I Love Him, I Love Him Not - 18

Heyo peeps!
:D

I am back with another chapter! Hold onto your horses! Much as Cole and Summer do. :)

B - One sweeper coming soon. ;)

Tiff L. - He would have, except he wasn't born when Summer inherited her powers. Summer's mum found out about being pregnant AFTER the death, which means Summer's dad give his all to Summer. Hope that cleared things up for you. :D

Cleo - Oh yeah. Turrets, battelments, everything. I will not disappoint. :)

Jenny - You're pretty awesome, too, for commenting. ;)

Kay - Though processed. One jealous dude coming up. :D

Ciriat - I know! I am in the exact same situation at the moment. I hate her because she's gorgeous and talented and she has him - but I love her because she's just so damn nice and she makes him happy! Grr. Stupid love. :D

Everyone Else - Thank you for all your lovely comments. Please comment again! And enjoy!

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I was so messed up. Messed up and crying now, too. Crying is a good look for me, because single tears drip down my face and thankfully my eyes don’t get puffy or anything. Well, except if I’ve been crying all night.
And my nose does take on a tinge of red. So maybe crying isn’t a good look for me.

And then, while I was making all these pathetic sniffling noises, there was a knock on the door. Thinking it might be Gwendolyn, or hopefully even Meade, I called out a teary "Come in," and who should walk in but the scumbag himself, the one and only Cole Armani.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, hastily wiping all the tears from my cheeks. "Won’t Gwen mind you being in my bedroom at night?"

Cole smiled. "Gwen is ecstatic that her boyfriend is even allowed in your bedroom at night. I came to see how you were feeling."

My heart skipped and skittered like he’d told me he loved me. It was just so... nice. So nice of him to ask how I was.

"I’m fine." I said, just as another uncontrollable tear trickled out of the corner of my eye. I left it there, hoping he hadn’t noticed. But he did. He did notice, and he stepped forward and reached up one of those calloused, otherwise soft skinned hands to gently brush the tear away.

"Come on, princess. Why so sad?" He asked softly, and my stomach went all funny when he said princess because he didn’t say it like he had to, he said it liked he wanted to, like he had his own little pet name for me, and that just about broke my heart.

"I’m not sad." I said, even though my voice broke and another tear ran into his hands, which were still cupping my face.

"Sure. Your eyes tell me that." He chuckled, releasing my face to come and sit beside me on the bed. The mattress sank under his weight, and even though I really didn’t want to, I slid towards him just a little until my thigh was pressed up against his. And even though we had sat like this a million times, I still blushed, because his thigh was all muscled and hard even through his jeans and he was someone else’s now, someone else who was, quite probably, in just the next room.

"Ha." I said sarcastically, blinking and rubbing my eyes to get rid of all the wetness.

"Speaking of eyes... Princess, you do know that in Constantia, your appearance changes as you come through the portal? My appearance has changed, but I’m holding a spell to keep me the same. I wanted a quiet moment with you to show you this, because you might be alarmed. You can see me, and then I’ll show you yourself in the hand mirror, okay?" He said, in this quiet rush of words.

"What?" Alarmed? Alarmed wasn’t the word for it. In the other world, I may not have been a supermodel or anything, but I was reasonably happy with the way I looked. I mean, I had that whole girl next door thing going, with my brown hair and brown eyes and 5’7 height.
"Change in what way?"

Cole looked kind of sheepish as he stood and turned to face me. "In this way." And then he changed. His features didn’t mould themselves into different places and he didn’t shape shift or anything. It was just like he’d suddenly come into super sharp focus, like I’d been looking at him through a film before.

And in that moment, I knew that I had never even known the meaning of hot back in Rhodes. Because Cole Lodger may have been good looking, to my humanly standards, but Cole Armani? Yeah, he was something else entirely.

"Oh." I breathed, very stupidly, whilst I gazed at the god-like creature stood before me. "Oh my God."

Cole was basically the same. His eyes were still those crinkly half moons when he smiled, and his nose was still that perfect slope that surgeons would forever try to perfect and never quite get right. His lips were the same full, soft-looking beauties and his eyebrows still maintained that perfect arch.

But everything was just... so much more defined.

His cheekbones seemed razor sharp now, and his lips deepened in colour. His skin was impossibly clear and smooth, and that tan colour had darkened a little, till he was a toasty golden colour that made my mouth water. His black hair curled against his collar and fell a little into his eyes, which – oh my God. His eyes.

They had changed colour.

The soft, deep blue was still there – only it was an electric bluish green colour now, with tiny, silver flecks in them. His long, thick lashes only made the colour more amazing, and more disconcerting. This beautiful, worship worthy Cole was too much to look at. I had to turn away.

