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THE REST OF THE WEEK was fine. Leah read nonfiction books during the mornings, and fiction during the evenings. For an hour or two around lunch each day, she did more work in the garden. She was surprised Rachel didn’t stop by to help more since she’d seemed so insistent, but then she dared to poke her head out the front door, and found a letter Rachel had left her at some point.
Let us know if you need anything. Love, Rachel & Guillen
Leah didn’t need anything. Sure, the fresh food was dwindling, and the garden was growing slowly because she hadn’t dared to try fertilizing it with her vines, and she still hadn’t picked up the book from the library about Ivy powers during pregnancy. But she was fine. She didn’t need anything from anyone.
As the weekend approached, Leah’s smile came back. She looked forward to spending every available moment with Marcus.
It was already dark by the time he returned to the cottage, but his face was heavenly and happy. They took a few minutes to talk about their weeks, mostly about his adventure with his internship, and then made their way to the bedroom. She fell asleep wearing only the new bracelet he’d brought her back, and she’d be okay if that was all she wore for the entire weekend.
The next morning, she mentioned how scruffy his face was, so he took time to shave. He was finishing up while she brushed her teeth in the bathroom.
“You know...” he said playfully. “I figured out why you don’t want to marry me.”
The vise tightened.
He wiggled his razor. “No marry me because you’re not used to waking up next to the hairy me.”
She looked away. Bad puns and rhymes were kinda their thing, but it was insensitive to keep bringing marriage up.
“Hey.” His voice was soft. “It’s just a joke.”
“I don’t like that kind of joke.”
He took her hand, rubbing it with his thumb. “Sorry.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna get dressed and check on the garden.”
“I’ll meet you out there.”
Leah doubted anything in the garden actually needed attention; she’d mostly wanted to take a moment to enjoy her makeshift swing. She walked herself forward and backward, seated on the swing, her feet never leaving the ground.
Marcus joined her, holding her from behind and kissing her neck. “Mmm. Do you need any luck today?” He grazed her neck with his lips again.
“Don’t you dare give me a raspberry.”
“Ouch! Here I am, trying to help...”
She rolled her eyes and smirked at the same time. “Always trying to help.”
“I could give you a good-luck raspberry on your belly.”
That made her wrinkle her nose.
“For the baby.” He stuck out his tongue.
She chuckled softly. “He or she can wait to enjoy that once they properly meet you.”
He beamed. He was going to be a good dad. She hated fighting with him, and luckily, their fights were usually short.
Usually.
Marcus gently pulled her back on the swing. “So, what are our plans this weekend?”
“Plans?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to go to the market for a few things, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Do you want to get out of the house and come with?”
She winced. “Would you hate it if I didn’t?”
“That’s fine. You grow a mini-us, and I can easily drop by the market solo.”
She’d venture out there again. She would. Just ... not right now.
“Any other plans?” he asked.
“No...”
He stopped swinging her, and stood in front of her. “How do you feel about dropping by my parents’ place? Maybe for dinner?”
She frowned, her hands dropping from the swing’s vines into her lap. “You said it would just be you and me this weekend. You promised.”
“I... Well, you know... It’s only a couple of hours. C’mon.”
“You promised,” she said, deflated.
“I know.” He rubbed the bracelet on her wrist. “But they’re excited to hear all about my internship, too.”
Trying to keep calm, she took a breath. “Did you already tell them we’d come by?”
“No. But I told them I’d ask you.”
She huffed, stood, and stomped back inside the cottage. Men are stupid.
“What was that about?” he asked, entering behind her.
“You told them you’d ask me?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to make the decision without you.” He was clueless.
“And if we don’t go, then they’ll know it’s all my fault.”
He pressed his lips together.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Sorry.”
She rubbed her face, then tugged on her hair. “I’ve had enough time with your mom this week.”
Don’t you love my son? Why won’t you marry him? I know better than you. Let me do the chores you’re too lazy to do.
Marcus narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s dropped by twice, uninvited.”
“She was only trying to help, and support us.”
“Support you, Marcus. You.”
He folded his arms. “My mom loves you. She’s trying to make the best of this, okay? It would be good for you to spend more time together.”
“Why? She and I were fine before we moved into this place.”
“Because she knows what it’s like to marry into the royal family. She understands what the pressure is like. She understands a lot of what you’re going through and just wants to help.”
Leah clenched her fists. Marriage, again. Pressure? Rachel was a saint who didn’t tarnish the royal line. Understood Leah? Guillen couldn’t even get Rachel pregnant. She had no idea what this felt like!
Someone with a perfect little tight-knit happy family like Marcus would never understand what it was like to be an orphan, to come from such a broken family.
He’d wanted the thrill of dating Leah. Of sneaking around at the palace. He liked the bad girl in the bedroom. But he didn’t really want Leah for a wife, not the way she was. He wanted a girl like his mom.
“I am not your mother,” she snapped.
His tone matched hers. “I didn’t say you were. Why do you have to get so worked up about this? You know, this is your fault.”
Heat rose in her cheeks.
He continued. “You didn’t like Aunt Catrina’s rules. Fine. But you didn’t have to be so ... crazy. You didn’t have to call her a bitch.”
“My fault?” Her voice shook. “You got the wrong birth control tonic for me. You were supposed to buy the clove one, not the tea tree one.”
His eyes grew wide as he realized his mistake. The clove was effective for short-term. The tea tree was for long-term and should have been taken regularly for a while to work. “Then why didn’t you tell me before we did anything?”
“Because I didn’t look up the difference until I recognized my symptoms days later!”
