The Queen's Impossible Boss (The Christmas Princess Swap, Book 2) Page 16

  ‘I’ve fallen in love with you,’ she said, amazed at her own calmness. ‘I know you joked it might happen. But you weren’t being arrogant, in fact you were selling yourself short. You’re very easy to fall in love with.’ She ran her tongue over her suddenly dry lips. ‘You don’t have to worry. I’m not proposing. I’m not asking you for a future. I know that’s impossible. But I’m telling you how I feel. That’s all. I’m trying to be honest.’

  ‘No, Jade. I...’ He actually looked sorry. ‘I don’t think this is true.’

  ‘I’m doing the one thing you’ve encouraged me to do. I’m picking my favourite. And it’s you.’ Her equilibrium began to tilt. ‘Only now you decide you don’t want to hear it?’

  ‘You’re...’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve been very sheltered.’

  ‘Are you about to suggest that I shouldn’t trust my own feelings?’ She glared at him.

  His jaw clenched but he forced a breath. ‘I’m about to suggest that you’re inexperienced in these things.’

  ‘And you aren’t?’

  He laughed. Short, bitter, biting.

  ‘When did you last have a long-term relationship, Alvaro?’ she challenged. ‘When did you last open up to anyone?’

  His smile vanished.

  ‘Emotional intimacy is something you dodge like a vampire avoiding sunlight,’ she snapped.

  He stilled, silenced.

  ‘Nothing to say to that?’ she asked.

  She didn’t even want him to say anything now. She just wanted to run away. She didn’t know what she’d thought would happen. As if confessing this would help in some way? That he might appreciate what she’d just given him?

  Yeah, so wrong on that.

  Anger bubbled—like none she’d ever felt.

  ‘So your plan now is to leave?’ He shifted in his seat.

  She could feel the tension streaming from him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’ His cold gaze sliced through her. ‘Why leave early when you’ve suddenly realised your feelings for me? Why miss out on the few days we have left? Are you too scared to see it through, Jade?’ His accusation burned. ‘You still don’t really believe in your choices yet, do you?’

  Why was he being so cruel?

  ‘Because it’s going to hurt me,’ she said. ‘And if I stay ’til the end, it will hurt more.’

  ‘So, you’ll admit love in one breath, but run away in the next?’

  ‘It’s not like you’re perfect.’ His antagonism riled her. ‘You act like you have it all together. Like you’re cool and all in control. You think you have your life just the way you want it and, sure, it’s pretty good. To a point. But you’re as much of a coward as I am. In fact, more so.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’ he snapped.

  ‘Your awesome “independence”? Your whole refusal to be a burden to anyone? It’s a cover, so you can hide and not open up, not let anyone in. Because if you let someone in, if you let someone shoulder what you’ve got going on in there...’

  ‘Then what?’ He dared her to say it, frigid rage on his face.

  ‘Then they might leave you.’

  He visibly withdrew. That iron anger hardened his amber eyes. ‘I think that’s your fear talking, Jade.’

  ‘Sure. But it’s your fear too. You choose to be alone. You choose isolation. And it’s hurting you. You should find someone and make your own family.’

  ‘You sound like Ellen.’

  ‘She knows you better than anyone. And she’s right,’ Jade said. ‘You deserve happiness and you should have it all with someone. You shouldn’t lock yourself away the way you do.’

  ‘I don’t lock myself away. And I don’t want a family.’

  ‘Because you don’t care?’ She shook her head. ‘That’s all you do, Alvaro. You are the lighthouse. You’re tall and strong and you care for people, you protect them. Like Ellen. Like your employees... But you don’t just keep “safe reserves”, Alvaro. You also have rocks around you, just like that lighthouse. They’re your defence—warning people to stay away from you. Keeping you isolated. But lighthouses aren’t fully automated machines, they still need care and attention. They still need a keeper to refuel them. They still need that source of power, at least that one person to keep them switched on. You need that.’

