His Princess (A Royal Romance) (39 page)

I know we have enough things from the store.I bought them. I talk Rose through making the quick marinade for the chicken while I crush my fingers into ground beef to make the burgers.

“What are you putting in those?”

I rattle off the ingredients to her as I mix them into the bowl with the beef then form them into patties.

The chicken goes on first, as soon as the coals have properly heated. I sit back in a lawn chair and drink a beer Rose gives me. For a while I’m out there alone in her backyard, holding the cold beer in my hand, and I just want to crumple into dust and disappear.

This has been as a dream, and now I must wake up. This mundane heaven was not fashioned for monsters like me. By staying I will only anchor it to hell.

I whistle loudly and Rose comes out carrying the other meats, and we lay them out on the grill together. I tend to the meat while she cooks inside, making up the sides and gravy for the chicken.

Gravy is important. The sauce makes the dish.

It’s too damned hot to eat outside, or I would. Instead Rose sends Karen out to help. There’s too much meat for one tray. It’s a feast.

Usually I stick to a fairly strict diet, but once everyone is seated I chow down, eating a hot dog slathered in mustard and ketchup in one hand while devouring a drumstick in the other. The kids eat like mad; even Karen piles up her plate, leaving a trail of discarded chicken bones in her wake.

I eat some of everything—even the rolls Rose baked. No meal has ever been so full or satisfying in my life. I’m a little surprised when she pours us both glasses of wine.

“Kids, Quentin is going to be staying over tonight,” she announces. “Try to give us a little space.”

The two girls look at each other and grin for different reasons. I should leave now, tonight, just get out. The longer I stay, the deeper Rose will settle inside me, until pulling her away becomes tearing out my heart.

Who am I kidding? That’s happening already.

I pause in the middle of eating my last cheeseburger, as if finishing it is one step closer to the end and by taking the last bite I hasten my departure. After everything I just ate I give up on it and slap it on the plate, sit back in my chair, and let out a deep breath.

“Kids, help me with the leftovers,” Rose says, rising. She gives me a look and sips more wine.

After they pack away the food, the kids get the dishes while Rose walks upstairs. She stops and looks over her shoulder at me, like, what are you waiting for?

If waiting would slow the end, I’d wait forever.

I follow her upstairs and she locks her bedroom door.

“Is this goodbye sex?” I say very softly.

“Yeah. Take off your clothes and lie on the bed.”

I want to growl at her and tell her she’s not going to boss me around, but the tone of her voice has shifted from command to surrender. I slip out of my clothes and spread out on her bed. The room is a weird mirror of mine, though her bed is bigger and in a different place in the room. She undresses slowly, sensually, making the act of removing her sweats the dance of the seven veils.

I’m already hard by the time she comes over.

She throws her leg over me, straddles me, and my cock slides into her hot body, throbbing around me as she bites her lip. Rose makes a little sound, and rolls her hips, taking my one hand in both of hers to hold it between them against her chest and stare at me.

I lightly grasp her neck and pull her down, and she slips her arms around me as I shift a little so she can push her hips back and forth, up and down, and ride me with her cheek leaning on my chest. I melt into the bed and the only motion between us is the roll of our hips in unison.

I pull her close to me, put my hand on her back to steady her so I stay inside, and we roll over so I’m on top. I don’t pull back and loom over her and I don’t hammer her. I go slow, savoring the pleasure of every stroke.

Neither of us makes a sound louder than a gasp or sigh, even if Rose has to clench her teeth to stop herself.

The only time I make a noise, Rose covers my mouth with her hand as I come. When she lets go I lie there panting on top of her.

“Keep going,” she says.

When we finally finish I’m exhausted and finally, at long last, satisfied.

“I’m going to be gone in the morning,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says before she goes to sleep.

“I love you.”

“Mmm,” she says, and pulls herself against me, half asleep.

I
t’s
Sunday morning and I should sleep in, but my heart knows I must wake, and so when my eyes open, the sun has not yet fully risen, only a dull glow in my blinds to illuminate an empty bed.

His side is still warm.

His side.

I pull the sheet into my fist and wonder why I’m not crying. I feel hollow inside, like the presence of something I’d never noticed has been removed and taught me its shape by its absence. I don’t want to go to sleep but I don’t want to wake. I want it to be yesterday again.

I want Quentin.

Rising to sit up, I lean on my knees and try to understand how I feel. The cold void inside offers me no answers. Am I sad that he’s gone or sad that I ever knew him? Part of me wants to wish him away, make it all a dream. It would be better if we never knew each other at all.

The other part of me is warm with the rightness of it. Rose Dawson was fashioned to knock on doors and yell at their owners about where their cars are parked. I feel like every moment of my life stretching back was a chain of events that led me to step up to the that door and pound on it with my fist.

