“You shouldn’t be here, you know.” Chloe fired the opening salvo. She felt like she had to. The papers hadn’t done her justice. In those grainy photos, Sapphire March – now the new Mrs. Staffan Aehrenthal – had simply appeared young and unsure. The first part rankled, making Chloe want to take advantage of the latter.
But faced with Staffan’s stunningly beautiful bride, Chloe could feel every year of her age – and more – showing up on her thrice-lifted face. This was the kind of woman she had always hated and envied when she and Staffan had been living on the other side of the fence as children. They had only been able to look enviously at what was happening with the wealthy ones.
Before Staffan’s child bride could answer, Chloe sneered, “Little girls have nothing to do with adult business.” She expected the girl to get mad, perhaps even cry, but the only thing this one did was look at her steadily with clear blue eyes.
It was unnerving, the way those eyes seemed to hide nothing and see everything, and especially when Staffan’s new wife started to speak. “Staffan is my husband, Ms. Gustav.” Her voice was strained but cultured.
Flustered by the younger woman’s unexpected poise and mad at herself for feeling that way, Chloe shot back, “Based on what I hear, he doesn’t want to be your husband. They say you forced him to be your baby’s daddy when everyone knows it’s the prince’s.”
The words made Saffi twist her hands on her lap, and she was thankful they were hidden from view under the table. She adjusted the napkin on her lap to give her an excuse to break her eye contract with Chloe. If she felt this bad that the whole world seemed to be laughing at Staffan for being cuckolded, how much worse did Staffan actually feel?
“He’s the man I love, Ms. Gustav.” When Saffi lifted her gaze to meet Chloe’s eyes, she didn’t bother hiding her emotions. They were plainly visible in her eyes for everyone to see. “He’s the man I’ll always love so please don’t make trouble for him again.”
The words were so earnestly spoken Chloe could feel herself whitening. Memories of the past she had tried so hard to forget came back. Once – once she had been as idealistic as this girl. But reality soon taught her that life was a lot different from what she imagined it would be in her head. She had left Staffan, hoping that by marrying someone with the right background, she would finally feel complete and vindicated.
But the marriage had only made Chloe feel displaced, like she was a square peg forcing herself to fit into an elite and restrictive circle.
Deliberately pushing her bitter thoughts away, Chloe said tightly, “You’re barking at the wrong tree. It’s not my fault that Staffan always wants to help me.” Before the other woman could speak, she said in a hard voice, “He loved me. He was head over heels in love with me and though I left him, I didn’t cheat on him like you did.”
The words were like a punch in the gut, and the pain she felt almost caused her to double over. She could feel the baby inside her moving urgently, as if reacting to her discomfort. She held her stomach protectively, willing her baby to calm down. It’s okay, baby, it’s okay…we’ll fix this. Mommy…will do everything to fix this.
With trembling fingers, she reached for her purse and took out two things that had Chloe raising her brow: a pen and a checkbook.
“State your price, Ms. Gustav,” she said tonelessly. “Whatever it is that you need from Staffan – I’ll give it to you. Just please don’t bother him again. I know…I know I’ve hurt him, too, but---” Saffi looked away, unable to bear seeing Chloe’s face as she admitted a painful fact. “---it doesn’t mean that you can have him back. It only means neither of us---” Saffi’s voice caught. Her fingers tightened around the pen as she forced herself to say the words. “It only means neither of us deserves him.”
Chapter Seven
@Aehrenthal_fanatics Staffan Aehrenthal is a WIMP with a LIMP DICK.
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“Do you see it, Staffan?” Yanna’s stressed voice came through clearly, and he didn’t need to look at the iPad’s screen to know that Yanna was probably crying now.
I’m so sorry. All the negative write-ups about Staffan Aehrenthal are my fault. Please believe me when I say there is nothing going on between me and Prince Jeremy Al-Atassi. I am in love and will always be in love with my husband.
The words changed, but the restrained note of intense hurt remained the same. It was Saffi, basically groveling for people’s understanding as his fans rained torrents of abuse towards her on the Internet.
“Constantijin told me not to meddle, but I just…I just don’t believe that Saffi cheated on you, Staffan. She loves you so much.”
He pressed a button to lock the screen of his iPhone, closing his eyes in an effort to will away the words of apology that Saffi had typed in response to his bashers.
Please don’t speak of Staffan Aehrenthal that way. He’s not a fool and he won’t ever be so. His only mistake was not to realize how foolish I could be. But I love him.
No one can ever measure up to Staffan Aehrenthal in my eyes. He’s everything I could and would ever want in a husband.
Saffi had been typing the same words over and over from the moment he had married her, and she continued to do so even after he had rejected her when she tried to seduce him in his parents’ home.
“Just please listen to her,” Yanna begged. “Look at how she’s telling the world over and over---”
“It’s a goddamn act, Yanna.” Staffan did his best to keep his tone even, not wanting Yanna to bear the brunt of his anger. “She’s fooled all of us and she’s fooling you still. Even if it were my baby, she still f**king lied to me and I don’t even f**king know if she’s still seeing the prince or not.”
“She married you---”
“Of course she married me,” he exploded. “It’s f**king campaign season and her mother’s sick. I’m a face-saving excuse, that’s all I f**king am to her!” Bitterness filled him as the words left his mouth because he knew it was true. Pearl Beaufort was just the spark that set things in motion, but at the end of the day, the cold hard facts were undeniable.
The f**king prince had a new betrothed, her senator father was running for re-election, and they needed a way to prevent Saffi from becoming a goddamn brick around their necks and not have the family pride stomped upon again.