  And so badly she wanted his one person to be her.

  ‘And the irony is,’ she said sadly, ‘that bright light attracts us all. We’re like moths. We want to be around you. To love you. Only you won’t let anyone in.’

  He didn’t just look shocked. He looked horrified.

  ‘Jade...’ He paused for a moment, clearly searching carefully for the right words. ‘I can’t give you what you want.’

  And they were the wrong words.

  ‘This was only ever an affair,’ he added. ‘This wasn’t meant to...’

  ‘Become something more?’ She knew that this was meant to have been nothing other than an escape for them both. But that didn’t explain everything. And, heaven help her, she couldn’t stop herself from asking. ‘I can’t walk away from you without being honest, Alvaro. And I won’t allow you to do that either.’

  ‘You won’t allow it?’

  ‘You encouraged me to speak up for my own desires. To demand what I wanted from you. So tell me.’

  ‘Tell you what?’ he suddenly exploded. ‘And for what purpose? What possible benefit is there to this?’

  For all his demands of her, that encouragement of her, he didn’t talk. And now she was furious.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ she yelled at him.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Christmas Day on steroids. Why?’

  He gaped. Then breathed. ‘I didn’t. I told you. I just phoned up a company and they set it all up.’

  ‘At your suggestion,’ she pointed out, her emotions slipping away again. ‘But you thought of it. You went to that expense and the effort, because you took the time, you had the consideration. Why did you want to do that for me?’

  He glanced away then. ‘Maybe it wasn’t for you. Maybe it was for me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘You know I never had those things either.’ Frustration ripped out of him. ‘We have more in common than you might think, Jade. You had everything, but not the treats. I had nothing, and certainly not the treats. I figured we could both have them for once.’

  ‘And that’s all it was?’ She didn’t want to believe him. She’d wanted it to mean more. For it to have mattered.

  ‘You only had three weeks, Jade,’ he said, almost plaintively. ‘Only a few days. It was your one Christmas of freedom. I wanted to make it good for you.’

  ‘So you only took me there because you knew I was leaving?’ she asked. ‘You wouldn’t have bothered otherwise? With any of it? So, really, it was pity?’ He’d done it all because he felt sorry for her.

  ‘No. It was a gift.’

  A gift? Something nice for the poor, little rich girl?

  Christmas Day had just been a favour, a benevolent, charitable act? Hell, it had basically been a job for him. And sleeping with her in the first place had been a favour too.

  Bitter disappointment broke her heart. He broke her heart.

  And then she saw it on his face—the apology. She didn’t want his apology. She wanted his love.

  ‘Jade—’

  ‘It’s time for me to leave, Alvaro.’ She tried to open the car door but it wouldn’t open.

  ‘Jade.’

  ‘Now, Alvaro.’ She needed him to let her leave.

  And this time he listened. The car door locks unclicked. The door swung open. And Jade escaped.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE SALON IN Monrova’s Palace Monroyale was still decorated with tall fir trees dressed in scarlet and gold satin ribbons. The same way it had been decorated for the mo
nth of December for decades—or at least, for all of Jade’s life. Everything was the same—as if she’d never been away or, indeed, never been there at all. She passed the antique furniture knowing she should feel pride in their craftsmanship, their preserved glory...instead they stifled her.

  Jade wheeled her trolley case herself, smiling at the footman’s astounded expression as he held the door for her.

  ‘Good morning.’ She smiled tightly.

  ‘Your Highness.’ He blushed as he bowed.

  She walked towards the west wing, where her private apartment was situated within the palace.

  ‘Your Highness.’ Major Garland halted midway along the wide corridor, a perplexed look wrinkling his very high forehead. ‘I thought you were—’

  ‘In Severene, I know.’ Jade kept walking. ‘I apologise for the confusion.’