"Summer? What do you think?" He asked, turning once on the spot. This only drew my attention to his body, which was looking a lot more taunt and muscled beneath the slim black tee he wore. He was a mean, lean, gorgeous machine.

"You – you look great." I said, and then something occurred to me. My hands flew to my face. "You mean I’ve changed? I look like you?"
"Not like me exactly. Here, take a look yourself." And he went into the large oak cupboard, opened the doors, and pulled out an ivory hand mirror. He placed it into my fingers, which were shaking, and then watched me carefully as I brought the glass to my face.

At any other time, I think I would have screamed. As it was, I stayed scarily calm. My lips – full and deep pink now – pursed slightly as I examined my new face. "I look pretty." I observed detachedly, reaching up one hand to touch my hair. "I don’t look like me."

Cole sighed. "You were always pretty, princess. But your beauty was dampened down. This is your true form."

"My true form? I think I like my true form." I said in that same detached voice. Basically, I was pretty now. And I was kind of freaking out. I had never been pretty. But I was pretty now.

My cheekbones were sharper, more defined, more like Cole’s, actually, but delicate. My eyes, which had always been big, had changed colour, too, something that was quite frightening. I now sort of understood why Cole had asked that question so long ago – ‘Are your eyes really that colour?’ – because obviously, they weren’t.

Their ‘real’ colour was an alarming shade of purplish blue – some might call it violet. They reminded me of the portal – silver flecks and all. My eyelashes looked like I was wearing layers upon layers of mascara, when, in fact, I wasn’t, and my skin, which had always been stubbornly tan and prone to the occasional zit, looked as smooth and clear as honey. My hair was the same golden brown colour, all layered and wavy. It framed my face perfectly.

"Good. Because now that you’ve come into it, you’re stuck with it." Cole grinned, brushing his hands off like he’d just issued a job well done. The grin soon faded from his face however, when he saw that I was crying.

Well, not really crying. Sobbing might be a better word for it.

Before you start on me, I couldn’t help it. I really couldn’t. I was pretty. I had always wanted to be pretty, and now I was. Helplessly so. So why did it feel like this great big chasm had opened up inside my chest, somewhere near my heart, and I couldn’t breathe anymore? Why?

Because I looked in the mirror and saw the face of my father looking back. My funny, sweet father, whose skin had been enviously flawless, whose eyes had always been deep and clear, whose wilful mouth was so much like mine. He had never hidden anything, and Meade was right – I was the spitting image of him.

And by God, I missed him so much.

I missed him even more now, when I needed a man in my life, somebody to protect me and care for me and plant kisses on my forehead. Somebody that towered over me, that was strong enough to lift me in the air and swing me around, who was daring enough to poke me and brave the tickle fight that followed.

I needed someone like that, and it was quite evident that I wasn’t getting anyone like that anytime soon. No surrogate father, and no boyfriend, either. But a friend. I might have had a friend.

Because as soon as he saw those tears, Cole came right up and put his arms around me. He hugged me tight to his chest and rocked me back and forth, in that comforting way you reserve for inconsolable kids. He murmured encouraging things in my hair, and, I was pretty sure, waited till I cried myself to sleep in his arms.

I was there, curled up into this tight little ball across Cole’s chest, half asleep, when Gwendolyn poked her head into the room.

"Is your highness all right?" She whispered, not finding it at all unusual the way Cole was holding onto me.

"She will be. She’s just scared. I need you to be her friend, Gwendolyn, please, because she needs one."

"Of course. But when are you going to set off for the castle? Joshua is going to set off a few days after you – he will bring Daisy, and then we shall try our very best to follow."

"Tomorrow, I hope. Once I get her settled, it’ll be all about you and me, Gwen, I promise."

"Okay. But something tells me it will not be all about you and me."
"What?"

I heard Gwendolyn creep closer to us, and then I could smell her orange-blossom scent as her hair fell all around me.

"Cole, I think I am with child." She murmured happily. My reaction was instantaneous. There was a lurch in my stomach, my palms turned sweaty and a prickly feeling overcame my throat. Gwendolyn, pregnant? With... Cole’s baby? I suddenly wanted to throw up all the cinnamon tea that I had drank back in the kitchen. I squeezed my eyes tighter shut.

"What?!" Cole cried in a whisper that was very close to a yell.

"Shh. I’ll thank you not to wake the princess. She seemed so tired before." And then she giggled and repeated the words that had doomed my whole life. "I think I am pregnant."

This time, Cole’s reaction was more of the happy variety. "Gwen, that’s... that’s brilliant. Wow!"

I opened my eyes. From where I was curled up, I was at the perfect vantage point to see Cole use his other free arm to grab Gwendolyn’s neck and drag her down to press his lips gently against hers.

And I think my heart broke clean in two.