Chapter 6
Kathleen
The heat inside me blossomed again, after years in stasis. The surge shot through my veins as I cradled him in my arms, letting him grieve as a man and not as an heir to the throne.
The harsh reality wrapped around me as tight, almost suffocating me with the truth.
Damn it.
I did still love him.
Five years of stuffing that emotion down so deep it'd never come back to life, twisting it into an imaginary friendship where we never talked, never exchanged emails—but were still somehow on good terms, enough to attend a funeral and coronation without the burning desire scorching and burning through all those walls.
The truth scared the hell out of me.
Because I was in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.
For both of us.
We sat in silence for a long ti
