Rhys and I didn’t talk again on the plane, but he’d taken my mind off my grandfather’s situation enough I crashed after he left. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and I was out like a light for most of the flight.
When we landed, though, all my nerves came rushing back, and it was all I could do not to snap at the driver to go faster as we sped through downtown toward the hospital. Every second we spent at a red light felt like a second I was losing with my grandfather.
What if I missed seeing him alive by a minute, or two, or three?
A wave of lightheadedness hit me, and I had to close my eyes and force myself to take deep breaths so I didn’t drown beneath my anxiety.
When we finally arrived at the hospital, we found Markus, my grandfather’s Private Secretary and right-hand man, waiting for us by the secret entrance they used for high-profile patients. I’d spotted the crush of reporters outside the main entrance from the car, and the sight made my anxiety triple.
“His Majesty is fine,” Markus said when he saw me. He looked more disheveled than usual, which in Markus’s world meant one of his hairs was out of place and there was a small, barely noticeable crease in his shirt. “He woke up just before I came down.”
“Oh, thank God.” I breathed a sigh of relief. If my grandfather was awake, things couldn’t be too bad. Right?
We took the elevator to my grandfather’s private suite, where I found Nikolai pacing the hall outside with a frown.
“He kicked me out,” he said by way of explanation. “He said I was hovering too much.”
I cracked a smile. “Typical.” If there was one thing Edvard von Ascheberg III hated, it was being fussed over.
“Yeah.” Nikolai let out a half-resigned, half-relieved laugh before he swept me into a hug. “It’s good to see you, Bridge.”
We didn’t see or talk to each other often. We lived different lives—Nikolai as crown prince in Eldorra, me as a princess trying her best to pretend she wasn’t one in the U.S.—but nothing bonded two people like a shared tragedy.
Then again, if that were true, we should be thick as thieves since our parents’ deaths. But things hadn’t quite worked out that way.
“It’s good to see you too.” I squeezed him tight before greeting his girlfriend. “Hi, Sabrina.”
“Hi.” She gave me a quick hug, her face warm with sympathy.
Sabrina was an American flight attendant Nikolai met during a flight to the U.S. They’d been dating for two years, and their relationship had generated a media firestorm when it first came to light. A prince dating a commoner? Tabloid heaven. Coverage had died down since then, partly because Nikolai and Sabrina kept their relationship under such tight wraps, but their pairing was still very much gossiped about in Athenberg society.
Perhaps that was why I felt such pressure to date someone “appropriate.” I didn’t want to disappoint my grandfather, too. He’d warmed up to Sabrina, but he’d had a conniption when he first found out about her.
“He’s waiting for you inside.” Nikolai flashed a lopsided grin. “Just don’t hover or he’ll kick you out too.”
I managed a laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’ll wait here,” Rhys said. He usually insisted on following me everywhere, but he seemed to know I needed alone time with my grandfather.
I gave him a grateful smile before I stepped into the hospital room.
Edvard was, as promised, awake and sitting up in bed, but the sight of him in a hospital gown and hooked up to machines brought back an onslaught of memories.
“Daddy, wake up! Please wake up!” I sobbed, trying to break out of Elin’s grasp and run to his aside.“Daddy!”
But no matter how loud I screamed or how hard I cried, he remained pale and unmoving. The machine next to his bed let out a flat, steady whine, and everyone in the room was yelling and running around except for my grandfather, who sat with his head lowered and shoulders shaking. They’d forced Nikolai to leave the room earlier, and now they were trying to get me to leave too, but I wouldn’t.
Not until Daddy woke up.
“Daddy, please.” I’d screamed myself hoarse, and my last plea came out as a whisper.
I didn’t understand. He’d been okay a few hours ago. He went out to buy popcorn and candy because the palace kitchen ran out and he said it was silly to ask someone to fetch something he could easily get himself. He said when he got back, we would eat the popcorn and watch Frozen together.
But he never came back.
I overheard the doctors and nurses talking earlier. Something about his car and sudden impact. I didn’t know what it all meant, but I knew it wasn’t good.
And I knew Daddy was never, ever coming back.
I felt the burn of tears behind my eyes and a familiar tightening in my chest, but I pasted on a smile and tried not to let my worry show.
“Grandpa.” I rushed to Edvard’s side. I’d called him Grandpa when I was a kid and never grew out of it, but now, I could only say it when we were alone because the address was too “informal” for a king.
“Bridget.” He looked pale and tired, but he mustered a weak smile. “You didn’t have to fly all the way back here. I’m fine.”
“I’ll believe it when the doctor tells me so.” I squeezed his hand, the gesture as much reassurance for myself as it was for him.
“I’m the king,” he harrumphed. “What I say, goes.”
“Not for medical matters.”
