"Amateurs should not play these kinds of games."
"I'm not an amateur."
"I know, I know." Arthur waved his hand, indicating he had been kidding.
"I wasn't whipping her. That wouldn't have been right for her."
"Then it was?"
Casimir ground his teeth. "Edging."
"Oh, God. I'd rather be whipped with hard leather than be brought to the brink and then not allowed to go over. Trust issues?"
"Yes." Casimir could feel himself fidgeting, a despicable habit that he thought he had long since gotten over. "Could we change the flight plan to Las Vegas tonight?"
Arthur looked back to him, his gray eyes sharp as steel. "Why?"
"Because I need to do this."
Arthur grabbed his shoulder. "I know that it seems like a good idea right now-"
"You don't know what went on. You don't know what she said."
"It doesn't matter what she said. You know what you have to do."
"I'm out of it. I don't have to worry about it anymore, ever again."
"If something happens to them, you mustn't give up your spot in the line of succession."
Casimir flipped his hand in the air, irritated that anyone still thought that this was an issue. "Ana will be a perfect queen. She has four children. I'm not number two anymore. I'm sixth in line. There is no reason for me to protect my number in the line to the throne. I never even wanted it."
"Planes crash. Terrorists make bombs." Arthur grabbed his shoulder and stared right into his eyes. "Casimir, cars can blow a tire and roll down the side of a mountain."
That wasn't fair. Every abraded scar on Casimir's body sliced him at the memory of it, even the ones sanded down to invisibility and inked over. Every healed bone ached. "You realize that you're talking about my sister and my nieces and nephews, right?"
"It doesn't matter whom I'm talking about."
"She has four children, and I don't know that she's finished. She might go for a half-dozen, for all she tells anyone."
"Willem must not be your damn king," Arthur muttered.
"It wouldn't matter even if he was. The monarch is a figurehead with ceremonial and cultural duties. We have a constitution. Even Willem couldn't hurt anyone or do anything to actually damage the Netherlands."
"If anyone could damage either the Netherlands or the monarchy itself, Willem could."
"He's not that bad. He was just a little kid."
"He's a fucking psychopath, and he always has been. He's twenty-seven now and still an asshole."
Casimir raised his hands in helplessness because you can't pick your family. "He's not as bad as when he was a kid."
"He's more subtle, if that's what you mean. If he and that freak of a wife of his have kids, for the love of God, send them to Le Rosey. Don't let them grow up around him. Even boarding school would be better than that."
Cash asked again, "Can you fly us to Vegas tonight?"
"I won't. You have to go home and lobby for an Act of Consent like everybody else. Rox will be fine. They will grumble about her being an American for all of ten minutes and then pass it. It's not like she's the daughter of a Columbian drug lord."
And even then, it had taken a few weeks, some formal receptions to meet Willem's fiancée, a couple of concessions, and the assurance that her father would not attend the wedding to pass the Act of Consent through the legislature.
"You can't," Arthur said, shaking Casimir's shoulder a little. "You have to do this the correct way."
Casimir let his head drop forward, remembering how much she had been afraid that he was going to hurt her, and she hadn't meant physically. "You didn't hear what she said."
"It doesn't matter what she said. Go to Rodeo Drive and buy her the largest diamond you can find, assure her of your love, and book a plane for Amsterdam to do the necessary things. Hell, get couples' counseling if you want to talk it out. Ana would be devastated if you eloped and lost your number. She would be pissed at you for years if you denied the Netherlands a wedding."
"Ana would understand." Eventually. She did have a penchant for correct protocol, which was not a bad quality in a future figurehead queen.
"But Ariane wouldn't," Arthur said. "She will throw a tantrum for days if you deny her the opportunity to be a flower girl. She's eight, Caz. She's aging out. She doesn't have many years left to be a flower girl."
Casimir wanted to make Rox happy again and to do it now. Every fiber of his being wanted to make her smile. He craved her laugh.
But he couldn't fix Rox's fears and pain with a quick wedding, anyway. He had known that deep inside, and Arthur's arguments were the least of the reasons.
The gauze on his face itched, and he scratched around it. "There is Ariane to consider."
"That little Valkyrie will kick you in the shins if you elope and she doesn't get the chance to play flower girl."
"I might be crippled for life."
"Tell us when and where. I'll abduct Maxence from whatever fool's errand he believes will assuage his soul, and we'll stand up with you in Amsterdam or The Hague. You can't marry her tonight in Vegas, you idiot. You'll ruin everything."
LIKE THE WANING MOON
Rox lay under the covers in Casimir's bed, holding herself together with her arms and determination.
The cats slept at the very bottom of the bed, clinging to the corners. Usually, they snuggled or at least slept near her and Cash.
She must have been flopping around in her sleep.
She had been so stupid. Letting Cash's sex play provoke her into blurting out her fears and pain had been so stupid. Her own idiocy staggered her.
It was just supposed to be fun and sexy, and she'd ruined it.
He was going to break it off with her now. This was probably her last night in his bed. Tomorrow, he would find her and her three cats an apartment, and they would move her few things out, and he would ghost on her.
And she would shatter inside.
And if not tomorrow, then sometime soon. Maybe next week. Perhaps the week after.
But soon.
She could feel his absence looming as if she were watching the moon wane every night, knowing that soon there would be a moonless night of darkness.
Soon.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Rox found her phone on the dark nightstand and checked her social media, trying to distract herself.
Her friend Brandy Washington had posted some selfies on the shelter's social media page. Brandy's dark skin and bright white smile were centered between two new kitties, a ginger tiger and a long-haired white cat that would probably be adopted as soon as the shelter opened, even though the white cat's blue eyes were narrowed at Brandy. This picture had probably been snapped seconds before the cat attacked Brandy's nose.
Beside her, the bedcovers shifted. Cash asked, "You awake?"
Rox set her phone back on the nightstand. The screen shone blue light at the bedroom's dark ceiling. "Yeah. Look, we need to talk."
"Yes. We do." The covers moved on her chest and legs as he rolled toward her.
She sat up in the bed and rested her arms on her bent knees. "I want a safe word. When you're done, when you are going to ghost on me, I need you to say the safe word to me. Maybe, ‘It's time,' or ‘This has been fun.'"
"That's not what a safe word is for. A safe word means to stop."
"I need to know when you've stopped. I won't ask you any questions. I'll just say okay, and that's it. No pressure. No third degree. But I need to know. I need to know that you're gone. I can't be trying to get ahold of you, and you passing through my fingers like a ghost. All right?"
"I don't want this to end," he said, his deep voice rolling out of the darkness. In the dim light from her phone screen, she could just see blackness filling the hollows of his eyes and one side of his face. The bandage on his left cheek was a white splotch in the night.
"Yes, you do," she said. "I understand that. I've always known that about you. I knew what I was getting into when I kissed you that first time. I knew what I was getting into the second that I threw those fake rings over the side of the deck. I won't pry. I won't interrogate you afterward. I just need a signal. That's all I want. I want you to say, ‘This has been fun,' so I'll know."
Cash sat up and scooted back to lean against the tufted headboard of the bed. "You don't believe that I'm not going to ghost you, as you say."
"You always do, Cash. I'm not special. I'm just the next girl in line."