Everlastingly Loving You - Chapter 60

Clarisse shook her head.

“Soph, no,” she refused.

She asked, “How’s that even an option, this isn’t high school.”

Sophia shot Clarisse a look before she asked Emilia, “So you’re the one telling me I’d be nothing without my title?”

She snorted.

“I was born into royalty, my title and the crown are my birthrights,” she told Emilia regally.

“The only possible way you could’ve gotten this far was by seducing my father into making you his queen,” she said, tilting her head to the side.

Emilia goggled at her.

“How’s that for an ‘abominable minx’, Emilia?” Sophia asked smugly, staring at her stepmother who now had a huge bald spot on her head and a tattered ensemble.

Emilia raised her hand, about to slap her stepdaughter with all her might.

Clarisse realized this was time to finally intervene, something she should’ve done long ago, if not for her unripeness.

“Fun’s over,” she said, walking in between both royals.

Emilia had enough dignity to not press it further, merely scoffing before storming away in a huff.

Had it not been obvious enough, that hadn’t gone completely as she planned.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, Soph, you’re not completely in the clear,” Clarisse warned.

Sophia shrugged, “Oh cut me some slack, Claire, she just had to come here, she was practically asking for it.”

“Why else would she have come here, anyway?” Sophia asked rhetorically.

Clarisse looked Sophia up and down.

“Fine,” Clarisse groaned.

She blinked, noticing Nicholas’ absence.

“So where’s Nicholas anyway?” Clarisse asked Sophia.

Sophia turned bitter.

“He’s still at Sanguis, dealing with important business of his own to handle,” she muttered.

“Don’t tell me,” she began.

“You actually miss him,” she said, gasping.

‘Again,’ she muttered incomprehensibly.

Sophia didn’t bother to deny it.

“I suppose I do,” she mumbled.

Clarisse turned to face Sophia.

“You what?” Clarisse asked, wide-eyed.

“What’s wrong with me, Clarisse?” Sophia asked.

She then went on to ask, “Is this some sort of side effect from the poison?”

Sophia laughed softly, she was being pathetic.

“I should’ve stayed at the damn hospital instead,” she mumbled incomprehensibly.

“Feelings suck.”

“They do,” Clarisse agreed.

“Wine?” Sophia suggested.

“You just got discharged from the hospital,” Clarisse facepalmed.

“I’m off pain medication, and I’m perfectly fine, Claire.”

Clarisse glared at her.

“And I was also cleared to drink alcohol and eat whatever I want,” Sophia said.

“You could’ve just led with that, Soph,” Clarisse said, wrapping a hand around Sophia’s shoulder.

“Mm,” Sophia shrugged.

__

At a nearby, private, bar, were a duchess and a countess, drinking their feelings out.

They’d gone for vodka instead of the usual champagne and cabernet, a decision Sophia didn’t regret. Clarisse on the other hand…

“Cheers to being single, lonely and still alive,” Sophia said, two shots in.

Clarisse had drunk three shots; she shook her head madly.

“Lonely?”

“Single?”

“You have Nicholas, who’s suuuuper into you.”

“You and him are practically together, Soph.”

Sophia told her, “You’re drunk, Claire.”

“But.”

“You think he’s into me?” Sophia asked.

“We’re practically together?”

Clarisse squinted her eyes.

“What kind of question is that?” She demanded.

“He’s head over heels in–”

As soon as Sophia heard those words, she took a shot of vodka.

It wasn’t possible. No, no, no.

Clarisse noticed Sophia taking another shot; she stopped talking immediately, not finishing her sentence.

“Stop with the vodka,” Clarisse whispered.

Sophia narrowed her eyes.

“You’re one to talk, I can smell your breath, that reeks of alcohol,” she said.

Clarisse never had a high tolerance for alcohol. A couple shots of vodka and she’d be fully… out.

Clarisse glared at Sophia.

“It’s your copening mechanism, Soph, why can’t I have a drink every now and then?”

Sophia corrected her friend, “First of all, it’s a ‘coping’ mechanism.”

“And if your meaning of drink means getting drunk over three shots of vodka,” Sophia began.

Clarisse stared at her.

Sophia rolled her eyes.

“Oh, whatever.”

She pushed the vodka glass away, with all the shot glasses along with it.

“Thank goodness I’m not the one driving you home,” she mused.

“What was thaaaat?” Clarisse asked.

“Nothing.”

Clarisse placed a hand on Sophia’s shoulder.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“I won’t judge.”

She got closer and closer to Sophia.

“I won’t judge at all,” she whispered.

Sophia pushed Clarisse gently away.

“Mhm, sure,” she said sarcastically.

“I know you’re being sarcastic, Sophie,” Clarisse slurred.

Sophia flashed Clarisse a dazzling smile.

“And I know you’re drunk,” she patted Clarisse on the shoulder gently.

Something pieced itself together.

Sophia then realized that she must’ve acted somewhat similarly to how Clarisse was acting when she’d gotten drunk and woke up in Nicholas’ bed thinking they’d had intercourse.

Was she even remotely like this, it was more disastrous than she thought it was?

She accidentally mumbled aloud, “Was I remotely like this when I’d gotten drunk?”

She imagined herself slurring her words and having a loss of inhibition.

She then imagined what Nicholas had to deal with the entire time. And how fine he seemed the day afterwards.

“Respect earned, Ambrose,” Sophia muttered loudly enough for Clarisse to overhear.

“Why do you act so differently around him?” Clarisse asked Sophia.

“Come again?” Sophia asked Clarisse, blinking.

“Nicholas, why are you so different around him?” Clarisse asked.

Sophia looked at Clarisse. She told herself that Clarisse was drunk, and whatever she’d tell her… Clarisse wouldn’t remember the following day.

She figured she could be honest. Brutally honest.

“I haven’t the faintest idea why I act that way,” Sophia admitted.

She hadn’t realized how she treated him would be different compared to how she treated everyone else.

It was all just so… natural.

“I get this weird feeling whenever I’m around him, one that confuses me, and makes me… not know how to act when I’m around him.”

“And I might have a medical issue that only arises whenever he’s around since I get this weird, fluttery feeling I can’t describe.”

Once she returned her gaze on Clarisse, she noticed Clarisse smirking at her.

“What are you smirking at?” Sophia asked.

“I know why you’re feeling this way,” Clarisse squinted her eyes in a smug manner.

“You do?” Sophia asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Do tell me more,” she urged.