Edvard sighed and grumbled, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he asked about New York, and I caught him up on everything I’d been doing since I saw him last Christmas until he got tired and dozed off in the middle of my story about Louis’s unfortunate wine spill.
He’d refused to tell me how he ended up in the hospital, but Nikolai and the doctors filled me in. Apparently, my grandfather had a rare, previously undiagnosed heart condition that was usually latent in patients until extreme stress or anxiety triggered it. In such cases, the condition could lead to sudden cardiac arrest and death.
I nearly had cardiac arrest myself when I heard that, but the doctors assured me my grandfather’s case had been mild. He’d fainted and had been unconscious for a while, but he didn’t need surgery, which was a good thing. However, the condition didn’t have a cure and he would need to make major lifestyle changes to reduce his stress levels if he didn’t want a more serious incident in the future.
I could only imagine Edvard’s response to that. He was a workaholic if there ever was one.
The doctors kept him in the hospital another three days for monitoring. They’d wanted to keep him a week, but he refused. He said it would be bad for public morale, and he needed to get back to work. And when the king wanted something, no one refused him.
After he returned home, Nikolai and I tried our best to convince him to offload some responsibilities to his advisors, but he kept brushing us off.
Three weeks later, we were still at an impasse, and I was at my wits’ end.
“He’s being stubborn.” I couldn’t keep the frustration out of my voice as I guided my horse toward the back of the palace grounds. Edvard, sick of both Nikolai and I nagging him to heed the doctor’s warnings, had all but kicked us out of the palace for the afternoon. Get some sun, he said. And leave me to stress in peace. Nikolai and I had not been amused. “He should at least cut back on the late-night calls.”
“You know how Grandfather is.” Nikolai came up beside me on his own horse, his hair tousled from the wind. “He’s more stubborn than you are.”
“You, calling me stubborn? That’s rich,” I scoffed. “If I recall correctly, you’re the one who went on a hunger strike for three days because Grandfather wouldn’t let you skydive with your friends.”
Nikolai grinned. “It worked, didn’t it? He caved before day three was over.” My brother was the spitting image of our father—wheat-colored hair, blue eyes, square jaw—and sometimes, the resemblance was so strong it made my heart hurt. “Besides, that was nothing compared to your insistence on living in America. Is our home country really that abhorrent?”
There it is. Nothing like a beautiful fall day with a side of guilt. “You know that’s not why.”
“Bridget, I can count the number of times you’ve been home in the past five years on one hand. I don’t see any other explanation.”
“You know I miss you and Grandfather. It’s just…every time I’m home…” I tried to think of the best way to phrase it. “I’m under a microscope. Every single thing I do, wear, and say is dissected. I swear, the tabloids could turn me breathing wrong into a story. But in the U.S., no one cares as long as I don’t do anything crazy. I can just be normal. Or as normal as someone like me can get.”
I can’t breathe here, Nik.
“I know it’s a lot,” Nikolai said, his face softening. “But we were born for this, and you grew up here. You didn’t have an issue with the attention before.”
Yes, I did. I just never showed it.
“I was young.” We came to a stop on our horses, and I stroked my horse’s mane, taking comfort in the familiar feel of its silky hair beneath my hand. “People weren’t as vicious when I was young, and that was before I went to college and experienced what being a normal girl feels like. It feels…good.”
Nikolai stared at me with a strange expression. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn it was guilt, but that made no sense. What could he be guilty about?
“Bridge…”
“What?” My heart pounded faster. His tone, his expression, the tight set of his shoulders. Whatever he had to say, I wouldn’t like it.
He looked down. “You’re going to hate me for this.”
I tightened my grip on my reins. “Just tell me.”
“Before I do, I want you to know I didn’t plan for this to happen,” Nikolai said. “I never expected to meet Sabrina and fall in love with her, nor did I expect this is where we’d be two years later.”
Confusion mingled with my apprehension. What does Sabrina have to do with this?
“I wanted to tell you earlier,” he added. “But then Grandfather got hospitalized and everything was so crazy…” His throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Bridge, I asked Sabrina to marry me. And she said yes.”
Of everything I’d expected him to say, that wasn’t it. Not by a long shot.
I didn’t know Sabrina well, but I liked her. She was sweet and funny and made my brother happy. That was enough for me. I didn’t understand why he would be nervous about telling me. “Nik, that’s amazing. Congratulations! Did you tell Grandfather already?”
“Yes.” Nikolai was still watching me with a guilty look in his eyes.
My smile faded. “Was he upset? I know he wasn’t happy when you started dating because—” I stopped. Icy fingers crawled down my spine as the pieces finally clicked. “Wait,” I said slowly. “You can’t marry Sabrina. She’s not of noble blood.”
