“It’s hardly haste. We know each other very well, and occasionally we’ve…” Freddie flushed. “You know. It’s not out of nowhere. I’ve thought it through. I’ve done nothing but think about this for ages.”
“You can’t have done, or else you’d have seen reason,” Nick said. “Don’t do this. You don’t need to do this.”
“It’s done,” Freddie said quietly. “Hax gave me his blessing last night.” He smiled joylessly. “Daphne was person number three to find out. Lax had been eavesdropping in the next room. You should’ve heard her shriek.”
Nick barely seemed to hear. “You swore we wouldn’t lose you,” he said. “Is that not as important to you?”
“It’s vital to me.” Freddie’s voice was strained.
“But you’ve chosen the path most likely to make that happen, and for what? Someone you don’t even love?” Nick asked. “You’ll be gone. You can’t live here and live there. It’ll have to be there.”
“I realize that.”
Nick looked at me, then back at his brother. “Did you know you were going to do this when you agreed to help us? Is it why you agreed?” He looked down at the floor for a moment. “I’m so sorry, Freddie. I know what you want me to say but I just can’t do it.”
Flustered, he turned on his heel and left. Freddie ran his hands over his face, then flopped into the tapestry-covered wing chair by the fire. “That went brilliantly. How about removing my wisdom teeth without anesthesia next?” He frowned at me. “You could’ve backed me up there, you know.”
“I was not about to butt into that,” I said.
“Are you going to butt in now?” he asked huffily.
“Hell yeah,” I said. “Come on, you must have expected this, or you wouldn’t have been so wigged out about telling us. You kept saying the two of you weren’t even dating!”
Freddie picked at a loose thread in the chair. “What even is dating in this day and age?”
“Are you seriously making jokes right now? You asked her to marry you!” I squawked. “What is that even based on?”
“Fine,” Freddie said. “Officially, you’re right, we never had any kind of Define the Relationship conversation before now, and we haven’t seen each other regularly, exactly…”
I made a skeptical noise in spite of myself.
“But,” Freddie continued pointedly, “what we have been doing is lovely. She is lovely.”
I covered my face with my hands. “Lovely isn’t love. It’s not even lust.”
“But lovely is stable,” Freddie said. “Lovely is sustainable. Lovely is safe, and that’s how we make each other feel.”
“This is crazy, Freddie. You’re only thirty years old. You can’t marry someone out of pragmatism!” I told him.
Freddie threw his hands up. “The entire bloody monarchy is based on pragmatic marriages,” he argued. “Besides, it’s Daphne. We like Daphne.”
“But you’re supposed to love Daphne.” I balled my hands into fists and kneaded my thighs. “This is unfair to her. Even if you don’t think you deserve more, you know she does.”
Freddie leapt out of the armchair. “More than what? More than horrid old me? More than my fidelity forever? More than my willingness to give up my entire life here?” he said hotly. “She knows where I stand. She chose me anyway. She knows that I mean it when I say that I’ll devote my whole self to making her happy.”
“At the expense of your own heart,” I said. “Freddie, this won’t work. It never does.”
“With all due respect, Bex, how the hell would you know? You’ve never had to try it.”
We stared at each other for a beat.
“I would have done this even if you’d had seven babies without my help,” Freddie continued, more calmly now. “It will give me my own family, children, a purpose. That should be more than enough for my heart. Besides, if you think about it, I’ve been in training for this my whole life.”
“To be the de facto king of the Netherlands?” I asked.
“To support the heir to the throne,” he said gently. “If there’s anything I have experience doing, it’s that.” He drew a shaky breath. “I loved you, Bex. I may even still love you. I will probably always love you. But I learned the hard way that my brother is the real love of my life, and I think we are all fooling ourselves that he’ll have an easy time of it if you turn out to be pregnant and I’m right here. Gran called that an elegant solution, and I’ve found a way to go one better. We can all win.” His voice quieted. “Me included.”
Desperately, I grabbed his hand and looked up at him pleadingly.
“It’s not too late,” I begged him. “Hold out. Find a love that shakes your world.”
“I tried that, Bex,” Freddie said. “But there is a finite amount of you in the universe.” He dropped his eyes. “Please, Killer,” he whispered to the floor. “Just this once, I’d like to get the girl.”
I dropped his hand like a hot potato.
Freddie turned and grabbed his jacket, swinging it over his shoulder. He paused as he walked past me, and then, as if for the last time, bent down and kissed me on the top of my head.
“Good luck, Bex,” he said. “I hope we all get what we need.”
He left, and I sat there, staring out the paned doors onto the garden and beyond. Worrying about Nick. Worrying about Freddie. Wondering if Daphne, Freddie’s insistence aside, knew that she’d said yes to being someone’s safety pick. Wondering if, in the end, it even mattered. When the phone buzzed on the arm of my chair, I didn’t even look, just lifted it to my ear in a trance. I don’t remember saying hello. I don’t remember what, exactly, Dr. Akhtar said. But when we hung up, my arm fell to my lap, my phone tumbling to the floor.
“I’m pregnant,” I said, to the empty room.
CHAPTER THREE
And then the makeup artist got powder all over
