“You just need to be honest,” Jamie said. “Which is why you need to do it in Boston, away from here. You need to show her how you feel about her in the one place that always caused you so much heartache.”
“So I need to go to Boston.”
“You need to go to Boston.”
“I don’t understand,” Clarissa said as she watched me pack.
Maddox stood by watching with a grimace on his face. He wanted to be the one packing my bag, but I needed to do something. Now that I’d decided to try to win Frankie back, I was eager to get going.
“The king is sending me to Boston,” I replied. “And you’re coming with me.”
“We’re coming back, right?” she asked warily.
I stopped what I was doing, much to Maddox’s relief, and turned to her.
“I’m coming back,” I said. “But you won’t be, not unless you intend to visit as a tourist.”
“What does that mean?”
“Come on, Clarissa, you know exactly what it means. Our relationship was over months ago. If we’re both honest, we never really had a relationship, not in the true sense.”
“I love you, Lucas,” she cried.
“No, you don’t,” I said with a sigh. “I know what you see when you look at me and it’s not the man you want to spend the rest of your life with. You see a means to an end. If we had gotten married, I know it would have ended in divorce within a couple of years and I know I would be as much to blame as you. I don’t love you, Clarissa, and I never did. We were both using each other, and it’s time for it to stop.”
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack,” I said.
Clarissa huffed out a breath and folded her arms. “So that’s it? We’re done?”
“We were done the minute you walked out on my original proposal. Thank you, by the way. If you hadn’t done that, then we would have been tied together in an unhappy marriage and I would never have been brave enough to admit how I really feel about Frankie.”
“I knew it,” Clarissa spat. “You always had a thing for her, even when we were together.”
“No,” I said. “I can promise you there was nothing more than friendship between Frankie and me when you and I were together. But when you broke up with me and Frankie and I started this whole charade, I realized something. I realized I’d been fooling myself for a long time. Now I’m ready to stop pretending and go after what I really want. I’m so sick of letting other people steer my life. I’m so sick of trying to be the person everyone else wants me to be. It’s time I fought for myself and for what I want in my life.”
“And you want Frankie?”
I nodded and grinned. “I want Frankie.”
Clarissa rolled her eyes. “I honestly don’t know what you see in her.”
I shrugged. “I don’t care what you think of her. I love her.”
Clarissa snorted. “And you think she’s going to be any good at all this?” she asked, raising her arms to indicate the palace.
“I actually think she will be an amazing markissia,” I said.
“I doubt that very much. What is she going to do? Wow everyone with her cocktail making skills?”
“That’s really mean,” I said with a shake of my head. “You know how you sound, right?”
“You think other people aren’t going to be thinking the same things about her? She is hardly royalty material.”
“And you are?”
“I come from a respectable family and I at least know which knife and fork to use at dinner.”
“Do you know anything about Frankie at all?”
“Why would I?”
I shook my head. “Seriously, Clarissa. Frankie is studying sociology and psychology and anthropology. In fact, she’s doing her Ph.D. and yes, she might work in a bar but so what? It’s honest work, and she enjoys it. As for her family, not that it has any bearing whatsoever on the caliber of Frankie’s character, but her mother is the leading neurosurgeon at Mass General and her father works in the grant department at Harvard. But even if her mother worked in a diner and her father worked in sanitation, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to me or to the king and queen. Frankie is an amazing person and not only do I love her but so does nearly every other person she comes into contact with.”
“Not me.”
“Yeah well maybe that has more to do with you than with Frankie.” I stopped and took a breath, running my hand through my hair. “Look, I don’t want this to denigrate into slinging match. You don’t have to love Frankie, you don’t even have to like her. The only thing that concerns me is how I feel about her and how she feels about me. As for you and me? We’re done. Your opinion of me no longer concerns me. I know you came here to try to resurrect our relationship, but even you have to admit it was a long shot. I don’t feel any ill will toward you, in fact I don’t really feel anything toward you. I’m grateful for that night you broke up with me because it gave me a chance with Frankie. So thank you.”
“So that’s it? There’s nothing more to say?”
“That’s right. We’re done and I don’t know how many more times I can say it or how many different ways I need to say it to get you to accept it.”
“Fine,” Clarissa spat and stormed out.
I breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed onto a chair. I had never had a confrontation like that before…I’d never really had any confrontation before. My heart raced with the letdown of adrenaline and I felt weirdly wired. Never before had I actually stood up to someone and held my ground. I think I surprised Clarissa as much as I surprised myself. Now if I could only do that with my parents, I might have crossed over into being a fully formed adult.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, though. I may have said what I needed to say to Clarissa, but the stakes were nowhere near as high as standing up to my parents…or Frankie.
I didn’t exactly expect to have a confrontation with Frankie, although I would need to argue my case and hold my ground. There might even be tears—mine, not hers—but I knew I had to do this. It was my last shot at getting the life of my dreams. For far too long I had been happy to just go along with everyone else’s plan for my life, but coming to Kalopsia showed me I could reach for something I want and achieve it. Now I was greedy for all the things. I wanted this new life in Kalopsia and I wanted it with Frankie by my side.
Now I just had to convince Frankie.
Chapter 25
Francesca
Another day, another shift at the bar.
The days had begun to run one into another with nothing to distinguish them. I wasn’t depressed, I just didn’t feel anything anymore. Mom said I was grieving, and she was probably right. Lucas hadn’t died, but the relationship we’d had for five years was certainly dead in the water and I knew I was to blame.
I sighed and groaned and stretched all at once. I was tired, except I couldn’t sleep. I just lay in bed all night and stared at the ceiling, rehashing the entire month I’d been in Kalopsia with Lucas, and wondering what I could have done differently. Some nights, I wished I’d turned down his initial proposal and then other nights I wished I’d been brave enough to accept the words he offered me on the terrace that night…when he told me he loved me…and I told him I didn’t love him back.