That was the law talking, not me. Eldorra’s Royal Marriages Law stipulated the monarch must marry someone of noble birth. It was archaic but ironclad, and as the future king, Nikolai fell under the law’s jurisdiction.
“No,” Nikolai said. “She’s not.”
I stared at him. It was so quiet I could hear the leaves rustle as they fluttered to the ground. “What are you saying?”
Dread ballooned in my stomach, growing and growing until it squeezed all the air from my lungs.
“Bridget, I’m abdicating.”
The balloon popped, leaving pieces of dread scattered throughout my body. My heart, my throat, my eyes and fingers and toes. I was so consumed by it I couldn’t speak for a good minute.
“No.” I blinked, hoping it would wake me up from my nightmare. It didn’t. “You’re not. You’re going to be king. You’ve been training for it all your life. You can’t just throw that away.”
“Bridget—”
“Don’t.” Everything around me blurred, the colors of the leaves and sky and grass blending into one crazy, multicolored hellscape. “Nik, how could you?”
Normally, I could reason my way out of anything, but reason had fled, leaving me with nothing except pure emotion and a sickening sensation in my stomach.
I can’t be queen. Icanticanticant.
“You think I want to do this?” Nikolai’s face tightened. “I know what a big deal it is. I’ve been agonizing over it for months, trying to find loopholes and reasons I should walk away from Sabrina. But you know what Parliament is like. How traditional it is. They would never overturn the law, and I…” He sighed, suddenly looking much older than his twenty-seven years. “I can’t walk away from her, Bridge. I love her.”
I closed my eyes. Of all the reasons Nikolai could’ve chosen for abdicating, he’d picked the one I couldn’t fault him for.
I’d never been in love, but I’d dreamt of it all my life. To find that grand, sweeping love, the kind worth giving up a kingdom for.
Nikolai had found his. How could I begrudge him something I would myself give up my soul for?
When I opened my eyes again, he was still there, sitting tall and proud on his horse. Looking every inch the king he would never be.
“When?” I asked in a resigned tone.
A smidge of relief softened his expression. He’d probably expected more of a fight, but the stress of the past month had drained all the fight out of me. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Once my brother set his mind on something, he didn’t back down.
Stubbornness ran in our entire family.
“We’ll wait until the furor’s died down over Grandfather’s hospitalization. Maybe another month or two. You know how the news cycle is these days. It’ll be old news by then. We’ll keep the engagement a secret until then too. Elin’s already working on a press statement and plan, and—”
“Wait.” I held up one hand. “Elin already knows?”
A pink flush stole over Nikolai’s cheekbones when he realized his mistake. “I had to—”
“Who else knows?” Thud. Thud. Thud. My heart sounded abnormally loud to my ears. I wondered if I had a heart condition too, like my grandfather. I also wondered what would happen if Nikolai abdicated and I died right there in the saddle. “Who else did you tell before me?”
I bit out the words. Each one tasted bitter, coated with betrayal.
“Just Elin, Grandfather, and Markus. I had to tell them.” Nikolai didn’t back down from my glare. “Elin and Markus have to get out in front of this, politically and press-wise. They need time.”
A wild laugh emerged from my throat. I’d never made such a feral sound in my life, and my brother flinched at the sound.
“They need time? I need time, Nik!” Freedom. Love. Choice. Things I’d already had so little of, gone forever. Or they would be after Nikolai officially announced his abdication. “I need the two-and-a-half decades you’ve already had, preparing you for the throne. I need not to feel like an afterthought in a decision that’ll change my entire life. I need…” I need to get out of here.
Otherwise, I might do something crazy, like punch my brother in the face.
I’d never punched a person before, but I’d watched enough movies to get the gist.
Instead of finishing my sentence, I urged my horse into a canter, then a full-on gallop. Breathe. Just breathe.
“Bridget, wait!”
I ignored Nikolai’s shout and spurred the horse faster until the trees whizzed by in a blur.
Bridget, I’m abdicating.
His words echoed in my head, taunting me.
I had never, not once in my life, entertained the possibility Nikolai wouldn’t take over the throne. He’d wanted to be king. Everyone had wanted him to be king. He’d been ready.
Me? I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.
When did Nikolai propose to Sabrina? How long had everyone known? Was his planned abdication part of the reason for Grandfather’s collapse?
I didn’t remember seeing an engagement ring on Sabrina’s finger at the hospital, but if they were keeping it under wraps until the announcement, she wouldn’t be wearing one.
I was in the dark about something that affected me more than anyone except Nikolai, and I was so consumed by my inner turmoil I didn’t notice the low-hanging branch speeding toward me until it was too late.
Pain exploded on my forehead. I fell off my horse and landed on the ground with a hard thud, and the last thing I remembered seeing was the storm clouds roll in overhead before darkness swallowed me whole.
