The moment the mask came undone, my hair spilled over my shoulders. My flushed cheeks and bare face were exposed. A collective gasp rippled through the room, but I couldn't bring myself to look away from him. I shook from head to toe, my eyes locked on the King, terrified of the judgment I would see in the crowd.
"She is a maid," they would whisper. I would be pointed out, mocked, and punished. What was the King thinking, exposing me this way?
"The only woman I want to be with," he whispered, ignoring my frantic eyes. "It's you, Isabel."
"What?" My voice was barely audible.
"I want you. Not to hide you as a lover, but to have the whole of you."
I blinked, finally registering the words. Everything was moving too fast. None of it made sense—he had written about someone else. He was the King, and the divide in our ranks was a bitter reality. Would society ever accept us?
