“I didn’t think this through,” Jamie said, although he wasn’t speaking to her.
“Jamie?”
He turned toward her. “It was supposed to be a fling.”
Ele’s brow furrowed. “Yes, it started like that. But he makes me feel okay, Jamie. He grounds me, you know? And makes me laugh and makes me go warm with …” She trailed off. Some things she couldn’t share with her brother.
She blushed, and Jamie stared at her. Strippe
d bare in front of him, Ele rubbed her palms against her thighs.
“You fell in love with him?” he said, his awe and disbelief its own presence.
“No!” she blurted. A reaction more than a thought. “We barely know each other. Which is why I want to explore things between us.”
Jamie was contemplative, casually leaning against the windowpanes, staring at her as if he could use that elusive telepathy to gain access to her most intimate thoughts. “Does he feel the same way? He wants to try to find a way to spend more time with you?”
Ele shifted, uncomfortable. She rubbed her hands against her thighs again, her discomfort morphing into a flare of panic. She tamped it down. This is Jamie. There is no reason to be upset.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “We haven’t spoken since Chicago.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “He hasn’t made any contact with you? Then, how do you know he wants to pursue something more?”
“I don’t.”
“Damn it, Ele. You weren’t supposed to go and fall in love with him. It was a diversion. A whim to get you out of your comfort zone.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, a drawn-out word, and then things began to click. “Jamie, what are you not telling me?” She couldn’t say what had prompted the question, but she knew she’d hit on something when he scratched his brow.
He shuffled to the chair and then slumped in it. Pitching forward, he dropped his elbows to his knees. “When I sent you to America, I thought it would be good for you. You were doing better, and I figured it would be good for you—”
“You already said that.”
“Said what?”
“Good for me. Since when do you decide what’s good for me?”
“Since you witnessed our parents’ assassination,” he whispered.
But it was a verbal slap nonetheless, and Ele flinched.
“Do you think it’s been easy, watching you retreat from the world? You were the vivacious, brave one of the two of us … until you weren’t. And I haven’t seen you smile like that or open yourself up to anyone new in twelve long years. I knew you wouldn’t do anything about it unless an opportunity was made available. So, I convinced the queen to let you go to America in my stead.”
“You manipulated me.” She wanted to scream the accusation, but it came out whisper-soft, a caress instead of a sledgehammer.
“No. I provided an opening. You’re the one who ran through it.”
“And now that your plan has worked so perfectly, you’re mad?”
“I’m not mad, Ele. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I put you in a position that is now going to hurt you. You have to see that Tristan is entirely wrong for you.”
Ele couldn’t even respond to Jamie’s statement. Hadn’t she spent the last month delineating the reasons she couldn’t be with Tristan? But she wasn’t saying she wanted to marry him, for Queen’s sake. She just wanted to be able to spend time with him, to bask in all the wonderful glow of his presence. That impulsivity she’d claimed to hate about him was also endearing. As was his smile and how he made her laugh. He lit her up inside, so she forgot about all the things that scared her. He touched her and let her touch him. Ele recalled so many reasons that she forgot why she shouldn’t want to see him.
“I won’t know if he’s entirely wrong for me if I don’t get to see him.”
“Technically, you are engaged.”
Ele merely rolled her eyes, not even bothering to address the engagement.