The King's Choice - Red Queen Fanfiction

Chapter 26 (Cal POV)

A young man approaches me in the lobby of the hotel I plan to stay in. He's dressed in a royal uniform. I expect him to stop and talk to me but he walks right past me. Then I notice he's dropped an envelope. I pick it up and am about to call over him when I see the envelope has my name on it. I sit down it one of the lobby chairs and open in. Inside are two pages. The first is something I know very well. A formal invite to dine with the king. I created and wrote the format for those invitations. The second page is an informal letter. It's not dated correctly at the top and instead of being typed, it's messily written. I easily recognize the handwriting as Maven's. The letter reads:

Dear Tiberias,
I'm inviting you to have dinner with Mare and I. I know it seems cruel to watch your brother and your former lover together as a married couple but I want you to know in not trying to torture you. I need you and Mare to talk. Like really talk. And I need to talk to you. In person. Because I can't express what I want to say in a letter that could be intercepted. As long as you and Mare have feelings for each other, our marriage will be a mess. And I don't want that for the rest of my life. So I need you to talk to her. Please. I might even consider letting you move back into the palace. I don't know. That's why I need you to come. She needs to talk to you in person. So do I. It'll just be for a weekend. I'll give you anything. Money, a seat in my cabinet. Whatever you want, within reason. Just please consider it. And RSVP soon.
Sincerely, King Maven Calore

I don't even think. I take a pen out of my pocket and flip the formal invite. Then I begin to write.

Dear Maven,
Why would you think I would want to come to see you? You've taken everything I ever wanted from me and

I stop. And I have to think. Is is worth it? Seeing Mare and Maven at the same time. I don't know. I want to see Mare and talk to her. I know that much. But Maven seems desperate to talk to me, and that can't be good. And as much as I wish he wasn't, he's still my brother. So I scratch out my first draft and start again.

Dear Maven,
I would be happy to attend. Am I allowed one guest?
From, Cal

I stick the letter back into the envelope in came in and write Maven's name on the front. Then I reseal it and stick it in my pocket to mail later. I pull out my phone and the piece of paper from the girl at the bar. The phone rings three times before she picks up.
"Hello?"
"You might not remember me but we met at a bar a few weeks ago. Do you wanna have dinner at the palace with me?"

I wrote this rly quickly plz excuse the typos and such. - Just Jules