Stealing His Princess (Kings of Conquest #2) - Adelaide Forrest Page 0,44

without a doubt, that Aric felt something for me. He'd have never risked hurting Holden by being with me if he didn't.

It just wasn't enough for him to fight for me. I wasn't enough to make him take a risk on the happiness we could share. That hurt, maybe even more than it would have if I believed he didn't love me.

To be loved but never worth taking a risk, wasn't that the greatest pain of all?

"What. Did. You. Do?" Holden repeated, his jaw clenched and the protectiveness I so often fought against displaying itself as he glared at his friend. When his attention fell back on me, to my tear streaked face, a warning growl sounded low in his throat.

"It wasn't his fault," I whispered, staring up into the blue eyes I knew so well. Eyes that I knew without a doubt I could never spend my life staring into, whether I had green eyes waiting for me or not.

I couldn't and wouldn't go through with the marriage to Holden.

The realization felt like a weight being lifted from my shoulders, a firm reminder that there had always been another option. It had seemed unthinkable for the entirety of my life, but the rare freedom I'd felt when I made my own decisions for just a short time solidified my course. I straightened, knowing that with Aric as an audience wouldn't be the right time to have that conversation with Holden.

I didn't know the specifics of what he’d told Aric about our relationship, but I wouldn't risk embarrassing him.

"It was mine," I admitted. "It was my fault for thinking I mattered to someone." I looked over at Aric, watching as he flinched when my words struck his chest. I imagined the feeling of them squeezing his heart, making blood rush to his head. I hoped that was how he felt.

It was certainly how I felt every time he wounded me with the weapons of his words.

"Bristol—" he started.

"You matter," Holden sighed, leaning down to touch his forehead to mine. "I'm sorry if I haven't been there for you the way I should. I'll do better—"

"No," I cut him off. "You've done nothing wrong. I'm the one who made a mistake." I glanced at Aric, fighting back the sting of more tears as they burned my eyes. "I spent too many years playing by other people's rules and living a life that wasn't mine. I'd forgotten what it's like to do something I enjoy just because I feel like it." I reached up to touch his cheek, patting it softly before turning to face Aric.

His hands fisted at his sides as he glared at every point of contact between Holden and I. I wondered if it grated on him, thinking that Holden would be my husband soon enough, and that it would be Holden who shared my bed. That he had turned me away and knowingly handed me back to his best friend, like a toy he'd gotten tired of playing with.

Still, I couldn't fault him. I'd known what this had to be when we first started flirting with the disaster that would become us. Knowing I'd brought it upon myself just didn’t stop it from hurting.

Given that my alternative would mean leaving everything I knew and loved behind, the consequences of my actions would probably haunt me through my life. I couldn't exist in a society that condemned me for terminating a beneficial marriage that could secure an alliance.

Holden's eyes turned to his friend as they narrowed into a glare. "She may say it's not your fault, but I don't know that I agree with that assessment. What have you done, Aric? Did you touch the woman who will be my wife?" he asked, his face drifted off in disbelief, as if he couldn't quite wrap his head around the betrayal that had come from the last person he expected.

"You've no right to be upset about it when you don't even want her," Aric growled. There'd been a time when those words would have stung, but having accepted the fact that I knew in my heart I couldn't marry Holden? Well, it hardly mattered that he didn't want me.

He wouldn't be my husband in the end. Neither of them would.

For the first time in my life, I felt free from the shackles of my responsibilities. Holden would marry another Princess who could be a good Queen to Mitnar. I'd find a man who saw me and wanted me. A man