The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series) (38 page)

              “No promises,” I smiled wider.

              The waiter stopped by our table and we both ordered outrageous sized burgers, topped with jalapenos, grilled onions and fried eggs, and then I added sweet potato waffle fries and onion rings. There was no way Sylvia was going to be able to get through her pastrami burger, but she was definitely going to try. Stella’s had the best burgers in Omaha, after all.

              “You’re coming tomorrow night, right?” I asked after the waiter refilled our sodas and walked away.

              “Of course,” Sylvia nodded. I nodded, I did know that. Lilly had one of those personalities that people rarely did anything with but love.  “I adore Lilly, you know that. I’m also on airport duty with Eden tonight. Did you know Sebastian is escorting them over and not Jericho?”

              “Yes, Jericho says they are having some issues with the humans that we rescued. One of the girls is not recovering well and he wants to oversee her treatment,” I explained. “Besides the Cartiers are staying for the party so Sebastian should probably be here with his family anyway.”

              I swallowed against the lump in my throat at the mention of Amelia’s family. She hadn’t talked to me since she dumped me. Dumped me. I had been dumped.

              I averted my eyes from Sylvia before she saw anything there. I didn’t want to think about Amelia’s rejection. I wanted to just move on, bury myself in work and finding Terletov. I had never wanted to fall in love to begin with. I knew this would be a risk and I was stupid enough to believe that after I found Amelia I would be untouched by heartbreak.

              Ugh…. heartbreak.

              It was more than a break. It was like my heart had shattered into miniscule pieces of pain and then splintered into every single working organ inside of me, slowly hemorrhaging me to death.

              And the acute pain was so much more than being jilted…. It was imagining my life, my future, my very existence without her.

              “I want you to come back to Romania with us,” I blurted before she could see the dark path of my thoughts.

              “What?” Sylvia nearly spit out her drink.

              “At least during Eden’s pregnancy. She wants to stay here for the full term, I know that. But it’s not like she can give birth in your hospital. And with Terletov running around…. I want her safe. After the party, she needs to go back to the Citadel. She needs you, and I need to know she’s well taken care of,” I explained professionally.

              “Avalon,” Sylvia sighed and then met my gaze. “I understand your concerns for Eden and I agree. She does need to go back to your part of the world. But I can’t just pack up my life and move to Romania for a few months. I have a job, a life, obligations…. everything is here for me.”

              “I would pay you, obviously,” I explained, meeting the first of physical needs I knew she would complain about. And then I appealed to her emotional ones. “Sylvia, I need you. I don’t think I can track Terletov efficiently if I am desperately concerned for my sister. I know you’re worried about her too. Why not just take a short sabbatical from the hospital and put both of our fears to rest?”

              “The money is not necessary,” she rolled her eyes. “Avalon…. I…. let me think about it, alright?”

              “The humans that are there,” I pushed one last point her direction and hoped she would think seriously about my offer. “They need someone to talk to. Someone who knows what they are going through, someone who can help give them peace. And after the reports I’ve heard, your medical expertise wouldn’t hurt either. The Witch involved with their care is the best we have besides Eden, but I’m not sure he understands completely what a human body needs in order to heal. You could help with their recovery.”

              “Now you’re just playing dirty,” she laughed at me, but I saw the wheels turning in her head.

              Good.

              The waiter returned with our food and for minute we were too completely involved with our own burgers to continue conversation. My southwest burger was heaping with toppings, and took two hands to hold. BBQ sauce, pepper jack cheese and egg dripped down my fingers onto the napkin used instead of a plate and I resisted the very real urge to lick my fingers before even one drop was wasted.

              When our burgers were official devoured and the onion rings and fries had disappeared, Sylvia leaned back on her stool like she was in physical pain. I rubbed my stomach and contemplated a second burger.

              “I brought something for you,” Sylvia said quietly, pulling herself out of her self-induced food coma. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she continued. “Do you ever think that Amory knew he was going to die that night?”

              The gravity of where the conversation was headed landed on the table like lead and I sucked in a sharp breath unprepared to answer her question. I sat silent for a minute, letting my thoughts collect, putting them in some kind of organized order and then I answered, “Yes, I do.”

              She returned my words with silence on her end as she seemed to think over my simple words. The bar/restaurant was noisy and uncomfortably crowded around us, the line of people waiting for burgers extended out the door, but with the conversation sitting idly between Syl and I, the room had narrowed to just our table, to just us as we contemplated the workings of my dead grandfather.

              “Me too,” she finally agreed. Emotion flooded her eyes, glossing them over with slick tears that threatened to spill over any second. I reached across the table and took her hand in mine, comforting her by running my thumb cross the back of her hand. She snatched her hand from my grasp and waved it at me as if I were making things worse for her. She shook her blonde hair out and pierced me with those same, tear-filled blue eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get upset.”

              “It’s alright,” I told her in a gruff voice that betrayed my own emotion.

              “Anyway,” she shook her head again and started digging through her ginormous purse. “Before…. before everything happened, he and I had a talk. Your grandfather was an amazing man. I know  you know that, but it just needs to be said. He was so worried about you and your sister, but at the same time he was
so
proud of you. I know that some of you can see things, like future things. And I really, truly believe Amory could. See things, that is. Anyway, he gave me this.” She pulled a small, square black box from her purse and set it on the table between us.

              I stared down at the ring box, afraid to even move. The velvet square sat in between our saturated napkins and empty baskets with fried crumbs left in them. It sat on the only piece of dry table between our condensation-dripping glasses of soda and the salt and pepper shakers. Questions, emotions, fears and hopes filled my head, but all I could do was stare at it. I didn’t even really know what it was, let alone what I was supposed to do with it.

