Dmitry's Royal Flush: Rise of the Queen by Latrivia S. Nelson Page B

teach Anya. I don't give two shits about her!"
    "Then why do you look at her like you do?"
    "Like what?"
    "Like you used to look at me," She cried. "Like before Ivan."
    "I barely see her. I don't have time to look at her."
    "You'll find time, won't you? You brought her here to take your mind of what I am."
    "Did I?" He shook his head. "Just what the hell are you, Royal?"
    Royal looked down at her shaking fingers and swallowed hard. Well, she had told Anatoly that when Dmitry brought it to her attention, she would deal with it. It was evidently time now.
    "I am a drunk, addicted, crazy bitch that you accidently knocked up and was forced to marry because otherwise someone would kill me, even though you couldn't possibly want me anymore after your brother fucked me like a two-dollar whore in every God-given orifice I had, after he had broken my nose, cut me, beat me, stabbed me, sodomized me," she shook and cried. "How could anyone ever want me again? Especially his own brother, his own blood? You'd have to be insane to want me."
    The breath caught in Dmitry's lungs. Sweat formed on his forehead. To hear her say those words was the purest form of torture. He exhaled finally, breathed out and deflated into a near nothingness. "Is that what you've thought? This whole time since we've come to Prague, you've thought that I saw you as damaged goods."
    "I know you do. You buy me all this stuff to keep my occupied and away from you. Royal go to shop. Royal go to city. Royal find something to do, " she mocked him.
    "I know the kind of woman you are. You are independent. You like to keep busy. I thought I was helping." His voice had lost its fury. He talked nearly in a whisper now.
    "I know you detest the way that I look, but I try my best to cover it," she touched the scar on her neck. "I know that you must think about what he did every time that you touch me." She looked down. "Even now, just to be close to me is so… repulsive. And it's okay. I understand." She wiped the tears from her face. "Because I repulse my damned self. I can barely look in the mirror anymore. I can barely stand to be in my own skin. That's why I take pills. The more I sleep, the higher I am, the less I have to deal."
    "Royal, no… " Dmitry said in a whisper. "But why all of sudden in the last year have things gotten so bad? Why haven't they been this bad the whole time?"
    Royal tried to smile. "My little Anya really is beautiful. She's the most," she wiped tears from her cheeks. "She's the most beautiful girl that I've ever seen in my entire life, but you know, I just kept waiting for her to change –to look more like her daddy or even me. At her last birthday party, I realized that she'll always look like him. Shell always remind me, Dmitry."
    "And that set you off."
    "That and a hundred other things. Seeing the scars every time I take off my clothes. And you know just about six months ago my foster mother passed away. I read the newspaper there online every day. She was listed in the obituaries."
    Dmitry sighed. He didn't know.
    "I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye."
    "I'm sure she knew that you loved her."
    "And then there's me. Overall, I just feel like if I don't have my defenses up, if I'm not being a bitch at every moment, then someone will just take advantage of me again. It's hard to explain, but it's the truth." She shrugged her shoulders and spoke in a broken voice. "I'm all messed up, Dmitry. I'm not the same girl anymore. I… I don't know who I am."
    In the shadows of the dark room, Dmitry let the tears fall down his eyes. He wiped them quickly and grunted as he looked up the ceiling.
    While he wouldn't tell her, he had been waiting for the moment when she would let her guard down and tell him what was wrong for a year now. In fact, he had just told Anatoly earlier that day how heartbreaking the entire situation had been for him of late. But now, he wasn't sure if he was ready for the truth.
    How had he missed it? How had he not seen how