“Thank you.” She squeezed his arm. “I can handle him.”
As she walked away, Cass watched them for a long moment before he slowly sat back down. If today was any indicator, Briony truly didn’t need him. She would be more than capable of handling her royal duties and living a life separate from his aside from duties that required their joint presence or the raising of their children.
It was what he had wanted, what he had been concerned she couldn’t handle. So why, when presented with evidence that he was getting everything he had hoped for and more, was he feeling so bereft, like he’d just lost something incredible?
This was why emotions were better left out of arrangements like this, he thought crossly. They screwed everything up.
CHAPTER TEN
BRIONYWALKEDTHROUGHwhat in the spring would no doubt be an incredible rose garden. The bushes had been expertly trimmed back, the remaining branches now covered in a light layer of snow. But the trellises that ran between the elegant stone pillars evoked images of flowers bursting into bloom and creating a walkway lined on either side by the most beautifully colored roses. Come late spring, this would probably be one of her favorite places.
It was thoughts like those that kept her going on days like today. That and, she thought with a small smile as she glanced over her shoulder at the sled trailing behind her, simple joys.
The week since the press conference had flown by. Every morning she’d awoken, eaten in her room and then joined Alaric for a brief meeting in his study at his invitation. She’d been pleasantly surprised to find him a warmer person when he wasn’t around their father. Perhaps one day, they could even be friends.
Daxon, on the other hand, had shown no interest, a blessing given how just the sight of him made her stomach tighten in disgust. The few times she saw him, he greeted her with a brisk nod. If others were around, he would pat her on the back or press a cool kiss to her cheek. She tolerated those brief interactions, but she ensured they were brief. By unspoken agreement, they each had acknowledged that they wanted nothing to do with the other outside the necessary public engagements.
As the days passed, the anger that had manifested that night after her drive with Cass had dimmed. Perhaps it was because she’d spent so many years wishing things could be different with Trey that she accepted the reality of her situation quicker. Or perhaps it was because Daxon was so far from the idealized father she had built up in her head that it was easier to distance herself from the cold, vain man he was revealing himself to be. She wasn’t completely over his rejection or her own disappointment. There had still been moments of pain throughout the week. There would be more to come, of that she had no doubt.
But she was stronger than she had been. And, she thought with a smile, she finally had something to focus on besides family or the relationships that would never be. Something that was hers and hers alone.
During one of her morning meetings with Alaric, she’d shared what she wanted to focus on as a princess of Linnaea: restoring the country’s education system. Alaric had been surprisingly supportive of her ideas, which is why the last few days had been consumed with setting up a council of former teachers, administrators and other professionals who could use their experience to start rebuilding Linnaea’s schools.
It had been thrilling to throw herself into something she loved, to exchange ideas and have a goal to focus on. It also kept her mind off her fiancé.
Her footsteps fell harder as she moved off the path and tromped through the deeper drifts of snow, each stomp of her boots an effort to drive his face from her memory. The next round of royal events would start this weekend, kicking off with a visit to a hospital and ending with a gala exhibition of a new museum in Eira. She’d only seeing him in passing or at dinner with Alaric. They were polite, formal and barely spoke. After their encounter in her suite with the zipper and his moment of chivalry in trying to protect her from Daxon, he’d withdrawn once more into the chilly, distant prince who had emerged after their kiss on the plane.
Unfortunately, their distance didn’t stop her body from responding to his presence. The low rumble of his voice rippled through her veins. A glimpse of his slow smile at dinner made her heart beat faster. The insightful questions he asked about the work she was doing reminded her of the blissful week of ignorance she’d spent flirting with Cass Morgan.
She’d known when she’d signed the contract that she was signing away her chance to love and be loved by the man she’d give herself to. A fact she’d struggled with after clinging to that idea for so long.
Yet after seeing how her vision of meeting her birth father had gone up in flames, what was the point in dwelling on what she used to want? Unfortunately, letting go of the past had resulted in even more lurid dreams of what it would be like when they finally explored the passion that had been simmering between them since the moment he’d walked into her bar.
Enough of that.
She traipsed up a hill behind the palace and stopped at the top. She sucked in a deep breath of crisp, cold air before she sat in the toboggan, planted her gloved hands in the snow and pushed off.
The sled flew down the hill, skimming so fast the wintry landscape flew by. She threw back her head and laughed as the sled reached the bottom and continued for quite a distance across the flat plain that stretched for what seemed like miles before giving way to the forest in the distance.
At last, the sled came to a stop. She sat there for a moment, then slowly rolled off the sled into the embrace of the cold snow. She wiggled around a bit, then spread out her arms and legs and swept them up and down. When had she last made a snow angel? At least a couple of years, maybe even more.
Her movements slowed as she gazed up at the crystal-blue sky. The meetings and endless to-dos of royal life, not to mention the never-ending questions Clara peppered her with about the wedding, all faded away to the simple pleasures of playing in the snow.
A noise registered. She paused, listened, then heard it again: a distant shout. Slowly she sat up in time to see a figure racing down the hill. As the figure drew nearer, it turned from a dark blur of arms and legs into the tall frame of a man dressed in a black winter coat with a matching head of equally black hair.
Cass.
“Briony!”
She started to push herself up out of the snow, but Cass was at her side faster than she had anticipated.
“Don’t move,” Cass ordered as he knelt down next to her. “Lie back. If you fell, you could have injured something.”
“I didn’t—”
“I’ll call the medical team and—”
“Cassius!”