Reign: A Royal Military Romance (23 page)

F
our days later
, I’m staring at the iPad that Niko just handed me, and Hazel’s face stares back. It’s an old picture, badly lit, a little blurry.

But it’s unmistakably her. And she’s unmistakably wearing a lacy bra, lacy panties, a garter belt, hose, and sky-high heels. She’s got a big red cup in her hand, and she and another girl dressed the same way are leaning on some guy as he reaches around and grabs both girls’ breasts.

I’m
furious
. I’ve slept maybe eight hours in the last four nights, ever since my father was assassinated, and my temper is on a hair trigger. I want to murder this fucking asshole in the photo for touching Hazel. I want to murder the shithead who published this trash, and I want to murder the small-dicked douchebag who found the photo in the first place.

“If this is what I get for removing censorship from the press put it the fuck back in place,” I growl at Niko. “Fucking behead them all. Drown them in the Black Sea. I don’t care.”

He doesn’t move. He knows better than to actually do any of that.

“Read the article,” he says, arms crossed.

I scan it. Fucking salacious trash, obviously. The
Tobov Post
isn’t even a newspaper, it’s a rumormongering website that normally limits itself to movie stars and pop singers. Now that there are no consequences for reporting on whatever they want, they’ve instantly latched onto the rumors about the brand-new king and his American girlfriend.

Then I pause. I re-read a sentence.

My heart stops for a moment.

Sources also say that Sung, 25, dropped out of medical school after carrying on a sexual affair with her married professor.

Niko and I stare at each other. We’re alone in a tiny office.

“Is it true?” he asks, his voice low.

I clench my jaw. My stomach plummets, because I want to say
no, of course not.
I want to say
she’s awkward, not despicable
, but I can’t. I never did find out why she dropped out of medical school.

“I don’t know,” I say.

I’ve barely seen her in four days, and I haven’t been alone with her for more than two minutes. The last time was yesterday when I was taking a breather in a nook off a staircase, looking out the window, and she charged through the door with an armful of ethernet cables, heading somewhere else.

Neither of us said a word. We just looked at each other for a few seconds, and briefly, I felt like my capsizing world was righting itself again, like maybe there was this one small spark of light.

Then one of the cabinet aides burst through the door, asking her what kind of cables they were looking for, and they were gone again.

All I thought about for
hours
was the look on her face.

My father’s dead, my country’s falling apart, and I’m thinking about the way a girl looked at me.

That’s why it’s probably better that I don’t see her.

* * *

I
last three hours
. It’s driving me crazy, the incessant, gnawing worry that Hazel isn’t who I thought she was. That she would do
that
, sleep with a married man. Be a home wrecker.

I don’t even know why it matters right now. I’m deliberately trying to see her as little as possible, and I have no idea what she thinks about that, but everything has gone to shit and I’m doing the best I can. The second I can get the airport re-opened I’m sending her home, and God only knows if she’ll ever want to come back to this hellhole.

I send someone to go find her. When she walks in her hair is in a high, messy bun, her eyes are puffy and purple with lack of sleep, she’s wearing ill-fitting jeans and a t-shirt, and she’s still more beautiful than I remembered and I hate it.

Neither of us say anything. The aide leaves and shuts the door behind him. My heart feels like it’s pumping sandpaper through my veins.

“Did the State Department call again?” she asks.

“No,” I say, and hand her the iPad with the article on it.

“Fuck,” she says, looking at the picture. “What is this? What’s it say?”

I’d forgotten the article was in Russian, but there’s a link to an English translation at the bottom. I take it back and click it.

“That picture is from college,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. “It’s six years old, I was dumb and drunk and I went to a lingerie-themed party at this frat house because I was hoping—”

“Read the article,” I say, handing it back.

She scans it. Halfway through she puts one hand to her mouth. When she finishes, she squeezes her eyes shut for a long moment, like she’s trying to collect herself.

“You never told me why you dropped out of med school,” I say.

“I didn’t know he was married,” she says, still not looking at me.

I want to believe her. I want desperately to believe her, but how could she not
know
?

“How?” I ask, my arms folded across my chest.

