She needed to figure out a way to stop Jade from making a decision she could end up regretting for the rest of her life. And fast.
Her sister had been trained for monarchy her whole life by their father, but there was such a thing as being too dutiful. And considering marriage to a guy you didn’t even want to date definitely qualified.
Juno didn’t have a lot of experience herself. Contrary to appearances, after Leo’s humiliating rejection, too many unwanted advances as a teenager from her mom’s handsy boyfriends, and one totally meh encounter at high school when she’d lost her virginity, she was not that fussed about sex herself... But surely there had to be more to it than making heirs in a test tube.
And, maybe it was cheesy, but what about love?
‘But—’ Jade began again.
‘But nothing,’ Juno cut her off. ‘I’m not going to let you do this, Jade. Not for Monrova and certainly not because our father wanted you to. He’s dead, you’re the monarch now and you’re entitled to a life.’
Juno glanced around the room, suddenly seeing the ornate furnishings for what they were, or what they had always been to Jade: a gilded prison. While Juno had lived a chaotic life with their mom on Central Park West, with no boundaries whatsoever, Jade had lived a life of stifling duty with nothing but boundaries.
‘A life outside these walls,’ she murmured as an idea took shape.
A radical idea that was fraught with possible disaster but also exhilarating and inspired and kind of cool.
Why the heck not?
Jade needed to get away from here—at least for a little while—and get a life. A real life—a normal life. Or as normal as it was possible for either of their lives to be. A life where she got to make her own choices for once—without having to factor in everyone else’s priorities. A life where people weren’t watching and judging her every second of every day. A life where she could be imperfect, she could make mistakes, and it wouldn’t create a diplomatic incident.
A life not unlike the one Juno was busy living in New York.
Suddenly Juno knew, this idea was perfect. A Christmas gift she could give to her sister—as long as she made it crystal-clear Jade didn’t have to go into her office.
But how was she going to get Jade to go for it?
‘Juno, what are you thinking?’ Jade said, a bit too perceptive, as always.
‘Nothing,’ Juno said, still thinking.
‘Really?’ her sister asked. ‘Because you’ve got that look on your face you always got before getting us both into trouble.’
Instead of looking concerned at the prospect, though, Jade looked intrigued, curious, maybe even excited—just as she always had when they were children.
And suddenly Juno knew exactly how to sell her bombshell idea to her sister.
Jade had always been one hundred per cent loyal. No matter what, she had always stuck up for Juno when their father went ballistic.
Jade believed Juno would have made a wonderful Queen. Jade was dead wrong about that, of course. Juno would make a disastrous royal.
Perhaps she could be bold and tough when she had to be, but she was more likely to be reckless and impulsive and mouthy—not qualities that made you a shoo-in for the job of monarch or even princess.
But what mattered now wasn’t what Juno was actually capable of, only what Jade thought she was capable of.
‘I’ve had an idea...’ Juno said. ‘It’s kind of nuts, but it’ll give you the time and space you need to consider whether you really want to marry King Leo the Jerk.’
Or rather the time and space to figure out what a car crash that would be.
‘Leonardo is not a jerk,’ Jade repeated, but she smiled, the spark of curiosity in her eyes undimmed.
‘And it’ll give me a chance to see whether or not Father was right to kick me out of the kingdom with Mom,’ Juno continued, riding roughshod over the ‘Is Leo or Is He Not a Jerk?’ debate.
Been there, done that, had my ego torn to shreds to prove it.
‘Dad was wrong.’ Jade’s smile flatlined. ‘What’s your kind of nuts idea?’ she asked, totally taking the bait.
Juno sucked in a breath. Here goes nothing.