His face was apologetic, but then he dredged deeper. “It was a mistake. But that doesn’t mean you can walk all over people trying to help you.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You don’t like being compared to my mom?” he said. “Would you rather I compare you to yours?”
That was dangerous ground.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just ... never mind.” He swiped a hand through the air, heading to the bedroom.
No. Never mind? You didn’t get to insult someone, comparing them to a somewhat neglectful, somewhat homicidal person, and then simply say ‘never mind.’
She followed him. “What about my mom? Where does she even play into this?”
“I don’t want to argue.”
“Too late.”
He eyed her for far too long. “Fine. Let’s get it out. Let’s say what needs to be said.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Go for it. I’m dying to know.”
“I don’t say anything about your visits to your mother, but I hope you understand that she will never get to meet our child.”
Leah hadn’t considered it all that much. And while she agreed in concept, she didn’t like being told what she could or could not do. So instead of doing the wise thing, she doubled down, she dug her heels in.
“You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do, Marcus.”
He was just as upset as she was. “I do on this.”
“Yeah?” Maybe she really did need a palate cleanser, and not just from his family, but from him, too. “If you say so. I’ll stay away from my mom. Far away. I’m glad I thought to bring my passport.”
Shock flooded his features. “The human world? No!”
“I could go. I could disappear. You wouldn’t have to worry about me ruining your reputation or career, or getting between you and your mom. My mom and I survived just fine over there for years without anyone finding us.”
“Yeah, that worked out great, didn’t it?!”
She clenched her fists. “No one’s stopping me.” Catrina hadn’t stopped her from leaving the palace, and she probably would be content with Leah disappearing altogether.
He looked her dead in the eyes, his voice calm but firm. “I could stop you. And you know it.”
A lead weight slammed down in her gut. That was the exact kind of threat she’d heard him utter once before. Only once. I think we both know this could get much worse for you. She hadn’t understood Marcus’s threat to Tanner back in high school, but she did now.
That was the kind of flex the nephew to the queen could make. He wouldn’t stop Leah from leaving. She was stronger than him with her powers. He could have her stopped.
And he was right. Not a single part of her doubted in that moment that Catrina would choose him, that everyone would.
Leah grasped at straws. “You don’t even have proof the baby’s yours. Maybe it’s not. Maybe you don’t deserve to have a say in anything I or my baby do.”
He reached for ammunition, and found it. “Wouldn’t surprise me. You did sleep around before me, right?”
Exactly one person knew how much that insult would hurt. She’d only confided in one person the details of her sex life. And that one person also knew that not all of her sexual encounters had been fully consensual.
She choked on her words, unable to reply. He was that one person.
“But I think we both know that’s mine.” He glanced at her stomach. “We both know it will come out a Boman like its father. And that there’s not a single Boman in the entire realm, on the entire planet, other than me, that would ever screw you.”
And that was it. With white-hot rage, her hand flew through the air, her palm connecting with his face with the loudest slap she’d ever heard.
Marcus stumbled back onto the bed, clutching his cheek, his mouth agape.
She held back a whimper, realizing what she’d just done. “Get out.”
His nostrils flared as he stared at her. “Done.” He got up, and she sidestepped out of the way. Grabbing his wallet from a basket near the door, he turned to her. “I’ll be up north if you come to your senses.”
As her heart broke completely, she gritted out her goodbye. “Don’t hold your breath.”
He slammed the door behind him as he exited. She watched out the window, hugging herself, her heart racing, her breathing rapid.
Only when he was far down the lane did she allow herself to fall apart.
She crumpled to the floor, sobbing and hyperventilating.
Her hand stung.
He shouldn’t have said half of the things he’d said. But she’d just made things immeasurably worse for herself. His aunt was the queen. Slap a commoner—that’s assault. Slap a member of the royal family?
And even if Catrina let Leah off the hook, the court of public opinion never would. She’d hit a Boman. After trying for two years to prove she wasn’t an unstable bigoted assassin like her parents, she’d smacked her boyfriend.
And it hadn’t been a regular slap. Her Ivy energy had boosted that. She’d used her powers against him. She’d used powers against someone born without them.
Leah would never recover from this.
Breathing and crying too hard, she threw up on the wood floor.
Much later, Leah had cleaned up her mess. She was too jittery to do anything other than go into the backyard and power-weed, yanking out everything in sight from the garden beds still needing to be overhauled. As she took the last of the weeds to the compost pile, her eyes fixed on the bracelet she wore, the one Marcus had just brought her.
She’d done the wrong thing. But so had he. He had no right to use her past mistakes against her. With tears in her eyes, she undid the clasp and let it fall into the compost heap.
After returning to the cottage, she made peppermint tea to soothe her stomach, and a light meal. And then she stared at the wall, replaying their entire day together. How had they made love that morning, and by noon, thrown away everything?
Leah flexed and unflexed her hand time and time again. She’d hit him. She’d hit him. After growing up with an abusive ‘aunt,’ Leah had promised herself she would never be that person. Anger didn’t justify physical violence. But she didn’t cry again. She was too hollow and hopeless to find tears. She just stared at her hands as the sun set.
Darkness fell. Marcus didn’t return, and no one came for Leah. She needed to sleep this all off like the nightmare it was. Using a striker, she lit a beeswax candle, then took it to the bedroom.
It was comfy, and she desperately needed that rest, but the magnet had been flipped, and her safe haven now pushed her away instead of drawing her in. The thought of lying alone in the bed they’d shared was too much. She grabbed a pillow and quilt, tucking them under her arm, and picked up the candle, returning to the living room and crashing on the sofa.