A Prince on Paper (Reluctant Royals #3)(12)
“I’m fine,” Nya had said, because what else could she say the day before the wedding festivities began? The truth—that she felt like goat hide brushed in the wrong direction, and she couldn’t pinpoint why—was not happy-celebration appropriate. She’d forced a smile, and kept that forced smile, and now just wanted to float in warm fragrant water and discuss things like dresses and makeup, not the fact that her father was locked up a few kilometers away while she was receiving the royal spa treatment.
“How was the flight with Johan?” Portia asked loudly, her voice traveling through the water surrounding Nya’s ears. “Did you guys talk? He’s really good at making people feel better.”
Nya flailed and began to sink, so she flipped with a splash that sprayed water over Portia, accidentally of course, and took a seat between her two friends on the bench.
“We talked a bit. After I ended up in bed with him,” she said, pushing her waterlogged braids behind her ears. She wanted to shock them, and she only felt a little guilty when both of them flailed.
Portia let out a laugh that was caught somewhere between scandalized and impressed. “Nya!”
“Want to run that by us again?” Ledi asked, cupping a hand over her ear.
“Not like that. I didn’t know he was on board the jet, in the bedroom, because someone sent vague texts instead of just telling me he was going to be traveling with me.” She shot a disapproving look at Portia.
“Sorry. But also not sorry because how did you manage not to see him? It’s an airplane.”
“The jet isn’t that big,” Ledi agreed. “We’re a wealthy kingdom, but my in-laws aren’t wasteful enough to buy a jet people can get lost in.”
“He might have been keeping a low profile.” Portia tilted her head thoughtfully. “Yesterday was . . . you know.”
“Oh. Right.” Ledi nodded somberly.
Nya didn’t understand, but since they didn’t share their insider knowledge with her, she continued.
“I went into the bedroom, it was dark, and well, he was there. In the bed. Nothing happened, besides him being weird.” She shook her head.
Neither of them had to know that, for the briefest moment, she’d considered his proposition, and that when he’d left the room she’d been unable to stop thinking about what could have happened if he’d been genuine and she’d been fearless. What-ifs only led to trouble, though.
What if Father isn’t truly doing anything wrong? Surely it is my imagination. He couldn’t do something so awful. I’ll give Ledi these pills just in case, instead of causing alarm for no reason.
Ledi held up both her hands. “Wait. Back up. You were in bed with Johan. Johan of the wild parties and public nudity. Weirdness could encompass a lot of things in that situation.”
“He thought I was a pillow. I jumped out of the bed, surprised. He . . . offered something lewd, I think, and then asked if I wanted to cuddle. I kicked him out.” She didn’t add how she’d cried in front of him, and how she’d gripped his handkerchief in her fist afterward and tried to ignore the lemon-and-lavender scent of him. “But the flight attendant probably thought we were up to something. Fictional me will have had quite the tryst by the time the gossip makes the rounds.”
Portia’s expression was serious, her lighthearted curiosity gone. When she spoke, her voice held the concern and willingness to destroy for her friends that had made Nya love her.
“He said something lewd? I know he can be flip, but I don’t care how upset he was, he shouldn’t have—”
“I handled it,” Nya said. She let her arms float in front of her, focusing on how they bobbed in the water instead of her friends’ concern, and how it both soothed and aggravated her. “People say things like that sometimes because they think it’s entertaining to tease me. You know that. He was just doing what people always do, and once he understood I didn’t think it was funny, he stopped. People don’t always stop.”
“Are you sure you’re o—” Ledi began, but Nya gripped the bench with her toes and pushed off, swimming away from the question people kept asking but didn’t want the answer to.
When she got to the other end of the hot tub she hoisted herself up and then plastered on her fake smile before turning toward her friends. She pointed down the hall toward the sauna, gave a thumbs-up, and when they hesitantly returned it, she slap-splashed her way to the dark wooden door.
She grabbed a towel along the way, squeezing the moisture from her braids as she walked, feeling like a sulking child who was ruining everything.
She knew her friends cared, and she felt terrible for the odd resentment that they didn’t care in the way she needed them to. They loved her, they were trying their best, but she didn’t even know what she needed—how could anyone else?
She’d always kept her emotions in check—calm, reasonable Nya, quietly taking care of things while everyone assumed she couldn’t even take care of herself—if she’d screamed and acted out maybe that would have gotten people’s attention. Maybe then they would have seen what her quiet deference really was, and what her father’s bombastic nature really hid—a locked birdcage.
She wrapped the towel around herself and kneaded the small of her back with the knuckles of her left hand. Ledi had told her to visit the masseuse, but even the thought of it made her feel like she was taking too much. It was like this every time she visited the palace—she’d grown up under her father’s strange and confusing doctrine, which stated she had to be a good girl to get nice things, but whenever nice things were within her reach she’d been told that no good girl would want them.