After hanging up with Leo, giving only the most cursory of explanations as to why I suddenly needed to leave, I quickly packed a small suitcase with the necessities I would need. I planned on doing absolutely nothing except wallowing in my heartbreak; any appointments on my calendar could be damned. Let Liam deal with the fallout of my disappearance.
Twenty minutes after I’d left Drake and Liam in the library, I stood in front of Leo’s room, knocking on the door. After some shuffling, Leo opened the door, concern etched on his face.
“What’s going on, Char?”
He ushered me in, returning to the bed where his own suitcase lay open. As he continued throwing shirts into the bag, I sighed and sat down in a chair.
“Liam’s cheating on me.”
Saying the words aloud made them real; tears clouded my eyes as I again faced the reality that everything I knew about Liam felt like a myth. His kindness, his consideration for others, his noble desire to create a healthier, more thriving Cordonia, all seemed secondary to his status as a philanderer. Even though I’d expressed desire for an open marriage, I would never have sought out other sexual partners on my own; the fact that Liam had done so in secret made me sick.
Leo’s eyes widened and he dropped the pair of shoes he’d been holding, one of them landing squarely on his foot. “Ow! Fuck!” he hissed, jumping back from the offending footwear. He recovered quickly and knelt next to me.
“Charlotte, are you sure? That doesn’t sound like him,” Leo questioned, his dazzling green eyes full of worry. I laughed hollowly.
“Yeah, I know it doesn’t. That’s why I had no idea,” I sniffled and looked at my brother-in-law, whose face was so like Liam’s. Their resemblance made me cry even harder. Leo wrapped me in a hug.
“Don’t you think you should stay and talk to him? Liam loves you, you know that.”
I shook my head violently against Leo’s shoulder. “I can’t stay here right now. It’s too much.” I hesitated to tell him my other reason for fleeing the country: Drake. Leo didn’t need to know that my heart was torn between two men. It could come out, in time, but I needed some distance to collect my thoughts first.
Leo sighed and kissed the top of my head. “Okay, Char, I’ll take you with me. But you have to come back, you know? You are Queen. How do you even expect to get out of the palace without security?”
“That’s why time is of the essence,” I said, rising. “We have to move quickly, or Liam will have someone trying to track me down for him.”
He nodded and zipped up his suitcase, heading for the door of his suite. “I know that feeling. Stay with me, I’ve got this.”
We moved through the hallways of the palace, taking back corridors that I didn’t even know about. I couldn’t have chosen a better person to sneak out of the kingdom with; Leo knew every secret shortcut like the back of his hand.
“Okay, Char, I’m gonna go pull my rental car around – hang out here for a second,” he instructed, moving toward the palace carport quickly. I waited nervously near a side entrance, biting my fingernails and hoping that my guards wouldn’t suddenly pop up. After only a couple minutes, Leo swung the car around, a black sedan with tinted windows – even better. Making quick work of tossing my luggage in the back, I nestled into the passenger seat and pulled my sunglasses from my bag. I slid the dark shades on and threw my hair up into a messy bun; definitely not the look of a royal. This way, I hoped the guard at the palace gates would assume I was Leo’s flavor of the week.
We rolled up to the gate and I breathed a sigh of relief. Standing there was Nico, one of the older guards, and nearsighted as all get-out. I pretended to be busy on my phone as Leo chatted briefly with Nico, who quickly let us through the gates and on our way. As we drove away from the palace, I felt my heart lift slightly; I may be broken, but without the stifling presence of the crown hanging over my head I might be able to heal.
Leo looked over and grinned at me. “There’s something exhilarating about sneaking out, huh?” Nodding, I smiled. “Definitely. I can see why you did it for so long.” Leo chuckled and ran a hand through his messy hair, just as my phone began to ring. My stomach dropped as I checked the screen. Liam. I quickly pressed ignore as the tears began to well in my eyes. No more, I thought angrily, swiping at them as they fell down my cheeks.
“Is that Liam?” Leo inquired quietly, keeping his eyes on the road. I nodded, turning my phone off altogether and stuffing it in my bag. “You know you’re going to have to talk to him sometime, Char,” he said. Anger surged through me as I turned in my seat to face him.