Hazel pulls out a chair, thumps the iPad onto the desk, puts her head in her hands, and takes a deep breath.

“My last year of med school, I was miserable,” she says quietly. “I’d realized I didn’t want to be there anymore, I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t like what I was doing, but I was too much of a pussy to drop out and admit that I’d fucked up and wasted a couple of years.”

She thumps a fingertip on the table.

“So when my young, cute professor asked me to drinks to ‘talk about my work,’ I said yes, because I was flattered that he asked
me
, and because I felt like I couldn’t make things any worse,” she says, swallowing. “He told me he’d just gotten divorced, and when we went back to his place it was this ugly one-bedroom apartment full of boxes and crappy furniture, and he didn’t have a ring on, so I just believed him.”

Even though this is all in the past, jealousy tightens in my chest at the thought of Hazel with someone else.

She’s staring at the table, her eyes vacant and empty, leaning her head against one hand, and she swallows again and sighs.

“We weren’t supposed to be fucking in the first place, so I didn’t tell anyone, so there wasn’t anyone to say, ‘Hey, watch out, Evan’s actually just separated and he told me that they’re still trying to make things work,’ and it wasn’t like I was going to look up divorce records,” she says, her finger slowly tracing circles on the table.

“And then one day I came over late at night, and his wife was there, and he sat on the couch while she screamed at me and called me a stupid slut. He wouldn’t even look at me.”

Hazel clears her throat, and I frown in disbelief.

“He let her do that?” I ask.

“Yup.”

“He did this to you and then let another woman call you names?” I ask, my voice getting hard.

Hazel just looks up at me.

“Spineless coward,” I say. “Are all American men sniveling worms?”

She smiles, looks at me, and stops.

“No, I just got lucky,” she says. “And he didn’t
do
this to me. I knew better than to sleep with him in the first place, but I did it anyway. I just thought it was a bad decision for a different reason. Anyway, I dropped out of school, sublet my apartment, and sold a bunch of my stuff, and traveled for a few months because I figured if I was going to be a fuckup I should at least be a fuckup doing something I really wanted to do, and now I’m here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

She looks at her hands and flexes her fingers, like maybe she’s holding the answer there.

“I didn’t know how,” she said. “At what point was I supposed to say, hey, here’s the worst thing I’ve ever done?”

“At any point,” I say, and I’m tired and irritable as fuck. I miss her even though she’s right here, and I feel like I can’t have her any more, so I’m picking a fight. “Anything would be better than finding this out from the fucking
Tobov Post
.”

“Right, because now everyone knows that the American girl dresses slutty and fucks peoples’ husbands,” she says, and she sounds angry but also sad and tired. “I’m sorry, Kostya. I fucked up then, and I keep fucking up, and I’m sorry.”

“What else?” I ask.

“What else
what
?” she says, leaning back and crossing her arms.

“What else don’t I know?” I ask. “What else is the fucking
Tobov Post
going to smear you with?”

“It’s not a smear if it’s true,” she says bitterly. “He was definitely married, definitely my professor, and I definitely fucked him.”

Jealousy rolls through me again, and I try to shut it down, pacing back and forth through the tiny office.

“Just tell me what else so I’m not surprised,” I say.

“Kostya, I don’t even know what you want me to say,” she says, eyes closed, her forehead in one hand. “That’s the worst. That’s the worst by a mile.”

“You got kicked out of boarding school,” I say. “You told me that.”

She looks at me, with a long, slow look.

“Okay,” she finally says. “I stole twenty bucks out of my mom’s purse when I was thirteen and bought cigarettes. I lost my virginity at sixteen to a senator’s son in the back of his Range Rover. I got a fake ID when I was seventeen and used to sneak out and go to bars in Boston. One time, I hit a parking sign with my mom’s car, got a ding, and when she asked about it I lied. I tried cocaine once my freshman year of college, which was the same year I got so drunk I threw up on Boston Common. I went skinny dipping on Cape Cod.”

She flings up her hands, slumps in the chair, and stares at me.

