His Majesty's Forbidden Temptat - Maisey Yates Page 0,55

all the money you need to care for your charity. I will give you a platform. But you will not be Queen. We will not marry.”

“But I want to marry you. Are you so perverse that now that I want it, you don’t want to give it to me?”

“It is not about want. It is about what must be done. And about what I must be. You can tell me all you want what you believe to be true, but I’ve seen the opposite to be so. It isn’t just general weakness. You are my weakness. And it cannot be.”

“Alex...”

“Get out.” He was a raw, wounded animal, his words shredded, his eyes haunted. And they hurt her, his words. But they were designed to. He wanted to hurt her, as he was hurt. Hurt her so she would run.

Knowing it didn’t make it hurt less.

“You can’t possibly be sending me away.”

“I am. Because I must.”

“You don’t have to do anything. You can make a new choice. You can start over. Your mother is dead. She doesn’t get to decide who you are.”

“My brothers are also dead. And they can never decide who they want to be. And that’s because of me.”

“This is only impossible because you’re making it impossible.”

“If that’s how you have to see it, then that is the way of it. I am the King. And if I choose for it to be impossible, then it will be impossible.”

“Don’t do this.”

“It is done,” he said. “And we cannot go back.”

Despair broke inside of her like a dam. And instead of following orders, she dropped to her knees.

And she knew that she should be ashamed. Except... She wasn’t. She felt brave, even as she was falling apart. She felt powerful. Because she wasn’t scared to love in this capacity. With this depth that created despair in her that seemed to block out any and all hope.

He was, though. He was afraid of letting go of the past. He was afraid of what it would mean if he let himself love. He was lost in the middle of the Dark Wood, not her. He had never come back out the day he had gone to search for his brother.

“You have to choose to be found,” she said softly. “Nobody can do it for you, Alex. You have to choose.”

“I’ve made my choice.”

A broken sob escaped her lips. “Very well,” she said. “If this is what you want, I can’t make you do anything else. I’m not a king. I’m just a girl who loves you. But think of all the things you have dominion over. Think of all the things you can buy, all the things you can control, and ask yourself if I’m one of them. You could not force this. You could not buy it. I had to choose it. And you have to choose it back. There is no fate. The only person keeping you from being happy right now is you. You can choose to be as good as you want to be. As happy as you want. As miserable as you want. You can choose to be defined by what happened. Or you can choose to move forward. It’s up to you. You know where to find me.”

She dressed slowly, then walked down the hall. She looked around her room, at the pieces of herself she had brought to the palace. Baskets of yarn stacked in front of ancient tapestries. A cat carrier on an antique highboy. A ferret and two hedgehogs in cages adjacent to an Oriental rug that was probably older than the Ottoman Empire.

And she smiled. In spite of the jagged pieces inside of her heart. She smiled because...she was good enough to be here. And she loved him enough. But she couldn’t be healed for him. He had to heal himself. She had chosen to be happy. She had chosen to move on.

To decide that what her mother had told her about herself wasn’t true.

And he would have to do the same. In his own time.

As for her part... She would leave. She would leave without taking his money. Because she would find a way. She would.

And she didn’t want to use the King. Not at all.

Because she refused to contribute to the story that he told himself about what made him matter.

She could survive on her own. And no matter that she didn’t want to, she could.

Without her mother’s approval, without inheritance.

Without Alex, even, if it came down to it.

Because