“Yeah, I know, but I just found out about an hour ago that he’s been cheating on me for years, and with the woman who made my life a living hell too, so I think I’m entitled to ignore him for awhile,” I spat, my fury directed at the closest person to me at the moment. His eyes flicked to me quickly. “Hey, wrong brother, doll, don’t be pissed at me. I understand why you–” Leo broke off and went silent for a moment. When he spoke next, his voice was deathly calm.
“Are you talking about Madeleine?”
Fixated on my own anger and sadness, I hadn’t even realized that Liam’s actions could have hurt his own brother as well. I knew that Leo and Madeleine’s history was complicated, and that she was heartbroken when he’d abdicated. From what I’d heard, Leo may have been the only person Madeleine truly loved and, from the sound of it, Leo had cared for her as well. I nodded slowly, watching as Leo’s hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles turning white with strain.
“I can’t believe that fucker,” he seethed, “Madeleine was the one woman I told him he couldn’t have, even when I left, he knew I loved her, I just couldn’t live that life with her.” He turned his eyes to me, pain reflecting in them. “I asked her to leave with me – did you know that?”
My mouth dropped open in shock. Leo had asked her to go with him when he abdicated?
“It was about a year before I’d actually decided to abdicate,” he explained, turning his eyes back to the road. “I knew that I didn’t want that life, but I loved that girl with all my heart. I begged her to come with me, to leave all the royal bullshit behind, but she wouldn’t go. Said we had a ‘responsibility’ to Cordonia, that she would never leave, that she was born to be queen.” Leo shook his head sadly. “I knew then that I would have to leave her behind, because I’d never be able to be the king she wanted me to be. When I met Katie, it just … seemed like the perfect way out.”
Leo fell silent then, staring out the window as he drove. I’d often been upset with Leo, especially at the beginning of my relationship with Liam, for what he’d done to his younger brother, leaving to him the responsibility of ruling a kingdom while he’d gone off and lived his adventure. It seemed as though Leo’s decision hadn’t been quite as easy to make as I’d thought. Leaving behind the woman you love, who doesn’t love you enough to follow you, only to find out that your brother had been having an affair with her? Leo had a right to be hurt, too.
“I’m sorry, Leo,” I murmured, placing my hand over his on the steering wheel. He looked over at me with a tight smile. “That’s okay, Char. We were never meant to be anyway, right?”
He pulled into the small airport near the capitol and drove straight over to a private hangar where a mid-size Cessna Citation sat. I looked around for a moment, confused. I guess we couldn’t have just commandeered the Royal Jet and had it take us to who-knows-where, but I still didn’t expect a small, nondescript craft like this. “Do you know how to fly a plane?” I asked Leo, who quickly got out of the car to grab our bags. “Hell no,” he replied. “But I know a guy who does.”
I followed him up the steps of the plane, where a short, attractive man was fiddling with instruments in the cockpit. “Hey, McKenzie,” Leo called to him. The man, our pilot, I assumed, lifted his head and broke into a wide grin. “What’s up, Royal?” He stood and gave Leo a quick hug, then turned to me.
“Your Majesty, I presume?”
Gasping, I punched Leo solidly in the arm. “Way to be discreet!” He rubbed the spot where I’d socked him. “Relax, Char, Jake is trustworthy. No one’s gonna find out you flew the coop.” I huffed and moved to the back of the plane, antsy to get off the ground. Visions of the Royal Guard swooping in on us just as we were about to flee danced through my head; I didn’t need Liam charging in here with some royal decree to make me stay.
“Y’all ready?” Jake called, taking a seat in the cockpit. I sat opposite Leo, buckling my seat belt and staring anxiously out the window. A silver sedan pulled up beside the plane and my stomach dropped; I had been so close. “We’ve got company, Leo,” I said glumly, standing up and beginning to gather my things. Leo frowned as he stood to look out the windows on my side, where the car had rolled to a stop near the pull-away steps. “That’s impossible, he couldn’t have found out where we were headed and gotten here that quickly,” he mused.
Jake moved to the door of the plane, scowling at whomever was making their way toward us. “Sorry, I’m booked. Private flight.” Leo and I held our breaths, waiting to find out who had come to put a stop to my escape. “Get out of the way, Tiny,” a sharp voice drawled, bringing a smile to my lips. The newest member of our getaway gang stepped into the small plane with a smirk on her cherry-red lips.
“You two couldn’t have just invited me along, huh?” Olivia dropped into the seat next to Leo, huffing as she crossed her slim legs. She turned her green eyes to me.
“So, where are we going?”