Page 32 of Coronation (Royally Forbidden #1)

Eighteen

Benedict

“ Z elda ,” I hiss, my lungs burning as we turn yet another corner in the maze, moving in the completely wrong direction now.

Ahead of me, Zelda’s shoulders bunch forward. It’s the only indication she’s heard me, because her pace doesn’t slow. Growling in frustration, I speed up and, reaching out, I wrap my hand around her wrist, pulling her to a stop.

Even as we stand there in the middle of the path, Zelda still refuses to turn and look at me. It’s not until she lifts her free hand to her face, wiping her cheeks hurriedly with the back of her hand, that I realize why.

She’s crying.

I made her cry.

“What we just did—did I hurt you?” I demand, and the possibility of it alone is enough to shatter me. “Zelda,” I plead again, frantic when she doesn’t answer or turn to meet my eyes. “Fuck, please tell me. Did I hurt you?”

Finally, her hand falls back to her side, and she turns to look at me through eyes rimmed in red.

“No. I’m fine,” she bites back, her expression tight, as though she’s willing herself to be strong and to not show me even a hint of weakness, even as sorrow has dimmed the warmth in her brilliant eyes.

I release her wrist. Never have I felt like more of a piece of shit than I do in this moment. I can’t count the number of people who must think I’m a prickly, cold bastard. When they look me in the eye, I see their trepidation, their worry, their fear.

It was never like that with her, though. Zelda— Zelda liked me . From the first moment we met, I felt none of that from her. It was only ever warmth and hope and something more I don’t dare name.

Not anymore. Subconscious or not, I’d made it my personal mission to ensure it stopped, and now, I’ve finally gotten my way.

“Was there something else?” she asks as she draws back, obviously keen on putting as much distance between us as possible.

I’ve done enough damage. Letting her walk away is the right thing to do, and yet I can’t help clawing for that same light I just callously extinguished. “Tell me why you’re crying.”

Zelda sniffs, her eyes shining. “ I’m not crying .”

If this were any other situation, the lie would be funny. Now, it only serves to deepen my devastation. “Zelda. Tell me at once,” I snap, my tone becoming harsh as my panic escalates.

Her mouth pops open, disbelief evident in every line of her face.

“What do you want from me?” she half-laughs, half-sobs.

“I’m crying because I’m an idiot who just let herself get fucked into the dirt by a man who treated her like some kind of disposable sex toy.

You didn’t hurt me, Ben, I hurt me . What kind of person just keeps letting herself get used like this? ”

The last question seems to be directed more toward herself than to me, and yet I find myself answering anyway, my heart hammering violently against the inside of my ribcage. “Used?” I ask, and it’s a struggle just to get the single syllable out. “What do you mean, used?”

Zelda scoffs, wiping away more tears as they fall. “Oh, come on. Do you think women don’t know when men only want them for their bodies? You were hardly the first. I should really be used to it by now.”

Dropping dead on the spot would be a relief if I didn’t know I deserved every bit of the pain and regret I’m currently experiencing. “Zelda,” I choke, staring at the beautiful, crying woman, almost beyond words in my horror. “God, I don’t only want you for—for that.”

She doesn’t believe me. I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t think one word I’ve just spoken is the truth. Why would she, when everything I’ve done thus far has proven the opposite? Then there’s the underlying, hypocritical fury that she says she’s used to it .

“Whatever you say, Ben,” she says at last with a smile so weary that it looks as though it costs her every bit of energy she has.

“I’m telling the truth.” Every word of this insistence is underlined by panic. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, I can’t let her go until she understands. “That isn’t what this is. I know your insipid little fuck of an ex-boyfriend?—”

Her mouth falls open, expression contorted in horror. “ You knew? ”

Was I not supposed to?

I hesitate, thrown off balance yet again. “It isn’t information I sought out. I looked you up after learning we would meet again.”

Wind rustles the hedges on either side of us, and Zelda shivers, tearing her eyes away from me to stare at the ground as I scramble for some way to assure her, some way to make her see.

“Zelda, I swear. I swear. ” My voice is hollow, and while I ache to, I don’t reach out to touch her.

“If my life were different, if I were anyone else, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

I want you, darling. God, do I want you.

Your beautiful heart, your smiles…” I swallow, endeavoring to rid myself of the painful blockage lodged in my throat.

It doesn’t work, though, and I suspect nothing will. “Please believe me.”

It’s the most honest I’ve ever been with anyone.

I’ve laid my heart bare at this woman’s feet, and I think maybe, just maybe, she knows it.

Some of the icy guard slips from Zelda’s expression as she stares at me, obviously wrestling with her logical sense of self-preservation, and whatever part of her has connected to me so easily.

After an age, she seems to shake herself, tearing her gaze from mine to the grassy ground beneath our feet. “I should go. The party started ages ago. They’ll be wondering where I am.”

