Page 49 of Royally Drawn (Resplendent Royals #3)

Wanting More

INGRID

“ H e’s very handsome in his uniform.”

The scratchy voice came from the only human who could make every word sound wretched. I saw my grandmother, Celeste, sitting in her wheelchair near the table slated for family at the reception. She’d not been placed here. Instead, she’d been seated with Parker’s mother and their family. Parker’s mother was loathsome, so it made sense to saddle them with the world’s most controlling dowager queen.

She had been watching me watching Keir as he danced with Betty. He was handsome. He was endlessly attractive, made only more by his dress uniform. He and Betty laughed. The two and a half years between her and me seemed to be an ocean these days. She was less of a friend and more of a little sister. I struggled to feel as girlish as I did six months before. My whole life changed from what it was. I’d grown up while she remained youthful and silly.

“He’s handsome, yes. And good to me,” I said, annoyed.

“Never marry a military man.”

“Why’s that?” I asked .

“Because they will break your heart. He’ll sleep with someone else while he’s over there. The first rule of keeping yourself safe is to make it impossible to be overrun. There are too many other options outside the palace walls. It will never work for you.”

“I trust him,” I said. “We’ve discussed it.”

“And you have a concrete plan for when he gets back?”

“We’ve talked about it.” I was angered.

“That’s as good as saying he has other plans. You’re just in denial. That’s a military man for you.”

She held out a glass.

“Get me more wine. I’m parched.”

“Sorry, I cannot help you,” I said.

“You are cruel.”

“It takes one to know one,” I said in wilful English.

I turned her down in response as she did every time we asked for something reasonable, and she denied the request. It was for every time I was starving and hid a jar of peanut butter in a dresser, only for her spies to find it and for me to be read the riot act for eating food she didn’t think my growing body needed. I was upset by her need to sew discord and demand something. The old bat could rely on one of her old henchmen to get her a drink. She may have once owned me and all I knew, but she didn’t have a claim to me now.

I ordered a gin and tonic at the bar—the drink I’d come to love over the summer—and felt so grown. Looking out, I watched Astrid and Parker dance. They stared at one another like silly, happy people. Parker never struck me as much of a dancer, but for Astrid, he would get lively on his feet. He’d do everything for her. Alexandra and Rick sat in the corner chatting with Rick’s parents. Karolina, his mother, loved us as her own. Odette and her date danced together, too. All of us grew so much from the time Celeste locked us up and controlled every aspect of our lives.

I knew we’d made progress, but I couldn’t shake what remained unclear. Seeds of doubt grew into a forest of trees as I thought about her words. Astrid and Parker would return to Parker’s massive London home. Alexandra and Rick would continue raising their children peacefully here in Neandia. Even Odette had a boyfriend here in Neandia. But what of me?

Arms soon wrapped around me. Keir returned. He kissed my cheek and then took a pull from my drink.

I turned to look at him. “You cannot just steal my drink.”

“And yet I did. What will you do about it?”

“Lay into you later,” I giggled.

“I need to sit down,” Keir said. “Betty will kill me.”

He sat at a chair nearby.

I fell into his lap.

“Oof,” Keir laughed. “Go easy on me.”

I kissed him slowly, not caring who was watching. I only had two more days with this man before he left me for months. All I could do was soak him up—the feeling of his hands on my hips, the way his tongue parted my lips, and the smell of his aftershave. I wanted to linger.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too. I didn’t go off forever. And you don’t need to fight Betty. She must give way if you want to dance.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“I’m coming home, Ingrid.”

“I know. But… I feel like we don’t have plans. You told me you’d see about it when you returned, but… Keir, I need more than that.”

“I promised you that when you were ready for the next steps?—”

“Maybe I am?” I asked. “Maybe if you asked me tomorrow, I would stupidly tell you I wanted it all, and I wanted to wake up next to you every day for the rest of my life.”

The words spilled out—from nowhere.

“Ingrid, I?—”

“You promised me a million I-love-yous, and I want to claim them all.”

I was choked up now, fighting tears.