“It’s normal stuff, Kostya,” she says. “It was dumb, but I never hurt anyone besides myself. I never did cocaine again and a month ago in Amsterdam was the first time I’d smoked pot in a year and a half. I finally confessed to my mom about the car and it turns out she knew the whole damn time, because she’s not stupid.”

Her eyes are glittering with tears. She looks back down at the table, and I feel shittier than I even thought possible.

“Did you want anything else?” she asks, her voice hushed and strangled. “Maybe the time I killed my goldfish when I was ten because I forgot to feed it?”

“That’s everything,” I say, quietly.

She stands, her arms crossed in front of her, jaw clenched against the angry tears filling her eyes.

“Am I dismissed?” she asks.

I just want to fucking rewind. To five minutes ago, before I picked this stupid fight with the person who matters most to me. To yesterday, in the stairwell, when maybe I could have said
I miss you, I’m sorry, I want it to be different
.

To the day my father was murdered, when maybe we could have left twenty minutes earlier and driven away and just never come back.

“Things are starting to turn around,” I say, swallowing. “We’re gaining ground. The staff is going back home. We’ll have the airport within a week.”

“And then I go home?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

She nods once, dodges around me, and leaves the office.

I sit in the folding chair, my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands, because right now, I hate this. I hate being King, I hate being in charge, I hate being watched every second, and I hate that I couldn’t even stop that conversation from going down the drain.

I’m still sitting there when Niko finds me a few minutes later.

“Good news,” he says.

“Please,” I say.

I
don’t cry
until I’m power walking down the hall, head down, trying to hide my face with my hair because I absolutely fucking hate it when I cry and I hate it worse when I cry in public.

I flee to the laundry room, in the basement, because it’s warm and noisy and there’s no one in there. For a moment I consider burying myself in the huge basket of clean sheets, but I settle for sitting on the floor in the corner, my back against an industrial dryer.

Then I just fucking sob. I’m angry at the
Post
for telling everyone why I dropped out of med school and for running that picture, but I’m mad at myself all over again for doing it in the first place. I’m angry at Kostya for being a dick about it, and I’m angry at him for not even
saying
something and just cutting contact without even saying goodbye.

“I’m sorry?”
What the fuck is that?

Then I feel awful for being mad at him, because he has way bigger shit to worry about than my feelings, and I should give him the benefit of the doubt. I fucking
know
that, but I still feel like he’s taken sandpaper to my heart. And now I’m going home, and even though I know it’s obviously the best decision, I don’t
want
to.

I want to stay here. I want things to be normal again. I want to go back to Kostya trying to make jokes in the rose garden.

After a while, I stop finding reasons that I’m crying and just cry until I’ve got the hiccups.

I’m in the laundry room for a long, long time.

* * *

K
ostya was right
, and things start to turn around. He figured out pretty fast that the United Svelorian Front wasn’t united at all: the group responsible for his father’s death was a tiny, fringe segment, and a much larger part of the Front would be happy with governmental reform instead of overthrow.

Plus, the peaceful factions resent the fringe elements for dragging them into this. It doesn’t take much for the USF to start fighting itself while the Svelorian army nips at its heels.

Once Velinsk is safe, the palace workers all go home. Yelena goes back to her family’s villa on the Black Sea, and suddenly, the palace feels oddly empty without her around to chat with me about the best time to go sailing on the sea, or her favorite shampoo, or home remedies for colds.

She’s not smart, but she’s a genuinely nice, good-hearted person. Especially after the week we’ve had, I think maybe that’s better. Being smart hasn’t gotten me much of anywhere.

The only upside is I’m alone in my rooms again, which I’d been sharing with Yelena, two of the women who do the laundry, and the chef. Not that I spend much time there; I spend half the day in briefings and meetings as the unofficial American presence in the palace, and the other half taking care of odds and ends that someone has to do.

I see Kostya constantly. He’s in nearly every meeting, every briefing, every meal. We pass each other in the halls, exchange looks, and don’t talk. He’s always surrounded by people and I don’t know what the fuck to say, or where to start, or whether I even should. I know he’s got more things to worry about than me.

