with all the messy feelings rolling around inside of me. She whimpers a little, then wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me back like we’re the last two people on earth.
I melt into her, all the angst and rage I felt at my father’s call draining away as I hold her. Kiss her. Touch her. Yes, I want the throne. I’ve never made any bones about that. But I’m not going to let my father use it as a bludgeoning tool against me, and I’m sure as hell not going to let him use it against Lola and our relationship. She means too much to me, and so does whatever we’ve spent the last two weeks building.
“I love you,” I tell her when she breaks the kiss several minutes later. “And I think you love me too. That’s more important than this merry-go-round my father has got me on—”