“I will be back. And if you still want it all, we can discuss how to make that work. I promise you.”

“You don’t want it all?” I asked. “Do you just want to have me and then… leave… and never make any commitment to a life together? Because eventually, I will want babies and marriage and all of that.”

Keir didn’t have an answer.

“Keir, you cannot say these things without follow-through.”

Keir set his jaw. He sat me down on the floor, pushing me away, and stood back up.

“Ingrid, we cannot have this conversation here.”

“Where then? When? Are you just going to get on a plane and leave? Never to be seen again?”

He looked near tears. For a minute, I thought he would pull me close, give me one of those patented forehead kisses I adored, and tell me that he loved me to the end of time and would do whatever I asked.

Instead, he indignantly said, “I cannot promise you all that right now, and you know that. Don’t try to pick a fight here.”

Pick a fight ? I wasn’t trying to.

Tears welled, and I stormed ahead—out of the ballroom, down the corridor, past the throne room, and back into the family’s side of the house. Keir followed me at a fast clip. I ended up in the drawing room, staring at the fireplace.

“Ingrid! Ingrid! I love you!” Keir said, pulling me to a stop with his hand on my wrist.

I pulled it back. “You don’t love me if you aren’t being honest. You’re not. Do you not intend to come back and settle down with me?”

“Define that. Because we’re together?—”

“But you don’t want the press to know?”

“To protect you, my love.”

My love . It felt so dismissive and wrong.

“I mean sticking as close as possible so you can at least see me at the weekend, Keir. Knowing that if life is good in a year or so, you might decide to make this permanent.”

“In my eyes, it is.”

“And in my eyes, permanence is all of this,” I said, throwing my arms up. “The big white wedding, the massive ballgown, tiaras, the whole deal. And children. That is permanence for someone who has never really known it. It’s what everyone has—everyone but me. And I will not settle for less.”

Keir’s green eyes welled with tears. “I cannot promise you that right now. I don’t know if I am even capable of it. And I would never lie to you, Ingrid.”

“So, you don’t love me?” I sobbed. “You don’t love me.”

“I do love you,” Keir said. “But loving you forever is not the same as marrying and popping out babies. I never once told you?—”

“So, you don’t see yourself pulling back in two or three years? Staying close and making a life with me?”

He struggled to find the words, but I knew the answer. It was no. He may have loved me somehow, but that wasn’t how I needed him to love me.

“I’ve been left out by every person who ever claimed to love me, Keir,” I sobbed. “Every person says they love me, but… they fucking don’t. The only people who love me are the people in this house. And I will probably die here in this house?—”

“You won’t,” Keir pleaded. “Because you are beautiful, capable, and strong. You’re brave. And that’s why I don’t understand this. You could have so much more than just children, a house, and a husband. You could dream so much bigger.”

I shook my head. “I want to build something bigger with someone—someone who wants the same. I want that first. Marriage then empire, I guess?”

Keir shook his head. “I’m not ready to tell you I will do it for you, my love. I hope with some time?—”

“No. You hope I will forget about it and settle.”

“I would never want you to settle. That is what I am saying, Ingrid!”

I shook my head. “But you want me to wait while you find the person you want? Am I a nice placeholder?”

Keir took my hands in his. “There is no woman on this planet I would prefer to you. I am convinced of it. I’m addicted to you. You make me ridiculously happy.”

“Except for the ability to opt out with impunity?” I asked. “I’m a royal woman living in a fucking fishbowl. You claim you want to protect me. If so, you’d want to legitimate me. Because I grow stale on the shelf.”

“You aren’t bread at the shop, Ingrid!”

“I don’t make the fucking rules, Keir,” I sobbed. “And you don’t actually want me. You want to fuck me and play with me. You don’t want to have me forever. And that’s fine, but just be fucking honest. You’re incapable of this commitment. It’s not me, it’s you.”

“I am not incapable .”

“Then what do you need from me?”

“I need to… I need to finish out the mission.”

“When does that end?”

He shrugged.

“Well, when you figure it out, let me know,” I said, storming out of the drawing room.