At least I sleep like the dead. Two nights in a row I fall asleep with a laptop next to me, trying to finish one last thing or go through one last briefing. Despite growing up with a diplomat, I don’t know shit about any of this, and I’m desperately trying to learn.

The third night, I jolt awake and don’t know why. The room is perfectly quiet and still, mostly dark, but I know
something
woke me up and got my adrenaline pumping.

Then I hear it: a soft but insistent knock on the door.

Something happened
, I think. Anxiety squeezes my chest and my mind starts racing as I grab the black robe and pull it on.

There was another bombing. The USF is pushing back and coming for Velinsk, and we have to leave right now.

Kostya’s dead.

That last thought makes my fingers and toes go cold. The knock sounds again, and I knot the robe around my waist, half-run to the door through the dark, and pull it open.

It’s Kostya. He looks like hell.

He’s still in the clothes he was wearing that day, dress pants and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and it’s rumpled and creased, like he fell asleep in it at some point. His eyes have dark circles around them, they’re bloodshot, and he hasn’t shaved in a day or two.

I’m sure I don’t look much better.

“What happened?” I ask, the only question I can think of. Something has to be wrong.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

I step back and he enters, closing the door behind him. We’re in the living room in my little apartment. I’m very aware that I’m naked except this flimsy robe and he’s still dressed like he’s going to an office, and my arms are crossed over my chest like that will somehow make me more clothed.

I try not to think about the last time he was in this apartment. That was a week and a world ago.

“We should have the airport again within two days,” he says.

I just nod.

“So you can go back to the U.S.,” he goes on.

I almost say
yes, I understood the implication there
but I don’t.

“But what
happened
?” I ask.

“I got a report from the seventh division that they’re making good progress,” he says.

“Is that it?” I ask.

His eyes flick to the windows behind me, the bedroom door, taking everything in.

“Yes,” he says.

We pause for a long moment and look at each other, and then he looks away and runs one hand through his hair, the cords in his neck popping.

“It’s two-thirty in the morning,” I say. “And you came to tell me something might happen in two days?”

“I thought you’d want to know,” he says.

I swallow hard and look at the floor. He didn’t come to tell me that, and he’s not still standing there because he came here to tell me that, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what he wants and I don’t know what I want and I don’t know how any of this should be working, right now, in the middle of all this shit.

He’s here because it’s your room, not to tell you that
, I think.

I take a deep breath, then hold out my hand.

He looks at it, then at me. He takes it, his fingers warm and rough just like always.

I lead him to the couch. I sit and then pull him down until we’re half-sitting, half-lying, propped up on one arm, his head on my chest. My robe’s come partly open, and after a minute he puts both arms around me, his rough stubble on my bare skin.

I drape one arm across his shoulders and stroke his hair with the other hand, and he lets me. For the first time in days I feel like I’m doing the right thing at last, even though I couldn’t put it into words.

I just know, deep down, that this is why he’s here. This is what he needs. Gradually, he relaxes into me, his shoulders losing tension, his breathing getting slower and evening out.

“I met my father for the first time in this palace,” he suddenly says, and I jump.

“I thought you were asleep,” I say.

“Not quite,” he says.

“You remember meeting your father?” I ask.

“I do,” he says. “I didn’t know that was strange until years later, when I was a teenager. I guess for most people, their fathers are always... there.”

“I don’t remember meeting mine,” I say.

“It wasn’t really the first time,” Kostya says, shifting a little. “He was around when I was very young, but I don’t remember that at all. I didn’t recognize him when I met him here.”

I can’t imagine
meeting
my father. He’s just there, a fixture in my earliest memories.

“I was two when the Soviet Union fell, and my father left to lead the monarchist forces against the communists,” he goes on, his voice half dreamy. “He sent my mother and me to safety. The last few years of the civil war, we were here, back before it was restored, and it was filthy and dilapidated, but it was beautiful in the way old, dilapidated things can be.”

I keep stroking his hair and let him talk.

“I used to find things,” he says. “Cufflinks, a hair comb, an old iron wedding ring. A silver spoon. A carving of a bear. All these little treasures that would be nothing to anyone but a five-year-old, but I used to keep them safe in a box I found and I never told anyone.”