There are a thousand things I’m aching to tell her, apologies and pleas, but—dear god—I’ve done enough. I wanted her to understand, to see that I’m the problem here, not her. Why would she believe that when I’m not even the first man to treat her in such a way?

Even if I do feel so much more, it changes nothing. We barely know each other, I’ve hurt her more times than I can stomach, and no matter how deeply I wish it weren’t the case, we have no fucking future .

I am the worst kind of monster, and every bit as selfish and cold as my father before me. There is nothing to be done but let her go. For good this time.

So, instead of begging, I only nod. “I’ll show you the way.”

Neither of us speaks as I lead the way toward the back exit of the labyrinth, walking side by side down familiar corridors of green. Somehow the journey takes half the time it ought to, as if the harder I cling to the minutes we have left, the faster they slip away.

We stop at the exit, which runs parallel to the stone wall that surrounds the entire perimeter of the palace grounds. The garden party is hidden from view, but we can hear it now, notes of merry chatter and music carried back to us on the wind.

A deep, painful sense of loss spears through the center of my chest as I look over at Zelda, who stands silent and obviously exhausted beside me.

Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, and as I watch, she lifts a hand to tuck it back behind her ear, revealing the freckle I noticed that day in her trailer.

I never did get to kiss it, and now, I’m certain I never will.

This connection was a moment in time, and that time is over.

I will continue on as I always have, a hollow, bitter man, and Zelda Flowers will be out there in the world, making movies and falling in love with other men. Men who aren’t me.

Someday, I’ll be out in public, and a magazine cover will catch my eye.

I’ll stop, already feeling the bone-deep grief of finally confronting a terrible inevitability, one that will have lingered at the back of my mind since this precise moment.

I will look at a picture of Zelda Flowers in a wedding dress, and, as whatever remains of my icy heart shatters, I’ll know it’s no less than I deserve.

My gaze rakes over her delicate profile, greedily devouring every detail of how she looks in this moment, our last alone together. In a matter of seconds, she will turn away, and that will be it.

Zelda’s hand presses flat to her stomach, her eyes on the ground, and still neither of us moves. “Do I have dirt? On my back?” she asks quietly, turning for me to check.

Drawing forward, I lower my gaze, following the elegant column of her neck, down to the curves of her body visible through her dress. A body that I kissed, and held, and fucked, but not nearly enough.

“You have a bit,” I tell her quietly. “May I?”

Zelda nods, and her shoulders are stiff as I reach out, brushing away the twigs and grass clinging to the garment.

There’s more, lower, and I sink to my knees, extracting the debris from just above the hem of her dress.

Her bare thighs are inches from my fingertips, and just as I’m about to rise again, I still, staring as a drip of my cum travels over the delicate ivory skin between her legs.

Fuck. Fuck .

My first instinct, the one wholly inappropriate given the circumstances, is to gather it up with my fingers and push it back in.

Instead, I pretend not to have noticed.

Getting to my feet, I lean down, pretending to check the knees of my trousers as Zelda hurriedly wipes it away with the hem of her dress. When we’ve both straightened up, and I know there is no more reason for us to be here, we look at each other.

“Zelda.” Even saying her name is excruciating. “I’m sorry.”

For a moment, I think she’s going to respond. She stares at me, something in her pale eyes that I can’t quite place. Then, I watch as that unknown thing dies, and, without another word, Zelda Flowers turns and walks away.

In the minutes that follow, I seem to be existing by habit alone, going through the motions of civility while my consciousness is elsewhere, stuck on a loop of moments that begin and end with her.

The crowd parting at that party, only to find myself standing before the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen .

Her body spread out beneath mine at Fernmoor House, tugging my hair, moaning my name.

Dancing with her in that pub and kissing her under the stars after.

Watching her at work, capable and strong.

Sitting on the couch in her trailer as she got ready to leave for the day, careful to remember every detail.

Lifting my head to find her standing in the center of the maze, staring back at me with round eyes.

It shouldn’t be enough. The time we shared barely equates to a few days, and yet there is no denying that something fundamental inside me has been altered.

I move through the garden party in a daze, murmuring words of greeting to guests.

They appear before me, one after another, their mouths moving as they regurgitate different combinations of the same words, meaningless, trite compliments, or commentary on the fine weather we’ve been fortunate enough to have.

They might have been ghosts, none of them as real as the woman who slips through their ranks, unnoticed by any but me.

Time slows.

It seems impossible that, to the rising tide of people around me, Zelda Flowers walking off toward the palace gates is an ordinary thing, no more consequential than a glass being set down too hard, or the string quartet changing to a new sonata.

To me, the moment stretches on and on, ripping through my body like a slow-moving bullet, and in that time, I cannot breathe, or see, or think of anything else.

I watch until she is lost from view, and when she is, I’m left with a sense of grim, terrible acceptance.

Regardless of what should have been, a few days were most certainly enough.