It was always like this with Jeff, wasn’t it? The old magic kept pulling her in, the way it always did.
When Jeff had stopped laughing, he stared at Nina’s hands, her palms flat against the surface of the table. He looked like a contestant on one of those shopping-network shows, choosing between two doors that contained prizes.
Finally he tapped Nina’s left hand. “This one.”
She flipped them both over. The quarter was beneath her right hand.
Jeff exhaled, no longer smiling. “I never can read you, Nina Gonzalez.”
Nina was hyperaware of the distance between them, the way that the space was suddenly shrinking.
“You and Jamie…,” Jeff asked hesitantly. “Are you serious about him?”
She sucked in a breath. “You can’t ask me that.”
“Why not? I’m your friend—”
“Just stop!” She slammed her hands against the table again, much harder than she had during their game. Jeff’s eyes widened.
“Sam is my friend,” she went on. “You and I are too complicated, okay? There’s too much history.”
He looked stricken. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“But you are losing me.” Some of the fight drained from her. “Don’t you get it? You’re marrying Daphne tomorrow.”
He did reach for her hand then, and Nina let him.
The night was heavy and soft, headlights tracing down the city streets like fireflies. Nina heard the low rumble of traffic, the voices of all the thousands of people gathered to watch tomorrow’s parade. She had space to drink in all these details because the world had gone utterly still. The only thing that moved was her blood, pulsing beneath her skin where her hand held Jeff’s.
Jeff shifted, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if the paparazzi hadn’t gotten those photos of you, back when we dated?”
Of course she’d wondered.
What might have happened if she’d told Jeff how she felt about him earlier? If she hadn’t been so worried about the tabloids’ negativity? If the media hadn’t sunk its teeth into their relationship when they had just barely started dating, would she and Jeff have stood a real chance?
If, if, if. Nina was sick of imagining the countless ways their relationship could have played out. This was the way it had played out, and she had to live with that, for better or worse.
She snatched her hand away and tucked it safely in her lap. “You didn’t mean to do that,” she declared, thinking of his question and the way he’d held her hand. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” Jeff insisted.
“Yes, you are. Because otherwise you’re being unbearably cruel: to me, and especially to Daphne. We both deserve better.”
Jeff ran a hand over his face. He looked like he was on the verge of crying, or shouting. “I’m sorry. It’s just…so much has changed over the past couple of years, and I’m struggling to keep up with it all, and I feel like I can’t breathe.” He shook his head. “I know it’s ridiculous and you shouldn’t feel sorry for me, but I just wanted to explain why I’m doing this. Why I keep coming back to you. I still—”
“Don’t,” she cut in angrily. “Don’t say it.” If he said I still love you, she might burst into tears.
Because no matter how hard she tried to scrub it away, a part of her still loved him, too. He had been her first love, and perhaps Nina was old-fashioned or just plain foolish, but she didn’t find it that easy to swing from love to antipathy.
“I hope you and Daphne are happy together. I really do.” Nina tried to mean it. “But I can’t be friends with you, Jeff.”
Oxford would be good for her. Maybe she could forget Jeff, not having to constantly see his face on the cover of every tabloid. In England, they were far too preoccupied with their own royal family to care all that much about America’s.
She would always be friends with Sam, but it was time she put some space between her and Jeff. She wasn’t strong enough to go on any more Washington family trips where she would be forced to watch him and Daphne together. It would cut her to the quick, being around them and knowing he had once been hers. Maybe that was cowardice, but Nina liked to think of it as self-preservation.
All she knew was that she couldn’t keep doing this: being pulled close to him, then losing him again.
“I understand,” Jeff said quietly.
He didn’t look very princely in that moment. He looked like a bewildered young man who had lost his father and sought comfort in the wrong people; who had been thrust into a role that no one had trained him for and had squared his shoulders and carried the burden anyway. He looked pained and confused, and Nina had to force herself to mumble goodbye before she messed everything up by hugging him. Or worse.
She made it all the way downstairs and into a car before the tears escaped her eyes. Something caught in her chest and she turned her face toward the window, not caring if the driver heard her sobs. Surely he’d driven a crying girl home before.
There was a sharp pain in her chest that reminded her of the time Rachel had dared her to drink straight vodka—a sharp burning sensation that trailed all the way down to her core.
Nina told herself it was the feeling of letting go of Jeff. This time, for good.
Beatrice had inherited many things from her father: his analytical brain, his deep brown eyes, his tendency to escape into work during times of emotional stress. Which was why, after Jeff’s rehearsal dinner, she retreated into her office and shut the door.
On her desk sat the Royal Dispatch Box, a wooden box lined in leather and embossed with BR. She opened it and began to read the first few papers in her stack, a congressional report on natural gas pipelines. It was nowhere near interesting enough to keep her mind from wandering: replaying that conversation with Teddy on a vicious loop.
“Béatrice!”
The voice that sounded outside her office was somehow imperious and giddy at once. Beatrice heard a footman reply, “I’m sorry, Your Royal Highness, but Her Majesty has retired for the evening—”
“There is light from inside the office!” Louise pronounced it as ze off-isse, her French accent getting thicker as she grew agitated. “I know she will see me!”
Beatrice stood, intrigued by the interruption. Teddy had told her all about her new friendship with Princess Louise, how close they’d gotten during the League of Kings conference. She went to open the door and smiled tentatively.
“Hi, Louise.”