Page 90 of Scarred Crown

“Mother’s orders.” I flash my hand. “Can’t let the royal ring get tarnished.”

Amusement tinges Nick’s hazel eyes. “Not so easy to polish.” He takes the seat next to me. “Suppose I should look after mine as well. Or rather,” he says, gesturing to Dr. Bennett. “The good doctor can earn his keep.”

“I believe I’ve earned my keep several times over with you, Your Highness,” Dr. Bennett says without removing his focus from my finger. “It’s actually quite a pretty design.” He finishes with me and pats the back of my hand.

“That’s true. As far as drunken mistakes are concerned, I’ve got good taste.” My gaze slides to Nick, and he raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything.

The doctor plucks some salve from his kit and bends over Nick’s hand next. “You must have directed the show, Secretary Jensen. Otherwise, I believe Prince Nicholas would have been more creative with where he put his tribute to you.” When he peers over at me, the doctor’s eyes glint with good humor.

“You know him well, I see.” I tease.

“Yes, clearly Jules has the market cornered on common sense. If you’re getting a tattoo, get the best tattoo—my name,” Nick says.

The doctor laughs, and I can’t help following along. This situation shouldn’t be anything close to funny, and yet with Nick sitting beside me, it doesn’t feel dire anymore either. He finishes Nick’s finger and gives us a few tips on how to care for the tattoo in the coming days since neither of us can remember where we got it done. We’ll have to check our bank accounts and credit cards later to make sure we didn’t go to some back-alley place with poor hygiene.

“It’s not my first tattoo,” Nick says with a hint of a smile when the doctor borders on a lecture.

Although Nick’s declaration is news to me, I don’t say anything. How strange is it to be married to him and to know less than I did at sixteen? At one time I was intimately familiar with almost every square inch of him. I could have drawn him with incredible detail from memory and told anyone exactly what Nick would think before he realized he thought it. Such a privilege to understand someone so well.

Dr. Bennett bids his goodbyes and leaves with his little medical bag that makes me think we’re in a 1950s sitcom, or maybe drama, depending on what comes next for me and Nick.

Nick heaves out a big sigh and sits forward, running his hands down his face. “What did your mother say?”

“That I needed to put on my big girl pants and speak to you like an adult instead of avoiding a confrontation.” Might as well jump to the point. If I stick to the facts and keep my feelings out of it, this conversation will be easier. Honest, to the point of bluntness, and I can’t dwell on any of his answers. That’s my strategy. All of his answers can skim across me as though I’m ice, and none of them will hurt me.

“Not too far off my conversations with Brice and my father.” He huffs out a laugh and glances over at me.

“Brice?” His father isn’t a surprise, but Brice is rarely serious. He’s a crowd-pleaser, but he’s not the one anyone goes to for helpful advice.

“You know you’ve slid pretty far down the reasonable scale when Brice is the voice of reason.” Nick jokes.

We stare at each other, and I wonder whether he’s struggling to do up those adult pants like I am. While we must talk about what’s happened, I can’t wrap my head around how I feel about our marriage, let alone what I want him to say in response.

“Did we fuck up?” he whispers.

“I have no idea,” I admit.

“Was your mother upset?”

A good avoidance strategy. Let’s talk about how other people feel before we pick at our own wounds. “Not really. Just… she wondered how I felt about the whole thing. King George?”

“Not angry, surprisingly.” Nick flops back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. “Asked me the same question.”

“We hardly know each other,” I say. Staying married to him doesn’t make sense given we’ve only been speaking properly for a few weeks. Before Tanzania, our exchanges were stilted politeness. Despite what the world believes, there’s been no torrid affair, not even the consummation of our marriage.

“Anymore.” Nick amends. “At one time, you knew me better than anyone.”

The honest declaration causes such a sharp ache that tears spring to my eyes. At one time we told each other everything without inhibition, with no worries about hurt feelings or misunderstandings. We both seemed to understand each other’s limits, the places a best friend didn’t go. We were deeply, utterly connected.

That sort of no holds barred friendship is rare, and I didn’t appreciate it enough until Nick was giving other people all the pieces I used to get. In fourteen years, we’ve drifted so far. How do we come back from that?

“What do you want to do?” I brace myself for the obvious choice. We annul the marriage and handle the fallout. If we don’t do it now, the embarrassment if we failed would be worse, wouldn’t it? We can’t build a marriage on the non-relationship we have right now.

“I want to rewind time to have a few less drinks.” He turns his head toward me, and our gazes connect. “We got tattoos, Jules. The only other tattoo I have, I got because it meant something to me. Despite what you might think,” he holds up his finger, “I wouldn’t have done this on a whim—not even drunk. Trust me, I’ve had lots of opportunities with Brice to get meaningless tattoos in Vegas. Hasn’t happened once.”

His reasoning is exactly my own. The wedding I might have agreed to thinking we were so clever and funny. An arranged marriage? Not likely if he’s already married! Aren’t we hilarious?

But the tattoo? There isn’t enough alcohol in the world to erode my common sense that much.