Broken Queen

I draw back and look down at her. She shifts her gaze up to mine. “He’s not going to get anywhere near you. We won’t let that happen.” I hear myself say it, and there’s a part of me that wonders when things got to where they got. When the endgame shifted.

She doesn’t speak for a long time, but I can almost hear her thinking, trying to sort through things. “Do you think my mother’s car accident wasn’t an accident?”

“You know whiskey and thinking in the middle of the night aren’t always the best combination.”

“It’s not the whiskey.”

“Get some sleep, Dandelion. You’re tired and a little drunk.”

“What do you think?”

“Why is this coming up now?”

“Lucien said something to me back in the office before those men came. He asked if I noticed Dad’s reaction to the news that Mom had been killed. That he wasn’t surprised or upset.”

“Your brother is a jerk who wanted a reaction out of you. He just found out that you have control of the company he expected to run. He wanted to upset you, and he did. Don’t let him win.”

She sits up, looks down at me, and lets her gaze sweep over me before she meets mine again. “He won’t win. I won’t let him. But that’s not what I asked you.”

I reach up and tug her long blond hair. “Get some rest. You can call Emma when you wake up. FaceTime with her. But if you look like a ghost, you’ll just scare the poor kid.”

“Just tell me what you think. I know you think something.”

I turn away. “Well, if you already know, then there’s no point in asking, is there?”

She puts her hand on my shoulder, and I stiffen as she traces the bandage over one of the worst burns. 

“Does it hurt?” she asks, pressing on it a little. 

I roll back and snatch her wrist. “What is wrong with you?”

“I just want to know what you know. Is that too much to ask?”

I sit up, shift my weight so I straddle her thighs, and take hold of her free wrist. I look down at her in the tiny scrap of a bra. “What I know, Dandelion, is that it’s very hard for me to have you in my bed and not touch you.”

She studies me curiously. “But you won’t touch me without Amadeo here.”

I shake my head. “No. Out of respect for my brother.”

Her gaze shifts to my lips, then lower to my briefs. I tilt my head and raise an eyebrow. I’m sure she can she what having her so close is doing to me.

“Do you wonder why we’re like this?” she asks, looking up at me. “All of us, I mean. Messed up like this. Sleeping with the enemy and wanting it.”

*Edited for website.