Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Of course, I knew, but I wanted to hear him vocalize it, to hear what an asshole he sounded like when he spoke the words.
“You deliberately kissed that man in public, for attention, to take a stand against the very thing Mère and I explicitly stated this family would remain silent about, in the name of our own mother.”
“Which would you like an apology for? The photo or my bisexual impulses? I’m having a hard time knowing exactly where your issue lies, Your Majesty.”
Surely, he could detect every bit of disdain in my tone at the reference to his title.
“Lies are where my issues lie, Prince Owen.”
It seemed we had disregarded our familial connection for the sake of our fight.
“Yes, perhaps I should ignore a decade of spectacular scandals with women, broadcast across the nation time and time again, and instead believe you were just waiting for the right time to come forward about being with men. And what a time too, with the parliament’s discussions about equal marriage being at the forefront of the news recently.”
“I’ll admit to the peculiar—and perhaps inconvenient—timing of the kiss, but—”
“Inconvenient? Is that what you think this is?”
“No, I don’t think it’s inconvenient. I think it’s funny, hilarious, that you’re being such an incredible ass, not only about this cause you know I believe in, but also to me about my newfound feelings toward men.”
“Your feelings toward men.” He scoffed, enflaming my already testy rage. “I’m here to tell you, Prince Owen Hawthorne III, if you’re thinking of parading around with this boy and using him to continue to make a mockery of this family and send a message to the people, you are mistaken.”
Until the words had escaped his lips, I hadn’t considered the thought.
And really, if anything, I felt like a fool for not having thought of the idea myself, maybe simply because things had been so hectic since the parade, I hadn’t had time to do so much planning as much as crisis management. However, the moment he spoke the words, it was as though he’d wished them into existence.
Suddenly, I had a plan.
And it would either be the most foolish of plans or the best damn one I could have come up with under the current circumstances.
“I can’t help who I’m interested in, Lucas,” I said, standing by the position he had just stated, created even, himself.
He groaned. “So this is the game we’re playing…at odds with one another because you are adamant about going against the decision we made as a family?”
“That you and Sharon made. As you will recall, I disagreed with it from day one, and I don’t feel like you should get to decide who I’m interested in or want to spend my time with.”
“Stop trying to make this about something that has nothing to do with it. If I thought for a second you were sincere, that would be a totally different conversation. This is petty insolence. This is insubordination. You are shitting on the Hawthorne family name and Mother’s grave.”
He couldn’t have made a worse comment, and surely by the way he inspected my face, he noticed my nostrils flaring with my inflamed rage. I puffed up my chest and rushed him. He backed up but then stopped himself as though he knew he had to don some sense of authority amid our argument.
“Don’t you dare suggest I am doing anything against Mother,” I whispered, so he’d know how serious I was.
“You make that easy to suggest when your entire youth was filled with pranks and scandal.”
“Is that what rehab is considered these days?” I asked.
He sneered, and despite my challenge, he was right about my misspent youth. There had been many years where I hadn’t been myself. I’d gone astray, particularly after losing her.
I made mistakes, plenty of them, but this wasn’t a mistake. I sincerely believed in this cause and that what our family was doing by remaining silent was wrong.
“You disapprove,” I continued. “Then you can make a public proclamation against me. You can cast me aside. You can do whatever you want. Mother was brave and made her stand against the wishes of the people because it was right. Only after being labeled a degenerate and enduring an invasive inquiry into her relationship with Mère, and only after being threatened that her children would be taken away from her, did she silence once again, for the sake of keeping this family together in a time when she faced public outrage over something that is no longer the risk it once was.”
We had come a long way from the days when we aided Mother in her efforts to cloud the truth of Mère’s pet name to authorities and clinical psychologists, pretending we knew nothing of what, to us, was the only family that truly mattered.