  ‘But—’ His eyes had bugged almost out of his skull. ‘You are in Severene, right now. With—’

  ‘Clearly, I’m not,’ Jade said crisply. She wasn’t about to waste time debating her identity with this supercilious advisor who’d always seemed to sneer at her. ‘The princess who is currently in Severene is my twin, Juno. I am Jade.’

  Major Garland’s mouth hung open for an unflattering few seconds. ‘But—’

  ‘No buts, Major. It is truly me and if we need to get the palace physician to verify it we can, or you can just take me at my word. Juno and I switched places for a few weeks but I’ve returned a couple of days earlier than we originally planned.’

  ‘You...what?’ A purple hue tinged the expanding frown on Major Garland’s face. ‘You switched places? As if you’re twelve?’ He straightened to glower down at her from his full height. ‘May I remind you, Princess Jade—’

  ‘You may not,’ she interrupted him. Because calling her ‘Princess Jade’ revealed exactly what he thought of her. That she was still a child. She wasn’t. She was the Queen. And she was also tired and devastatingly heartsore and she grasped for the control expected of her. But, she realised, control didn’t mean meekness and mildness. This was a time for honesty and assertiveness and getting what she needed—which was support and clarity. Neither of which, she finally realised, she was probably ever going to get from Major Garland. ‘I’m the Queen, Major Garland, and I know what my obligations are and I do not need you or anyone else to tell me what I should or should not have done in the past, be doing now or, indeed, do in the future.’

  His eyes widened and his mouth hung ajar for another moment. ‘But—’

  ‘I need you to gather my senior staff,’ she said firmly. She raised her eyebrows at him when he didn’t move. ‘Now, please, Major.’

  ‘Uh...’ He swallowed. ‘Of course, Your Majesty. I shall assemble everyone in the Rose Room.’

  The Rose Room was a large, cold, uncomfortable conference space where her father had always met with his pompous advisors sitting before—and literally beneath—him at unfriendly rectangular tables. The hierarchy of the palace had been defined by the seating positions. The King himself had sat like some despotic dictator at his own table on a raised platform above them all. Jade had always hated sitting up there for them all to talk to her as if she were still two. ‘Actually, I’d prefer not to use the Rose Room for this meeting, thank you, Major.’

  His expression puckered as if he’d sucked on something sour. ‘But—’

  ‘It’s too large and too cold for me. I’d prefer to meet everyone in the dining room.’

  ‘The dining room?’ He looked thunderstruck.

  She would have laughed if she weren’t so cold and tired.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, drawing in a calm response. She could keep calm and courteous, she was the Queen and she would not shout at any of her people. ‘The table is large for us to all fit around. Let’s meet in half an hour. We need to summon my assistant back from Severene.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘Actually, leave that to me. I’ll sort that when I speak to Juno.’

  Minutes later in the privacy of her apartments, she pulled Juno’s phone from her pocket and finally turned it on. She’d avoided the task while she’d travelled home. Now she stared at the screen, but there was nothing. No ping, ping, ping of incoming messages. There wasn’t even one—let alone any from the one person she wanted to hear from most of all.

  Drawing a breath, she touched the keypad and called her sister.

  ‘What’s this about you being back in Monrova?’ Juno asked instead of even saying hello.

  ‘You’ve heard already?’ Jade shook her head. Major Garland was very efficient. ‘News travels fast.’

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Juno asked.

  ‘More importantly, is everything okay with you?’ Jade questioned. ‘I heard...’

  ‘I did something stupid,’ Juno said quickly. ‘But I’m fine. In fact, I’m better than fine...’

  Jade gripped the phone, listening closely to her sister’s effervescence as she confessed that she hadn’t just ‘jumped’ King Leonardo. She’d fallen in love with him and he had with her. The joy was something Jade hadn’t heard in her sister’s voice in so long and she loved it. They planned to marry as soon as possible, meaning Juno would become the queen that Jade had always known her sister was capable of being. It was perfect and everything that Jade needed right now.

