what you’re feeling.’
‘What I’m feeling doesn’t matter.’ That wasn’t relevant to her role as Queen.
‘It matters to me.’
The soft anger with which he said that broke something inside her apart. ‘Stop feeling sorry for me.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ That anger in his voice built. ‘I thought you just said you were still considering marrying this guy. Aren’t you hurt by this?’
‘Of course not,’ she argued. ‘I’m many things, but I’m not hurt.’
‘Then tell me the many things. Tell me even one of them.’
‘I want Juno to be happy,’ she snapped. ‘She deserves to be happy.’ And she hoped more than anything that she was reading Leonardo’s expression right.
Alvaro nodded. ‘And you don’t deserve that?’
‘It doesn’t need to be a comparison all the time.’ Jade shook her head. ‘Just because we’re twins.’ She hated that and knew Juno did too. ‘It’s okay for me to consider her without thinking of myself the next second. I want her to be happy.’
‘Okay.’ Alvaro paused. ‘But I’m interested how this impacts on you. On what you want for yourself.’
She closed her eyes briefly. ‘I want to do what’s best and what’s right for Monrova.’
‘And what’s that?’ he kept pushing her. ‘As if who you marry is going to matter?’
‘It’s not going to matter,’ she exploded at him. ‘Because I’m not marrying anyone.’
‘Finally.’ His stance eased and his anger ebbed. ‘You’ve finally seen the light. Now let’s get going before it gets too dark and cold.’
But Jade’s anger hadn’t fallen—suddenly she was furious with him. For a few days there she’d been fine about abandoning any arranged marriage plan. But now? Now it felt as if he’d left her with nothing. He’d made her face how alone she really was. And how was she ever to meet someone? Who would ever want to join her in the extraordinarily proscribed life she led? Not him, that was for sure.
A silent hour’s drive later Alvaro pulled up outside a hotel. The receptionist’s eyes widened when they walked in and Jade knew the woman had recognised her—hopefully as Juno, not Jade, so she remained quiet when Alvaro signed them both in.
‘She recognised you,’ Alvaro murmured as he declined a porter and carried their bags himself. ‘Which is why this is your room here, while mine’s a few along.’ He paused at the door and passed her bag to her.
‘That’s the only reason we have separate rooms? For the look of it?’ she asked as lightly as she could through gritted teeth. ‘I thought you didn’t bring me along to kiss me.’
His gaze intensified, drilling through her. ‘I think we ought to eat out. I’ll knock on your door in half an hour.’
Food? Again?
She half groaned, half laughed, and let herself into her room. Maybe eating was the perfect displacement activity for them both.
She tossed Juno’s carry-all onto the bed and unzipped it to find a fresh sweater to wear. But given she’d packed in a hurry, she ended up tipping the entire jumbled contents onto the bed. As she went to lift the empty bag away, she felt a hard object in the interior pocket. She frowned, not remembering what it was she’d put in there. She unzipped it and paused when she saw the sheaf of papers. She hadn’t put this in there.
Her blood chilled as she realised these documents must be Juno’s. Jade had thought the bag was empty. But curiosity had her in its claws, because she’d caught a glimpse of photos in there, and she’d recognised the name on the top corner of one of the papers.
Alice Monroe.
Jade pulled out the pile before she could guilt herself into stopping. Because this was personal and private and she shouldn’t...but why shouldn’t she, when this was her mother, and her sister?
It was the photograph that consumed her first. Juno must’ve been about fifteen and she was standing. The defiant tilt to her mouth contrasted sharply with the sadness dulling her eyes. Jade recognised strain and pain and a world of things she shouldn’t have had to face. Not alone. Not cast out.
Because the thin, worn woman she was standing next to at a slight distance? Their mother—Alice. That formerly beautiful, once celebrated actress. In this wretched instant-print snap, she was holding a glass at an angle and her addiction on her face. All the vitality she’d once had, sucked out of her.
But she’d known so little about her mother and of the world that Juno had grown up in. And seeing this discharge form now? From a