I want to cry but I can’t, I just feel numb. I think some part of me refuses to believe he’s really gone. The passion I felt with him was the most real thing I’ve ever known. The rest of the world is just dust.

Still, I have my girls. He made them happy for a time. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I always knew that bastard Russ would make another move to get the girls away. He has no interest in raising them himself. He’ll pass that off to his new toy while he goes out and fucks the younger model on the sly. He just wants to spite me.

He told me once he should have just driven me to an abortion clinic instead of letting me be a boat anchor around his neck. That’s my eldest he’s talking about. My little girl, Karen. Thinking about that man taking custody of my children makes my blood boil.

Finally I slip my feet out from under the covers and stand up, sweeping my robe around my body. Then I spot it. There’s a box sitting on my side chair.

When I lift it, I find it surprisingly heavy. I move it to the bed and run my hands over the surface. It’s just wood, with two latches that flip up.

I raise the lid and almost keel over.

It’s full of money. A
lot
of money. I pick up one stack and find that it’s a sheaf of hundred-dollar bills bound together. Ten thousand dollars in my hand, and there must be dozens of them in the box. No, let’s see—six deep and ten wide…

There’s at least a million dollars in here in cash.

There’s also a note.

It reads,

R
ose
,

Y
ou are
the only person in my life that has ever given me a happy memory. I wish more than anything that I could stay with you and your beautiful family. Without you I return to the nothing that I have always been. I will do everything to keep you safe. You will never hear from me again. I love you.

Burn this letter. Be careful with the money.

-
Q
uent

I
stare
at the letters for a time, hoping that they’ll change, morph into a promise to return when everything is settled, but I can read it in the words. He doesn’t expect to ever come back because he doesn’t expect to be alive.

The box is like something out of a dream. I can’t believe it’s real. I slip the note in my pocket, close the box, and shove it under the bed, dizzy at the idea of all that money in one place, and in
cash
. I have to get it somewhere safe, but where? I can’t just walk into a bank and put in all that money. I’ll have to tell them where it came from.

It’s enough, though. If I figure something out, I can leave here. Get rid of the house. Pay a lawyer to deal with Russ once and for all, no more of his bullshit.

“Yay,” I sigh to myself.

I should feel free but I feel more constrained than ever. Stepping lightly, I check on the kids and make sure they’re in their beds before I descend to the first floor and sit on the living room couch for a while.

Quentin settled into this house in so little time. I can’t look anywhere without seeing something that reminds me of him over the last few days. Even where I’m sitting.

I turn the TV on low and let it drone as I flip channels through infomercials and bland Sunday-morning news broadcasts, bleary-eyed reporters talking about the same things they were yesterday or things not important enough to wait until later.

Eventually I warm a bowl of oatmeal and grudgingly eat it.

“You should put some brown sugar on top.”

I jump out of my skin at the sound of Karen’s voice.

“You’re up early.”

“I went to bed early,” she says, but yawns anyway.

She sits on the far side of the couch, crosses her legs, and plucks at her grippy sock with her fingers.

“So, he’s gone.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not going to come back, is he?”

“No, sweetie.”

She’s quiet for a while, then, “Why?”

“Nothing to do with us. He couldn’t really stay. It was only for a little while. Some things can be good without lasting forever.”

“But they’re better if they do,” Karen adds.

“Yeah,” I sigh.

“Are we going to have to go live with Dad?”

“I hope not.”

“I don’t want to. They can’t make me if I don’t want to, right? I’m almost an adult, don’t I get to say where I go?”

“I wish it was that simple, honey.”

“All that stuff he said about you neglecting us, that wasn’t true.”

I sigh again, harder, and let my head flop against the couch. “I know, hon, but the judge might not see it that way. It’s all about how your dad presents it, and if he knows the judge.”

“That’s not fair. If Quentin came back, he could—”

“He’s not. He did what he could to help us, but he’s gone and we have to accept that.” My words come out with more force than I’d like.

Karen shrinks back. “I’m sorry. I miss him, too.”

She hugs her knees to her chest. “Is that what it feels like to have a dad? What it was like when he was here.”

I can’t answer her. My chest seizes up and I almost drop the oatmeal. I slap it on the table and walk to the window, hoping that if I pinch the bridge of my nose hard enough I won’t start crying.

Nope, that doesn’t work.

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either.”

I nod, trying to stop crying. I don’t want Karen to see me crying, not like this. Karen brings me a tissue, and I wipe myself up and try to think of what we can do today. I don’t want to sit around the house. The block party is over.

There must be something.

When Kelly eventually wakes up her first target is the cupboards and a bowl of disgusting sugary cereal I shouldn’t let her eat. Karen makes eggs, and somehow manages it without ruining and blackening them or undercooking them. She must have been studying Quentin.