              “I loved Amory,” Sylvia admitted what all of us had suspected since the first time we saw her and Amory together. “He came into my life when I needed someone to take care of me, when I needed someone to love me. And he did both. He helped me get through med school and gave me pieces of this world that I wouldn’t have known existed if it weren’t for him. For a long time, he was my world. And I hoped that he would always be that way. Then you and your sister showed up.” She gave me a sad smile and I suddenly realized when things had ended for her and Amory. He had given up everything for us, even things he should have been able to keep. Sylvia continued, “It was like he suddenly remembered what his purpose in life was, like he had forgotten or chose not to remember. But then there you were and I watched him come back to life. He had seemed happy and functioning before you two, but after I saw the change in him, I remember wondering to myself how I had never noticed how asleep he seemed before. Before you he was just surviving, even though he had good things in his life. After, there was purpose and hope and something so much deeper I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand what you two did for him. But I do know that he became fully himself again. We were over. And he ended things with such grace and love that I don’t even think I complained. I didn’t have time to complain because he somehow broke up with me at the same time he handed me a newborn baby and gave my life an entirely different purpose.” Sylvia paused to laugh at the memories. “It was through that experience I realized he had never loved me. Well, not like I loved him. I can’t say that he was using me, because he was a gentleman and considerate and everything a girl dreams about in a man. I know he cared about me, but he never loved me. Not like he loved her.”

              She paused and I took the opportunity to clarify, “Diana? My grandmother?”

              She nodded meeting my eyes so I could see she didn’t feel jilted. “Yes, Diana. Whatever they had must have been incredible, I mean the kind of stuff legends are written about because it wasn’t too long after Eden came to live with me I realized everything he did, he was doing for her. Lucan, no not Lucan…. who was King before Lucan?”

              “Cedric,” I clarified knowing this part of history but I needed to let her finish.

              “Yes, Cedric is the one that took her from him. And I really believe he spent every day after that just trying to get back to her. I can’t even imagine what life was like for him after your mother disappeared. But by the time he found me, he was…. functioning. And then there were you two. And I swear it was like he had found Diana again. Everything in his life became about that, about vindicating his wife.” She nudged the ring box toward me and I reluctantly picked it up and opened it. “Right before he died, he gave this to me. He asked me to hold on to it for you, Avalon. I think he knew Eden and Kiran would always end up together. Eden wouldn’t need this, but one day he knew that you would. It’s Diana’s. It’s the ring he gave to Diana.”

              I swallowed back a torrent of emotions and cleared my throat to keep it from closing completely. The ring, my grandmother’s ring, was blinking back at me, but I could barely make it out through blurry, unseeing eyes.

              This would not do.

              I closed the ring box and set it down on the table. Then I stood up and circled around the high bar top table in one step, tugging Sylvia against me in one breath. I held her there while she sniffled against my chest and I clung to her, just needing someone close that felt the intense heartbreak of my grandfather’s thoughtfulness.

              We stood like that for a long time. The busy bar burst at the seams with people, hectic from a rushed lunch hour or trying to squeeze in anywhere to sit. And we stood in the middle of it all, lost in the tangled path of our own memories.

              Finally I pulled myself together and came back to the present. I loosened my grip on Sylvia and took a step back so that I could look down into her eyes. She smiled up at me, confident and at peace. And it was then, when I saw the encouragement on Syl’s face that I was able to sit back down and open the box again.

              The ring was breathtaking; simple but elegant. The single pearl was raised up from the simple gold band. There was nothing spectacular about the ring, except that it was my grandmother’s and that my grandfather had given it to her as a symbol of his love. I plucked the ring out of the box and turned it over in my hands. The setting was tiny and I had a feeling it would fit perfectly on Amelia’s slender finger. On the back was an engraving that I had to extend my senses with magic in order to see clearly.

             
Eternity is only forever with your love
.

              I swallowed back a fresh wave of feeling and tore my eyes away from the engraving, away from one of the only men that would understand my future. She was looking at me with a mixture of hope and love and I was so thankful that she was the one I shared this moment with.

              “I hope you didn’t buy a ring for Amelia,” Sylvia broke our silence from across the table, more like startled me back to the painful present. “I wanted to give this to you right away when you mentioned buying one, but I had to get it from my safety deposit box. It is absolutely perfect for her; she’s going to love it.”

              Damn it. I knew Sylvia heard we broke up. I felt Eden telling her yesterday and had keenly shut off every single emotion and connection to Eden so I wouldn’t have to suffer through it. I decided to take back my gratitude that it was Sylvia I shared this moment with.

              “We’re over, Sylvia,” I choked out on a harsh voice just barely above a whisper.

              “Avalon St. Andrew, since when do you just give up?” she scolded from across the table.

              “Syl, she doesn’t feel the same for me. She wouldn’t look twice at this ring,” I explained. The thought of Amelia rejecting not just me, but this invaluable ring made me regret eating so much for lunch. I was going to throw it all up. I wouldn’t be able to handle her saying no to this ring…. this ring that single-handedly seemed to hold all of my real feelings and hopes and dreams.

              “Trust me when I tell you that Amelia is a girl, and no girl walks away from a ring without at the very least looking at it twice.” She smiled at me and I found myself smiling back. She would know more about girls than me. “Amelia was in love with you once, remember that.”

              “Not real love,” I countered. “She had a crush on me, that’s all. And I was a jackass.”

              “Avalon, don’t minimalize a girl’s feelings. We know our hearts better than you do and if she says she was in love with you once, than she was. Besides that, I was there. I was at the wedding, so I can confirm that she had it bad for you. You might have messed things up with her back then, but you don’t have to do that now. Besides, since when have you ever given up a fight before?”