  ‘You’re going to live near.’ Jade’s eyes filled with the sweetest relief. ‘You’re going to be my neighbour.’ It was a balm soothing her own devastation.

  ‘Jade?’ Juno suddenly paused. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Better than okay.’ Jade made herself nod. ‘It was just time for me to come home. I’m ready, Juno, really ready to be here and do this the way I actually want to. I had a great time away. It was so good for me.’

  None of that was a lie. She couldn’t regret a moment of it. But she heard Juno’s hesitation and her intake of breath and knew she was going to ask something difficult and unavoidable.

  ‘Now, when’s the wedding going to be?’ Jade spoke again quickly to head off Juno’s query.

  She knew her sister could hear something in her voice. Even when they’d spent so many years apart, they could tell—there was no real ability to lie to each other. To conceal, yes, but not outright lie. So she had to distract. Fortunately, Juno fell for it, her happiness swamping her—making it impossible for her not to answer and share her joy.

  Jade listened with pure delight and then they quickly made plans to front up to the press. The only way forward for them both was with honesty.

  The irony that everything she’d done to save her sister’s job was now rendered utterly pointless wasn’t lost on Jade. She didn’t even need to tell Juno about anything that had happened in New York. Certainly nothing about Alvaro. She couldn’t anyway; she didn’t want to say anything that would cause Juno to worry about her. She would let nothing diminish her sister’s much-deserved happiness.

  Juno and Leonardo the couple came as no real surprise. Jade had suspected there was something between them from the moment she’d seen those photos from the Monrova Winter Ball. And now, listening to Juno, she knew they brought the best out in each other. Some things were just meant to be.

  She and Alvaro, however, were not.

  He’d caught her eye from the first second—he was compelling and magnificent. But then, when he’d let her in? Let her really see him? Not just feel him, not just touch him, but be with him—his intelligent and laughing, protective and vulnerable, utterly passionate self?

  But Alvaro hadn’t argued, hadn’t begged her to stay, hadn’t really said anything when she’d told him she loved him. And he certainly hadn’t wanted to hear what she’d finally been brave enough to say. And that hurt her deeply. She’d never said that to anyone before.

  While on the one hand he’d given her so much—a joie de vivre and an inner confidence she’d been missing—he’d also devastated her. Because she want
ed everything else from him too. She wanted him. And for the briefest of moments, she’d thought he wanted her too.

  But he didn’t.

  The afternoon she returned to Monrova—having liaised with Leonardo and Juno, and with her assistant back by her side to help—she read her prepared statement to the teleprompter. She’d watched King Leonardo make his statement and then take a couple of questions only moments before her live cross. Beside him, Juno had looked beautiful—she was literally glowing. It was the only thing that got Jade through the broadcast.

  What got her through the next couple of days was pure grit. She called on Serena, her assistant to work through switching up her daily schedule and her long-term commitments, finally changing some of the routine that her father had imposed on her life for so long. Finally, she felt liberated and able to make her own calls. Hiring a new personal trainer was going to be one of them, she laughed at herself. Calm but nervous, questioning herself but with growing confidence in her own choices, she began. She was going to be okay—eventually. Because she’d found her own voice.

  But at night her mind wandered and she remembered things that were so wonderful, but so bad for her. She’d asked for what she wanted from Alvaro. Repeatedly. And he’d given it to her. He’d listened. He’d not minimised her desires as the irascible wishes of a spoilt princess, but seen them for what they were—the real, secret desires of a lonely woman who’d wanted to feel something for once. Who’d yearned to be wanted in return.

  She’d been such a fool about that bit. He’d just been giving her the fairy tale for a fortnight. Because, for just a fortnight, he could. He could deliver every desire, every dream...because it was finite and it was only physical. Because there was not and never would be a future in it. And that was safe for him, wasn’t it?

  But the second she’d suggested that there might be a future?

  That was when he’d pulled back. Because he hadn’t meant any of it. He had just been indulging her. Spoiling her. Like the poor little rich royal she was.