CHAPTER TWO
Hayley could hardly believe that a week had passed already, and when she woke up on the following Saturday morning, the sounds of compelled decorators working in the courtyard filled her ears. A thrill of excitement ran through her at the thought.
This is it, she thought, this is really happening.
She would like to think that she'd had a huge part in planning the ball, but that wasn't the case. Everyone knew Klaus was behind the awe-inspiring plans.
She took in a deep breath and smiled as she watched all of the decorations and food being set up several hours later. Just the littlest possibility that this could be the thing that cheered her daughter up, brought some joy back to the youngest Mikaelson's life was enough to bring happiness to Hayley. She felt a shock of gratefulness that she had Klaus to thank for this. He truly had done something amazing for Hope.
And it wasn't even close to being done yet.
Her eyes scanned the bustling courtyard for the one person she was most in need of seeing. Hayley had to look twice, but her eyes found Klaus standing by the fountain, carving artfully away at an ice sculpture of the Cheshire cat. She smiled to herself at the sight; was there any thing that man couldn't do?
"Keeping busy?" Hayley asked as she walked towards him with a teasing smile, her hands in her back pockets as he looked to her and his concentrated glare quickly became a fond look with a smile.
"You could say that," Klaus mused, his eyes twinkling ever so slightly when his eyes locked onto those of the hybrid before him. "Have you come to offer me your assistance, Little Wolf?"
Hayley let out a burst of amused laughter as she shook her head frantically when he motioned to the beautiful sculpture that she couldn't keep her eyes off of. "Not the artistic type, but I wanna help. Anything, for Hope."
If was true, she wanted to help yet a part of her was screaming no at the thought of ruining Klaus' already masterpiece-like set up here. From the look in his eyes he noticed that easily.
How could he read her so well?
Klaus sighed, a hint of a smile grazing his lips in amusement. "Well, if you really want to help," he began with a smirk, "You could start by ridding yourself of those atrocities you call clothes. You weren't planning on wearing combat boots and skinny jeans tonight, were you?"
Klaus seemed to have noticed her sudden panic from her labored breathing and wide eyes. "Don't worry love, let me handle it."
Instantly relief flooded through her before sudden anger took over, not at him but at herself; since when did she need to accept charitable help from others? From Klaus?
She found herself wanting to fight it, just about to open her mouth and tell him no when she stopped and thought of Hope.
She knew that whatever costume Klaus picked out for her, it would be so terrifyingly accurate that Hope would find herself believing that it was real. There was barely four hours left until the party, and there was no way in Hell that Hayley would let her pride get in the way of her daughter's happiness. She didn't have time to argue, so she decided to accept Klaus' offer, and let her anger go.
"Okay," she said quickly, sucking up her pride as Klaus' face changed from confusion to utter happiness. "Thank you."
"Hope will love this." Klaus muttered after a couple seconds of scanning the area that was already looking spectacular.
Hayley couldn't argue with that. The compound looked truly beautiful; stunning, even. Perhaps the nicest she had ever seen it, second only to the way Klaus had decorated it for her wedding, when she'd married Jackson.
Boy, it felt like another lifetime ago.
She sighed and shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts. This day was about Hope and the looming sadness that Jackson's memory brought up for her was not going to trouble her.
Not today.
"She will," Hayley said, giving a firm nod of her head, her eyes catching sight of at least a hundred cut-crystal champagne flutes that were stacked on the pop-up bar to one side of the courtyard. "Ah, Klaus...?" she started, feeling another onset of panic welling up inside her, this time for a whole different reason. "Just how many people have you invited?"
Klaus grinned malevolently and waggled his eyebrows at her, his handsome face glowing. "Not too many, love," he assured her. "Just the entire French Quarter."
"WHAT?!" Hayley shouted, possibly a little to loud since a few people who were on ladders hanging decorations proceeded to almost fall, one actually doing so.
Klaus merely laughed.
"I hope you're joking," she continued, glancing briefly at the man who had fallen from the ladder. "Sorry."
She didn't notice the warning glare Klaus sent the man, his hybrid eyes flashing when said man opened his mouth, probably to yell some insult at Hayley as he rubbed his hurt arm and scoffed.
"Not joking," Klaus mused as she turned back to him with a little disapproving look but was still unable to hide the twitch of her lip.
"Oh I'm sorry, that's right," Hayley sassed, folding her arms across her chest like a wife who was about to round on her husband. "I forgot I was taking to a man with an ego the size of Jupiter! My bad!"
"Oh my apologies, love," Klaus smirked as the brunette rolled her eyes. "I thought you liked my ego? After all it was the thing that— how should I say? Convinced you to 'stay instead of going' all those years ago," He teased as Hayley cocked her head to the side and shot him a mock annoyed look.
"That's funny," she rejoined, recalling a statement she had made in Hollis' dive bar, five years prior. "It's almost like you're making this all about you again!"
Klaus laughed as the reference became realized. "Oh good memories."
"Good?" Hayley snorted, looking at him in disbelief. "Yeah, it's not like we were on the run or anything."
"And as for making everything about myself, it must be that 'giant Jupiter size ego' then, love." He mocked her previous words.
"Oh no, I take that back," Hayley added, meeting his joke with her own. "Your ego is the size of the Galaxy, at least."
"I'll just take that as a compliment then," Klaus smirked at her as she laughed and looked away briefly. "Now as for your costume—"
"You said that our trip had good memories?" she asked suddenly, cutting across the older hybrid's sentence. If Klaus thought that the time they'd spent together on the run had been good, Hayley wanted to know why. "What... what good memories? I was under the impression that the only good thing to come out of that little adventure was your discovery of my Carpool Karaoke skills... oh, and let's not forget the 'Mother Trucker' hat."