Damn it, there he is again.

Once the girls eat and dress, I invite them on a walk with me.

That means we have to walk in the street until we’re out of the neighborhood. Whoever designed the place didn’t want pedestrians, only vehicles three model years old or newer or whatever.

I look back at Quentin’s house as we leave. It’s clearly empty, light shining through the windows. The car is gone, everything is locked up, and the place looks just as uninhabited as it did a week ago.

A week, can this have been one week of my life? It feels like it was ten years.

Kelly holds my hand as we walk. Karen doesn’t. Once we pass the gate there’s an actual sidewalk.

“Where are we going?” Kelly asks.

“Somewhere,” I tell her.

The answer is anywhere but here. I really want to just
keep
walking. It’s maybe a mile to the park and by then Kelly has to stop on her little legs and rest, so we sit on a bench for a while. I wish I’d brought something for the girls to feed the squirrels. They used to love feeding the squirrels. An especially chubby one almost comes up to our feet.

“Sorry,” Karen tells the squirrel, “we don’t have any food for you.”

The little creature scampers off into the trees, but I swear he looks annoyed before he spirals up around a trunk and disappears.

We walk some more. Kelly swings on the swing set and Karen joins her while I stand and stare past them at nothing, at distant trees and late-summer haze. It shouldn’t be this hot. Sweat beads down my back.

I want to go home, but it’s not back at that house.

After a few hours we’re done walking the park. It’s not that big. It doesn’t even have a name. It’s a just a gap between more of these shitty developments, held by the county to keep more houses off of it. Keep it open.

We all hold hands walking back. I need to look at the papers Russ gave me. Last night I just shoved them into the mail sorter when I came in the door and never touched them again. Then I need to write bills. My stomach grows sour thinking about all the things I have to do. Little things that don’t feel like they should matter anymore, and of course tomorrow I have to go to work.

I’m looking forward to that. Burt is about the last person I want to see, even if he did turn into Mr. Scrooge at the end of
A Christmas Carol
.

Quentin, I realize, probably had something to do with that, too. I sigh. Is there nothing he hasn’t touched?

How long am I going to think about him every minute of the day? How am I ever going to find somebody like that?

There’s only one answer and I don’t like it.

Once we’re back at the house the girls need a hearty lunch. I use leftover marinade from yesterday to make them some chicken. I don’t feel hungry until Karen insists I eat some, too.

I decide we’re getting delivery for dinner, courtesy of Quentin’s stash. I still need to figure out something to
do
with that. I can’t pay a lawyer in stacks of cash, can I?

Wait, what am I saying? I probably can.

I let the girls go for a few hours. Karen does homework while Kelly plays video games in the living room and I try not to drink.

It would be so easy to just pop the cork from that bottle I opened last night.

Instead I notice the time and call the girls down to decide what to order before the places all close. It’ll be two large pizzas, one with extra cheese at Kelly’s insistence, and the other with pepperoni. I don’t care, I could eat either. I’m finally starting to feel hungry.

After I order I send them back upstairs and sit in the living room. Maybe twenty minutes later, my doorbell rings.

“Damn, that was fast.”

When I open the door I find not a pizza delivery person, but a tall man in a light linen suit, wearing a pair of gloves and a black mask that completely covers his face.

I blink then I slam the door shut, too late. His hand catches it and throws it open. The door hits me and knocks me square on my ass.

I scurry away on all fours and throw myself to my feet, but he catches my ankle and pulls me back. Karen pops out of her bedroom and I motion for her to go back in.

“Tell them to come down.”

His voice is muffled by the mask, but deep. He has an accent but nothing about it tells me from where, exactly. I roll on my back and scoot away.

“I direct your attention to that sconce on the wall,” he says, pointing to the light by the kitchen door.

There’s a sound of glass shattering as my front window cracks and the light explodes into pieces, all without a sound.

There’s a little red light on the wall just below where it used to be.

“The laser is not for sighting purposes. Rather I think it should be quite clear what it is meant for.”

I look down and the little red dot has already centered on my chest.

“Tell the children to come down.”

Still I say nothing.
Karen, run, get Kelly and
run
.

“I will take them whether you die or not. This is your last chance.”

“Karen,” I croak out. “Get your sister.”

The girls are already coming down the stairs.

The dot snaps away from my chest and settles on Karen’s forehead. My whole body goes solid like a block of ice.

“Stand up.”

I grab the couch and pull myself to my feet. Oh God. Oh God.

“What do you want? Who are you?”

“What I want is a complex matter, one I shall explain to you in the car. As to who I am, I am many things to many people. I might say that I am the devil, and I come to do the devil’s work. But it is better if you call me by name. I am Santiago de la Rosa.”