His Defiant Princess by Kathleen O'Brien

Author:Kathleen O'Brien [O'Brien, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942240600
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Published: 2015-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

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Finally, Friday came.

Emory held his second press conference, fielded questions, and was absolutely marvelous. Brenna felt the knot of tension inside her blissfully begin to unwind.

The campaign was in the home stretch. The cruise line vote in parliament would be held this coming Monday, and after that, Brenna’s job would be over.

She would pack up and leave the palace forever.

And not a moment too soon.

Ever since Ronan had kissed her by the polo field, two nights ago now, he hadn’t come near her again. So obviously he wasn’t suffering over the kiss. He wasn’t going mad wanting to repeat it.

For all she knew, he was regretting having indulged the impulse.

She, on the other hand, could barely focus on anything else. When she wasn’t thinking about Wednesday night, and how he’d looked in the twilight, racing his demons across the grass on that chestnut horse, she was brooding on the past.

As if the kiss had opened rusted floodgates, memories of their long lost summer assaulted her, day and night.

Unable to sleep, she stared at the ceiling and remembered a hundred jewel-like details she had forgotten for years. Some were small and unimportant. Silly, or trivial, or irrelevant to real life.

But some were so poignant they swamped her with a painful sense of something beautiful lost forever.

Like Ajan. How, she wondered, could she have forgotten Ajan?

August. A hint of a coming chill in the air, though they had both refused to acknowledge it. Their summer was almost over.

Their last long hike into the mountains. They had arrived at a small, remote village, where the whole town was celebrating the birthday of a boy named Ajan. His thirteenth birthday, he announced proudly. His “man year.”

Ajan’s family offered them a bed that night, a gesture of immense respect. They’d accepted, rather than reject a kindness. But they’d grown too wild for such things. In the middle of the night they sneaked out, away from the claustrophobic walls and stifling blankets. They walked far beyond the last village hut and made love by a rushing silver river.

She wiped her hand across her forehead. This had to stop. She was torturing herself. She was going to drive herself mad.

She pulled out her laptop and scrolled blindly through her feed. She needed to erect some kind of mental dam, and stop the memories from pouring in.

He’d obviously stopped them. The kiss wasn’t torturing him. He had moved on with his life.

And if he could, she could.

She forced herself to read the posts, slowly, one at a time.

No bad news here. Nothing rotten about Emory for hours now. And even Vicki Jardin seemed to be taking a break from bashing Tinley-Arden.

Brenna knew better than to think a brief lull meant the war was over, but she was glad for any respite.

She kept scrolling. More good news. Virginia St. Stephen had finally given a statement about her broken engagement this morning, timing it strategically to take place immediately after Emory’s press conference. In it, she’d mentioned her mother was ill, hinting that might have been the reason for the breakup.

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