by Pippa Grant
Peach
As soon as Papaya is done with school Thursday night, we grab a palace driver and a set of bodyguards, and I take Gracie and Joey on a tour of the town. It’s odd how many places have already become familiar, like the bakery with the amazing biscotti and the pet supply store where Papaya likes to get treats for Fred and her other alpacas.
We have dinner at an Italian place, and I text Viktor that we’re having a bachelorette party and not to wait up.
He’s so Viktor-like in his reply:
Enjoy. I shall leave the palace lights on for you.
“Aww, look at that smile,” Gracie whispers loudly over breadsticks. She has a napkin laid over Sophie’s head as the baby sleeps in one of those sling contraptions. “She has it bad.”
“She has it disgusting,” Papaya replies.
She’s not really wrong.
I do kinda have it bad.
We’re out later than I meant to be, and the snow on the road slows us down getting back up the mountain to the palace. Viktor is passed out cold and doesn’t move when I crawl into bed, snuggling close to him to take advantage of his body heat between the chilly sheets.
He’s already at meetings when I stumble out of bed Friday morning.
Papaya has the day off school—the district declared the wedding a reason for a school holiday, which is actually pretty rude of them, considering how many working parents of younger kids will be scrambling for daycare. We spend the afternoon doing girly things, much to Papaya’s delight. Eva and Viktor’s mum joins us for pedicures and manicures and facials.
We go straight to the abbey for a rehearsal, which takes forever in the cavernous building. Everything’s so rich inside, with eight times as many hearts as King Roland had in his chamber of love.
“You should move all the furniture here and create a special exhibit,” I whisper to Viktor while the minister and Leonie and Alexander argue over the order of something or other within the ceremony.
He smiles, and his dimples pop, and I wonder if it would be inappropriate of me to grab him by the tie and seduce him in the choir loft.
Probably.
Dammit.
But he’s so damn sexy in that suit, and I haven’t seen him much at all the last two days, and he’s so attentive and perceptive and when we have to practice our vows, I believe him.
To the bottom of my heart, I believe him when he says he’ll love and honor and cherish me until his dying breath.
And it’s terrifying.
Because believing him means trusting him. Not just for today.
But forever.
There’s something terrifyingly real about this wedding.
Even if I didn’t plan it.
We have a huge feast in the informal dining room at the palace, and it’s surprisingly edible. “The chef got a boyfriend,” Papaya whispers to me over the heart-shaped turkey cutlets and squash risotto. “She was just lonely.”
“’Tis true,” Viktor confirms on my other side. “Love has cured her of the desire to punish the food.”
Because our wedding is tomorrow, we’re sitting together at the head of the table.
Dessert is an amazing crème brûlée, and I eat enough that hopefully I’ll split a seam in my dress tomorrow.
I doubt Viktor would be willing to wreck this one too, considering how much more it cost.
If I thought anyone would want it, I’d auction it for charity after we’re done tomorrow.
When we reach our bedroom suite, Viktor shuts the door softly and invites me to join him before the fire, which someone lit while we were finishing dinner. “I’ve something for you,” he tells me.
“I thought we agreed on not doing wedding gifts.”
Instead of sitting in the second chair, I crawl into his lap.
I need to know tomorrow’s going to be okay. And there’s nothing like having his arms around me to make me feel safe and secure.
I know I shouldn’t give in, but I can’t help myself.
He’s rock-steady, and for now, he’s mine.
“Not a wedding gift.” He nuzzles my hair, and I sink deeper into my happy place. “’Tis paperwork.”
“A-ha! I knew you couldn’t have a romantic bone in your body.”
He merely smiles, because he knows me. “The adoption judge retired. A new judge reviewed your case, and simply needs your signature.”
I freeze. “Seriously?” I whisper. “Joey didn’t—does Meemaw—how—Wait. What did you do? Did you pull some kingly rank crap—”
“I would prefer that I never knew why, and I shall leave it to you to ask your grandmother for more details on the back story. In the meantime, as king of Amoria, I am an authorized witness should you wish to sign these tonight.”
“But you—”
“She is yours in the eyes of American laws, my lady. As we agreed.”
I sit stunned for a minute. Warmth pools in my chest at the same time panic registers in my stomach. “You don’t want her?”
“I’ve no wish to complicate your life when it’s within my power to simplify it. If she wishes me to be a part of her life, I would be honored to remain so.”
This is a good thing.
I think.
He toys with my hair. “And there’s more,” he says quietly, as though the weight of the words are too much.
“Viktor?”
“Alexander has identified a loophole, if you will, in the succession laws. An error in the nuance of translation.”
Ice is crystallizing over my heart. “What does that mean?”
“The monarch is required to be in love with his spouse. The feeling must not be mutual in order for me to satisfy the laws of succession.”
I stare at him.
Because I think I understand what he’s saying, but I can’t make myself ask the question.
Do you love me?
No matter what he’d say, I would believe him.
And I don’t know if I’m ready for the answer.
“We do not have to go through with this wedding if you do not wish.”