“Do you still have them?” I ask.

“I do,” he says. “It’s so strange, sometimes, to walk around this place like it is now and think about what it looked like the first time I saw it. That’s what it looked like when I met my father. We were in that ballroom where the masquerade was, and it was morning, so the sun was coming in through those big windows.”

His hand moves against my back, stroking me absentmindedly. I fight to keep my eyes from filling with tears, because for a moment, this feels normal.

“Actually, most of the windows were broken and there was a breeze,” he says. “My father was up on the dais, and he was wearing his military uniform, surrounded by other men in military uniforms. I entered with my mother, through those big doors, and I remember her saying, ‘Kostya, go say hello to your father,’ and I wasn’t quite sure which one he was.”

I can’t even imagine that.

“How old were you?” I ask.

“Six,” Kostya says. “I’m not sure he ever quite forgave me.”

“Of course he did,” I say.

“I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” Kostya says. “It’s bad luck.”

“I won’t tell,” I say.

“I owe everything to him,” Kostya says. “I’m here and not herding cows in the mountains because of what he did. He used to tell me all the time, ‘blood isn’t enough,’ that just having a lineage didn’t mean shit unless you could back it up. And he could back it up.”

He pauses and swallows, his fingers still moving against my back.

“I don’t know if I can back it up, Hazel,” he whispers. “I’m afraid everything he fought for is slipping through my fingers, and if I don’t stop it, we’ll have five more years of civil war. He brought Sveloria from a backwater to a first world country, and I don’t know if I can keep it that way.”

I have no idea what to say. Anything I can think of sounds like a kindergarten teacher’s encouragement, so we’re quiet for a long time.

“I don’t think I ever loved my father,” Kostya finally says, his voice low and quiet. “He’d lecture me about continuing the bloodline and having children, and I’d think,
I’d rather not be a father than be a father like you
.”

He’s silent a moment.

“I didn’t want him to die like this, Hazel,” Kostya finally says.

“I know,” I say, and kiss the top of his head.

We’re quiet again.

“Can I sleep here?” he asks, his fingers on my back. “I don’t dream when I sleep with you.”

I push both of us up, and he looks at me like he’s still waiting for an answer. His eyes are even more bloodshot now. I stand and hold out one hand again, and he takes it.

“Come on,” I say.

In the bedroom I move the laptop off the bed and Kostya just looks around tiredly, like he doesn’t understand what a bed is any more. I walk to him and start undoing the buttons on his shirt, and as I do he takes both my hands in his and leans his forehead down to touch mine.

For long moment he just rubs his thumbs over my knuckles, like he’s trying to think of how to say something.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice close to a whisper.

“Kostya, don’t be,” I say.

He laces his fingers through mine, his palms against the backs of my hands.

“
Zloyushka
, I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says. “I don’t know how to be the king, and I don’t know how to keep my country from disintegrating, and I thought if I could ignore you I’d stop thinking about you all the time and I’d get better at what I’m supposed to be doing, but I couldn’t. And I didn’t.”

This time I can’t stop my eyes from filling with tears.

“I wanted to protect you, and I couldn’t,” he says. “Not even from the
Tobov Post
.”

“Kostya, you have bigger things to worry about than me,” I say. “I’m fine. The
Post
can go fuck itself.”

He half-smiles and squeezes my hands in his. A very, very distant bell tolls three times.

“I’m glad you slept with your married professor,” he says.

“I’m not,” I say.

“You wouldn’t have come here otherwise,” he says.

I sigh and let my eyes close, our foreheads still together.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe.”

“You’re the American and I’m finding the silver lining,” he says. “Something must have gone wrong.”

He wobbles a little on his feet, and I tug at his shirt.

“Come on,” I say, softly. “Go to bed.”

I get the last button undone, push it over his shoulders, and ignore the heat pooling inside me. Once his shirt is off, he slides one hand down my back, along my still-open robe, and then pulls me toward him, swaying on his feet as he does.

He kisses me and I kiss him back briefly, my hand on his neck, and then pull away. I stroke his stubble with one thumb.

“Come on,
zloyushka
,” he says, sounding half-drunk.