Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,87

really, really hard to ever forgive the queen for what she’d said to me or how she’d made me feel, whether that meant the prince would find it as hard to forgive me for all of the times I’d unintentionally and intentionally hurt him.

Or if he would’ve told me why I cared so much for how he felt, for me or because of me.

My head was spinning already.

The prince offered me one of his small smiles and asked, “Do you fancy eating now?”

“I’m famished,” I admitted.

His smile grew bigger and he nodded, “C’mon.”

“Oh, snap!” I gasped when I attempted to get up only to find my new necklace falling from my neck to my lap. I held it up, confused as to why it would fall down after I’d locked it, and grateful that it hadn’t happened somewhere else where I couldn’t find it later. I held it up and examined the clasp, finding that it was different from the other clasps I was used to.

“Let me?” the prince’s voice asked. His hand reached out in an offer to take the necklace from my hand, and I handed it to him.

He sat closer to me than he was a minute before. I moved my hair to the side and waited for him to put it on for me like he’d done so many times on the night of the wedding.

“There are two clasps on this necklace, the bigger one covers and secures the smaller,” he told me as he worked the locks. His breath fanned over the side of my neck, making my skin tingle and my heart beat faster, reminding me of last night and all the times I felt his very warm breath on my neck and face. One specific memory made me shiver and close my eyes as I relived the moment that I hated and loved all the same.

When I opened my eyes again, I found the prince’s once more staring deeply into mine.

I had to hold my breath at the look in his eyes. He was so close, his face only an inch away from mine, our lips almost touching–he was that close. And I knew, I just knew, that look. Oh, God! That look! I knew what he wanted. I knew what I wanted. And I knew it was the same thing. But…

“Are we pretending?” I had to ask because I had to know. He never replied to my request last night about pretending that we never shared that thing, and I wanted to make sure of what he wanted to do, or if he was going to do it. I felt like a small child, wanting to play but knowing I wasn’t allowed to do so. But the difference was that the one not allowing me to play wasn’t a parent, it was my own head. My head was denying my heart what it wanted to feel. To touch. To do.

“I’m not,” was his quick, whispered reply, which made me question his sanity, or the limits of his forgiveness. Because it was too much for me to believe that he’d forgotten all of the hurtful words I’d said to him yesterday, and was still able to look me in the eye with so much passion in those beautiful green eyes of his.

I couldn’t believe it. Too much. It was too much.

Games.

Lies.

Traps.

“Don’t kiss me,” I whispered back, and against everything in me that wanted the opposite.

“I wasn’t going to.”

And I was surprisingly disappointed and upset. To a point.

The hours that followed were peaceful. We ate and had very light conversations. Mona came and went a few times. One of those times was to take back the World Cup-thing that gave off the wonderful-smelling smoke, and I had to ask her about that tradition, and why she’d only done it starting from yesterday and not since the day of the wedding. She answered that the scent of the rosebuds that were decorating the bed on the wedding night was still filling the room and the musk would’ve killed it, so she didn’t do it the first two days. Her answer made me notice how there were lots of things that I wasn’t aware of, or hadn’t paid attention to–like the fact that I hadn’t even noticed the disappearance of the rosebuds that had covered the floor the past three days and were gone in the middle of the day yesterday. Or the disappearance of the shattered glass in the bathroom right the next day. It