“It’s not for us,” I choke out, finally finding my voice.
He studies me closely, and I watch for any flicker of indication that he wants to marry me.
That he wants to love me.
That I’m not too much trouble. That he’s not tired of me.
And I don’t know if those flickers in his steady façade are worries that I don’t want him, or worries that I do.
Now guilt is crushing all the icicles in my chest.
His grip tightens around me, and hot tears prickle my eyes. I have Papaya. Viktor doesn’t need me.
I could go home. Tomorrow. Free and clear.
“Do you want me to stay?” I whisper.
His voice is clogged and low when he answers. “I would be honored to have you at my side, my lady.”
I don’t reply, because I don’t trust my voice.
Instead, I wrap my arms around him and I kiss him silly.
Because words can be too empty. What a person does is what counts.
39
Peach
Late Saturday morning, I’m thinking I should’ve taken the easy way out.
I’m due to walk down the aisle in thirty minutes, there’s a hairdresser going to battle with my locks as if the fate of the free world depends on her spraying and arranging each strand individually in place, and the dressmaker is trying to shoehorn me into the white lace monstrosity that can probably be seen from the space station.
Joey quit laughing once I made her change into her matron of honor dress, but she’s still snickering occasionally.
Because even she recognizes that Scarlett O’Hara meets the Queen of Hearts is not my style.
Do I mind dresses?
No.
But this isn’t merely a dress.
It’s what would happen if Zeus and his twin brother went into the fashion industry with a toddler hyped up on cotton candy. More lace! More buttons! More cowbell!
/> “I think it’s sweet that you’re wearing a dress that’ll be talked about for centuries,” Gracie said. “Look at all the good you’re doing for Viktor’s country.”
I try—and fail—to keep a ridiculously goofy smile from crossing my lips.
My makeup artist shrieks in dismay and attacks my face with a powder-covered brush, then zeroes in on my lips.
Getting married to Viktor today feels weirdly right. Of all the men I’ve ever met, he’s the only one who hasn’t pushed me into anything I haven’t volunteered for from the start.
He’s let me take the lead. He’s backed me even when I’ve been irrational. And he’s been so freaking good with Papaya too.
I frown.
My makeup artist shrieks again.
“Where’s Papaya?” I ask.
“She’s right—not there,” Gracie says.
Meemaw looks up from her phone in the corner of the room. “She went to see Viktor,” she tells us.
“She did just join the king, Your Majesty,” Leonie tells me as she pops into the bride’s dressing room.
Which is literally what this ivory-papered room is called.
The bride’s dressing room.
It says so on the plaque outside.
“Is she okay?” I ask. Things have been a little wild this morning, and I’m worried she’ll use the excuse to plant a cherry bomb in the wedding cake or something.
“Oh, yes, Your Majesty,” Leonie says happily.
“Really okay, or pretending to be okay so you’d tell me she was okay?”
“Your Majesty, I promise, she is happy as a lark.”
Joey stands stiffly. She’s a total knockout, but seeing her in heels—even short heels—and a skirt is just weird. “I’ll go get her.”
“Thank you.” I blow her a kiss, and I let the makeup dictator back at my face.
Twenty minutes later, there are butterflies in my stomach and no Joey or Papaya.
No Leonie either.
I dig my phone out of the bags of crap scattered all over the room and text Viktor, asking if he’s ready.
No answer.
And we’re still on different networks, so there are no bubbles telling me he’s texting back, no delivered or read message floating at the bottom.
I’m considering panicking—or possibly just slipping out the back door when no one’s watching, because there aren’t a million cameras outside just waiting for a glimpse of the bride or anything, except there actually are—when the door flings open.
Joey strides in with Zeus on her heels. “I can’t find them.”
“You what?”
“Something in the air at these royal weddings,” Zeus mutters.
Joey pokes him. “Shush. Not helping.” She turns back to me. “Manning said Viktor stepped out to talk to Papaya in the hallway half an hour ago, and no one’s seen him since.”
“They’re just gone?”
The door opens again, and Leonie peeks in. “Oops! Sorry, Your Majesty, got confused. I thought—”
“Where’s Viktor?”
Her eyes go wide for a split second. “In the toilet, I’m sure,” she says. “I’ll just go check there.”
She disappears, and I dial Papaya’s number.
It rings in her bag across the room.
And the realization that she’s sabotaging the wedding hits me like a blow to the chest. She’s going to make it look like Viktor stood me up.
So we can go back to Alabama, back to Brantley, back to where she knows the language and can sneak out to hotwire tractors.
Viktor has a country to run. And he’s good for Amoria.
He’s good at everything he does.
But continually having to police Papaya, to clean up her messes, to answer for her mischief will just drag him down.
He offered me an out yesterday, and I didn’t take it.
Now I’m wondering if I should’ve.
For all our sakes.
I cross the room and dig out her phone, thumb in the password, and scan her missed calls and text messages.
She knows I go through her phone. It was a condition of her having it. Joey, Gracie, and Meemaw watch over my shoulder.
Everything’s in German. I can’t read a word. Except I can read emojis.
