Page 116 of Scarred Crown

A flare of annoyance flashes. She hasn’t seen him for who he truly is for years. I clench my jaw again in frustration. Why would she bother to give him the benefit of the doubt? He sowed the seeds of division between me and Jules, and then he watered them, let them bloom in me until I couldn’t tell the difference between a weed and a flower. Plucked out all the wrong things.

Her mother calls the room to order, and instinctually, everyone sits straighter in their chair, turning to their calendars. Desmond, the secretary I share with Alex and Brice, takes us through all the normal commitments on the calendar and suggests a few dates months down the line.

The conversation continues around me, and Jules runs her hand along my leg, occasionally chipping in additional information about items not yet on the king’s calendar or Alex’s that might complicate a particular timeline.

When all is said and done, a Sunday three months from now is locked in.

Everyone grabs their calendars and phones, but Desmond and Julia’s mother linger. Alex is the last one out, and he tries to catch Julia’s gaze, but she doesn’t notice. Finally, he draws the door closed behind him.

I release a deep sigh. We need to move out of the main palace so I see him less often, and I’ll have to talk to Jules about stepping down as the king’s secretary when Alex takes over. Maybe we can promote Desmond, and Julia and I can hire someone else.

“Nicholas and Julia. Desmond and I were hoping you’d be open to hiring a wedding planner from the island. She has excellent references and has even done a few events in England, America, and Canada. I can provide you with her portfolio if you want. With the coronation planning as well, there just aren’t enough people to oversee all the important details. We can’t skimp on a royal wedding,” Julia’s mother says.

Rather than answering her, I turn to Julia. I got what I wanted—she’s my wife. The royal bit doesn’t mean much to me. “Are you okay with that?” I ask.

“As long as I get to choose my dress, the rest of the details are neither here nor there to me.” Julia shrugs. “Are you okay with that? I don’t know. Is there anything about a wedding you’ve dreamed about?”

My lips tip up into a half-smile, and I raise the back of her hand to my mouth. “I got my dream wedding scenario.”

“Drunk in Vegas?” Her eyes light up with amusement.

I search her face. “You.” At this point, how can she not know? While I haven’t said the words to her, they feel written large behind every interaction, impossible to ignore. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love her, and I never will. “Hire the wedding planner,” I say keeping my gaze trained on Julia. “Let’s show the world that a drunken wedding isn’t always a mistake.”

###

I’ve been in our bedroom suite stewing since the meeting. Alex’s words, no matter how much I try to pretend they don’t matter, keep reverberating around my skull.

Jules comes in the suite door and hangs her keys on the rack. “Let me see your knuckles. Did you really hit him?”

“He deserved it. Has had it coming for years,” I mutter, but the sight of her bowed over my hand softens the rough edges lingering in me.

“I didn’t ask you to talk to him so you could work your differences out with your fists.” She gazes up at me, and my heart kicks.

The air between us crackles with sexual tension like it does every time we’re this close. Normally, I sink into it without a second thought.

“He says he knows you better than I do.” Nothing else he said landed quite like that proclamation.

She blinks and looks away. “Oh.” She twists her hands and goes to the sidebar.

At first, I think she’s going to pour herself a vodka, but it’s water in her glass.

“Does he know you better than I do?” I ask, my voice husky.

“We drifted apart, Nick. For better or worse, Alex stuck to me like glue for the fourteen years you spent pushing me away. Does he know me better than you? I don’t know. How would we even determine that? I’m not keen to set up some sort of Julia quiz for the two of you to try to best each other. No one wins in that scenario.”

“I’d win. You’d rig it for me, wouldn’t you? Weight the questions from the ages of zero to sixteen more heavily? I am your husband.”

She shakes her head, but there’s amusement in the twist of her lips. As she sips her water, she touches my name on her finger. “I’m in this with you, Nick,” she says when she lowers the glass. “The two of you rub each other the wrong way, but no matter what Alex might say or do, we’ll be okay as long as we’re honest with each other.”

Her complexion pales, and I wander over to run the back of my hand down her cheek. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I haven’t eaten much today.” Jules doesn’t meet my gaze.

“Too busy?” I move to the internal phone on the wall near the door. It’s a direct link to security, the kitchen, and almost any other room in the house I could ever wish to speak to. The system is ancient, but it works, so none of us complain. When the sous chef picks up, I rattle off a few of Julia’s favorites and request we have dinner in our suite.

Once I’m off the phone, I rearrange the two armchairs near the fireplace so they’re facing each other. We could do this on the bed, but I don’t trust myself to talk instead of act. I’ve justified the last few weeks of us living in a sex haze as fine since we have a lifetime to get to know each other in other ways again.

But Julia has claimed many times we don’t know each other at all anymore. At first, her assertion bothered me. I still knew her because I cared to notice. Given that our actual conversations have been few and far between, my ‘knowing’ isn’t the same as understanding. If Alex can drive a knife into my heart with a throwaway comment he might not even believe, I need to eliminate that weakness sooner rather than later. It’ll fester in me, and we’ll be rotten before we have a chance to ripen.