The Queen Imperial

Chapter 30

Anne-Marie sneezed into her handkerchief.
It was so hard giving the textbook in front of her all her attention when she kept looking away to sneeze every five seconds. What was wrong with her? Even with the heater on, why did she feel so cold? At that rate, it was going to take her the entire night to get her homework done and over with.

She wiped her nose just as she heard a tiny knock at the door. She tried to clean her nose quickly, turning slightly as Denise pocked her head inside. Anne-Marie slowly lowered the piece of cloth from her face.

"Can I come in?"

Anne-Marie nodded slowly, like she had any power to stop her. Denise pushed the door and walked into the warm room, gripping on tightly to the little tray in her hands. Anne-Marie could tell by the look of it that she had brought her her regular glass of milk just like she did every other night since she arrived at the mansion.

Denise never missed it for a second.

Paris must have lived the life.

She had a lot of good people around her, a lot of people that cared about her and always wanted to protect her. It felt so good. Denise slowly dropped the tray on the bedside table right before she turned to Anne-Marie with a tiny smile on her face. She noticed how there were a lot of books in front of her, a pen and her laptop.

"Doing homework?"

Anne-Marie turned to her bed and exhaled. She turned back to Denise.

"It's a lot." She said. "I just wanted to get them all done tonight since I'd be having a lot of busy days shooting the documentary with the prince all weekend. It's due on Monday."

Denise nodded. She totally understood. The smile on her face grew wider when she remembered, just like Anne-Marie, Paris was quite persistent when it came to getting her homework done. She never missed a deadline. Organization was her motto. It felt so good to know that Anne-Marie was taking school just as seriously as Paris would have.

"How was the visit to the palace?" Denise was trying to have a conversation at this point.

Anne-Marie nodded.

"It was alright." She said. "The king and queen aren't as upset as I thought they would. The king is working on getting rid of the video circulating online and the prince," Anne-Marie didn't even want to think about him, to talk about him, thinking about Aiden was just going to upset her again. She exhaled.

Denise understood. She really didn't need her to talk much about it.

"About how my husband talked to you earlier-" that was the exact reason she was there, to see if she was okay after the way Oliver had talked to her back at the kitchen. "You didn't deserve to hear those words he said. It wasn't exactly fair of him to talk to you like that."

"Oh." Anne-Marie feigned surprise, stretching her hands towards Denise and waving them in an attempt to stop her with a nervous smile on her face. "You don't have to worry about that Mrs Vutron." Anne-Marie added. "I'm not mad at all, actually, if anything, I think I deserved it. I shouldn't have let my anger get the best out of me, I shouldn't have hit the prince and made things difficult for everyone. Mr Vutron was right, It wasn't in my place. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to help my family, to save my brother and I don't want to mess it up. That's why I'm going to do everything I can to earn the prince's forgiveness."

"But still, you didn't deserve to hear any of those words." Denise told her and then let out a tiny smile. "I'm really sorry he said them to you, sometimes, my husband, he's- he lets his emotions get the best out of him and he gets really upset when things don't go his way but I can assure you, he didn't mean any of the things he said."