And the emojis tell a terrible story that I desperately hope I’m misunderstanding.
40
Viktor
Why must it always be the hot air balloon?
I exit the side of the abbey, spot two figures in a basket beneath a rising balloon, and I take off so fast into the snow that my feet barely touch the ground.
There’s a crowd roped off at two hundred meters, and none of them seem to realize that the two women in the basket are not, in fact, authorized operators of the flying device. I leap for the basket just as it begins to ascend, gripping the edge and vaulting myself into the basket. “Papaya Mango Maloney—” I begin, but her companion screams and begins assaulting me with a thick sandbag.
It breaks. Sand explodes everywhere, flying into my eyes.
“Papaya, set this balloon down,” I order. Bloody hell, my eyeballs have shards of glass in them. My vision is blurring, my lids blinking shut of their own accord. “Toss the guards the rope.”
“But Katrin’s parents will kill her,” she cries.
“I’m so dead,” the other girl moans in German.
I grit my teeth. “Put. It. Down.”
“We packed food and blankets this time,” Papaya says. “I mean, not enough for you, but—are you crying? Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. Peach is going to kill me for taking you.”
“Not. If you put. The balloon. Down.” I grip the side of the basket, the wind telling me we’re gaining altitude. “Pull the cord. Set the balloon down. Drop a rope to the guards—”
It takes every ounce of my determination to not rub the sand out of my eyeballs. “What the bloody hell—”
“I stole condoms out of your bedroom and gave them to her and now she’s pregnant and it’s your fault,” Papaya shrieks.
A chill races through my veins.
She’s quite right. “You took condoms from my bedchamber.” Bloody hell, I thought Peach had disposed of them after I told her they’d been tampered with.
“Peach said she knew better than to tell me not to sleep with boys, but that I needed to be smart enough to know to use protection. But I don’t want to sleep with boys. They lie and they cheat and they let you take all the blame for stealing things so that you get sent to live in foreign countries where you can’t understand what anyone’s saying and you don’t have any friends and everyone hates you. Well, now I’m stealing a balloon to save my friend, and I don’t care what you try to do to stop me.”
Heaven forbid Peach should have a normal sister who would steal a car or a truck.
“Have you any idea how to land this balloon?” I demand.
“Yeah. Duh. I looked it up on the internet.”
“Then you will land this balloon or you shall spend the rest of eternity grounded in the dungeons.”
There’s a moment of silence before the plaintive Papaya you’ve ruined my life wail explodes.
I fumble half-blind for the cord that I know must be here, and as soon as my fingers connect, I give it a yank.
Too hard of a yank, judging by the list of the balloon, but the ground is once again becoming closer.
A heavy gust of wind rolls in, accompanied by a blast of snow flurries, and the flame fueling the hot air of the balloon stutters.
We’re no more than ten meters in the air, but we’re drifting over people.
Or so I assume.
My vision is beyond blurry, my eyes stuck with needles.
“How do you turn off the flame?” I ask.
“Like this—”
“Not yet!”
Too late.
She’s extinguished the flame, and we’re no longer drifting downward.
No, now we’re plummeting.
And I fear this wo
n’t end well.
41
Peach
By the time our wedding should’ve ended, there’s a news article creeping through social media about the King of Amoria’s attempt to kidnap two teenage women and carry them over the mountains in a hot air balloon so that he could start his own harem.
I wish I was making this up, but the internet is really sick sometimes.
Viktor’s been released from the hospital with strict orders to not touch his eyeballs. Papaya checked out with a clean bill of health, and I spent the afternoon playing mediator between Katrin and her parents.
I’m almost positive Katrin is headed for a convent, which is ridiculous, but hopefully tomorrow everyone will have their rational, supportive heads back on straight.
I’ve also offered to pay for paternity testing out of my own pocket if her boyfriend pulls a dick move. Joey would’ve offered to rearrange his face, and I actually put two palace guards on her to make sure she didn’t try to on principle.
We’re barely back at the palace before Leonie informs us Miss Fiona Aurora wishes to speak with us.
“No,” I tell Leonie. “She’s not family, she’s not getting a say in anything that goes on behind these doors. And that would apply even if she was goddess of the whole entire fucking universe.”
Not even Meemaw or Viktor’s family follow us into the private wing of the palace.
It’s just me, Viktor, and Papaya.
I look at my sister. “I know, I know. I’m grounded,” she grumbles.
“We’re leaving,” I reply. “Pack your bags.”
Both Papaya and Viktor stare at me.
“But—” Papaya starts.
“Pack. Your. Bags.”
My voice cracks despite my best intentions.
And all of my intentions here are for everyone’s best.
Papaya bursts into tears and runs out of the room.
Viktor looks at me, his eyes bloodshot and swollen, sand and dirt streaked across his official Amorian uniform that he was supposed to wear for our official wedding, and I almost buckle. And that’s before he asks, “Why?” so very quietly that I wonder if I’m imagining his question.
“We’re not what you need,” I tell him. “We’re trouble and distractions and bad publicity—”
