Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
“Stop right there.” She wasn’t putting up with that. She needed to make that clear. “You will not talk to me like that again.”
He turned, his lips quirking in an arrogant smirk. “I’ll talk to you any way I like. Haven’t you heard that I’m the king?”
Now she was finding a little rage of her own. “I don’t care who you are. You will not speak to me like that. If you have a question, I’ll answer it. If you need comfort, I’ll talk to you. Do you think I don’t see through this? This behavior is one of two things. Either you are truly the arrogant ass you’re presenting to me or the day has been too much and I’m a convenient punching bag.”
His face lost that smooth smile. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It has been a long day.”
There was the moment she’d been waiting for. When he realized what he was doing, he backed off. For that, she could reward him. She moved closer, putting her hand on his shoulder and leaning in. “Kashmir, you found out your mother is dying. Of course it’s been a long day.”
His head shook. “I can’t. I can’t even process it right now. Answer my question. It’s easier to focus on this, on us. Please.”
The please did it. Something about a polite man always softened her up. His question. Had she thought about him after that day by the river? “I wrote you letters for a year or so. I came home for the coronation and tried to see you, but they wouldn’t let me through. Too many people and I wasn’t important enough, I suppose. I don’t blame you, Kash. I was some girl you knew at university. You had other things to deal with back then.”
She didn’t blame him. Not anymore. In those first years, she’d been angry with him, mad at herself for letting him in. Now she saw them for what they’d been. Two children trying to navigate a world that constantly attempted to drown them. They were all swimming as hard as they could and there was no blame to be placed.
He stiffened, coming to his full height. “You did what?”
She stepped back. “I wrote you.”
“You wrote me a letter?”
“No, I wrote you probably fifty or sixty. I was lonely after you left. I knew after you didn’t reply to the first five or so that you weren’t going to, but I still liked talking to you. It was probably a silly thing to do. I should have gotten a journal or something, but I didn’t.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes. “Dayita, I never got a single letter from you.”
He hadn’t sent one either. It was so long ago. “I sent them to the palace post office. I suspect they deal with hundreds of letters.”
“I should have gotten them. I asked my secretary to send me anything from my friends at Oxford. I got nothing. I was desperate back then. I wanted something, anything to make me feel normal, but all my friends deserted me. I wanted to see you. How can you say you came to the coronation? I offered to send a plane for you. You refused. You said you had too much to do. Why are you lying to me?”
Oh, someone had lied and she could guess whom. Her heart twisted at the thought of Kash being all alone and longing for his friends only to have none reply. “Kash, I never got any correspondence from you. No offer at all. Why would I have turned you down? I came to try to see you. I have pictures of me and my father at the coronation celebrations outside the palace. I assure you I wouldn’t have made a twelve-hour flight in economy if you would have sent a plane. I know Matthew and Roger tried to contact you, too. Your friends didn’t abandon you. They couldn’t get to you.”
“Why?” Kash let go and seemed to stumble a bit before regaining his balance. “Why would she do that to me? My mother is the only one who could have done this. No one else in this palace would have kept something like this from me.”
The last thing he needed was to get angry with his mother. “I’m sure she had her reasons. You needed to be focused on your new duties. You couldn’t spend all your time mooning over a beautiful girl.”
His hands, fisted before, relaxed, and he gave her the first genuine smile she’d seen from him all evening. “Mooning? You think I would moon over you?”
Yes, she was remembering how to handle him. Perhaps there was a bit left of the happy boy she’d fallen in love with all those years ago. “I’m sure you did, Your Majesty. I can picture you right here, staring out and wishing for your lost love. Maybe you even bought a guitar and learned how to play. You wrote sad songs about how much you missed me.”