During the worst time in her life Waridi meets Nikolai and despite all the things that are going wrong, Nikolai becomes the only thing that's going right. But are they really meant to be? Is the difference between them too great?
Are Waridi and Nik...
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You would think the public calling you a gold digging whore would be bad - until you meet Nikolai's hysterical mother as she cusses you out without actually saying a single cuss word. I almost want to chime in and say, call me whore please.
I want to be anywhere but here but Nikolai said we had to get all the awkward stuff out of the way so we can address the public and clear my name. So we flew here first think yesterday and now here we are in front of his parents.
"You cannot marry her." For a queen she sure is acting undignified "honestly, I might have grown to accept her to some degree but with this recent development? No."
"Recent?" Nikolai, like his father looks like his usual self, almost detached. Court face, he calls it. One time when we were talking about it, about how civil everyone in his family was he told me his family and him are only civil on the outside, inside they are just as savage as anyone else, each one willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.
He smiled and then said "That's how I got you."
"With your money?" I said back to him. "And charm," he smiled back, his eyes tender.
"How long were you sitting on that?" He asks his mother now "you've known for a while now." It's not a question.
His mother had the decency to look abashed "I had to." She raised her hand to wipe her hair back but refrained from making contact before she glared at her son. During this entire exchange she only glared at her son and not at me.
It was odd but in her own way she was being decent to me by pointedly keeping me out of the argument except when she was referring to me. Either that or she was ignoring me.
"Henrik, all you've ever wanted is finally in reach and you want to throw it away? For what? You can still have her - just don't marry her."
Nikolai was finally losing his cool. He ran his hand through his hair, his mother judged him for the gesture and he rolled his eyes at her.
"How could you suggest that?" Nikolai's mother was the woman his father loved but she was not from a very prominent family. It was prominent enough just not as appealing as Felix's mother, Annette was. So he married her, had a child with her and could only marry Nikolai's mother after Annette passed. Perhaps that's why Elizabette is so desperate for her son to sit on the throne. Maybe she feels robbed. She finally looks at me, her eyes almost seem sorry. I was ready to have her hate me, to throw jabs and be the antagonist of our pursuit but these glimses of kindness that she shows me; of her being a mother, of her wanting the best for her son gut me. I know what Nikolai would say, they're all calculated. She wants me to agree with her, if I agree she's won half the fight. But...sometimes...
"Do you think your father and I would change our decision?"
"Sure, you don't care that everyone including Felix believes you killed his mother."