"As lovely as that all was," Klaus began with a roll of his eyes and a teasing tone. "It was… I guess it was just the first time we were with her as a proper family, with Hope," Klaus sighed as he shifted a little and his eyes wandered around the large area. "It was… nice."
Nice?
Hayley would hardly use that to describe such circumstances, but she'd be lying if she said she hadn't enjoyed the time that she and Klaus had spent with Hope as a family. Just the three of them.
She knew something had changed in her after that, she just wasn't sure how to describe it. All she knew was that from then onwards, she looked at Klaus in a different light; felt a little differently about him, even.
Klaus sighed irritably when Hayley didn't respond. "But I wouldn't be shocked if you didn't feel the same way—"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Hayley cut him off, confusion clouding her face. That hadn't been the reason she was slow to respond.
Klaus shrugged. "Our relationship wasn't exactly hugs and equal custody back then."
Hayley's mind flashed to all of the arguments, all the fights. Over Hope— over everything.
She immediately regretted all of it.
If only she'd known back then, just how easy it was to work alongside Klaus, as parents, as friends, as... partners.
"I'm sorry," Hayley found the words rushing past her lips before she could stop them.
Klaus just stared at her for a moment, stunned to silence. Of all the reactions he had expected from his previous words, this was the last. He expected her to deny it. Blame him, or plain out change the subject. But an apology? It was the last thing he was expecting. Especially since she was the last one who needed to apologize for everything that happened all those years ago.
"You're... sorry?" he asked, unsure whether he heard right, even though his hybrid hearing had never betrayed him. Klaus opened and closed his mouth several times, putting down the ice pick somewhere in the process, and inched towards Hayley uncertainly.
"I'm… none of it was right, Klaus," She muttered out with a reluctant sigh. "As much as I would love to blame you for all of the fighting it was… it was just as much me at fault. I wasn't fair to you regarding our daughter."
"Hayley stop, you don't have to explain anything," Klaus rushed, "If I had only—"
"No, Klaus, listen to me," Hayley ordered, a hot prick of tears suddenly stabbing at her eyes. "You have to hear me out."
She took in a deep breath as she looked up to meet his eyes with great difficulty. "I tried so hard to blame you for everything that happened; the fighting, the danger, for cursing my pack… for taking Hope away from me, and yet, the truth is that the main reason you did that was because I was trying to take her away from YOU. From her father. I just imagine Hope's reaction if I were to try to do that now and… and she would never look at me again."
"Yes; Hope needs her mother, but she also needs her dad," She said softly. "And I tried to take that away from her more than once…"
"She adores you, Klaus. If you weren't in her life... I think it would destroy her," Hayley finished, looking up into her fellow hybrid's stunned face. "To think that I almost took her away from you, robbed her of the chance to know what an amazing father she has... it kills me every time I think about it, and, I just want you to know how truly sorry I am."
He didn't know how to respond, he just stared at her like she was a pure diamond that he was seeing for the first time, his eyes a little glazed over as he searched for words.
Hayley smiled, moving a little closer than she already was. "Don't say anything, okay? Just please accept my apology."
Klaus reached out and gently grazed Hayley's cheek with the back of his hand, his eyes filled with every emotion that was coursing through him like a raging torrent. He wanted to say something, he really did, but before he could say anything, Hayley leant into his touch for only a moment, before she vamped off at hybrid speed and disappeared back upstairs.
Hayley stopped once she returned to her bedroom, closing the door behind her and leaning up against the dark wood with a heavy sigh. Had she really just got all of that off her chest? Everything that she'd wanted to tell Klaus since the night they got him back... well most of it, at least.
She'd done it; she had found the courage somewhere within herself, and she had told him what she needed to say— what she should have told him five years ago before they parted, and he sacrificed himself. Hayley knew she should have felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest, but, she didn't.
She still felt guilty.
Maybe it was because she wasted so much time not telling Klaus that he was a good father. Maybe it was because she had left him downstairs, alone with his thoughts.
She had been willing to take Hope away from Klaus and then, when he had succeeded in doing the same she had made him out to be the… monster; to be the villain. She had distanced herself and Hope from him while she celebrated her married life with Jackson. But this was years ago, or so she tried to tell herself. Things had changed.
Damn, have they changed.
Klaus was a different man now. Perhaps he was becoming the man he was always meant to be, the very man that Ansell knew he was deep inside his ancient heart.
Why couldn't she have realised that sooner?
Elijah.
The word was bitter to taste, even in her thoughts.
She still loved him, she did, but something inside her had shifted since that night in the pendant, and there was no going back.
He had attacked her. Whether it was himself or not he had attacked her. And because of that, Hope was put in danger and had to save her.
Her daughter had to save her.
Possibly it was then because of the lack of distraction from Elijah that she noticed all of this in Klaus. Just how good of a father he was. How there was light inside him because of Hope, even with all of the dark.
How much he cared about her.
That was the thought that left her feeling guiltiest of all.
Her refusal to believe in Klaus, Hope and her as a family, had cost them precious time that Hayley knew she was never getting back.
She sighed and pushed herself away from the wooden surface, running a hand through her hair. Now was not the time for this. These thoughts had been in her head for more the awhile, but right now? Right now was about her daughter. Her and Klaus' little girl. Making her happy after the trauma she had suffered.
"Hope sweetie?" Hayley called out softly as she edged towards the door that led to Hope's room, the room that had once been her nursery. "Are you in here?"
There was no response and as she walked into her daughter's room with her arms flat at her side, she felt a deep pain run though her. Hope was lying there, not asleep, on her side just staring into the distance with a frown on her lips.
She hadn't moved all day, and the sight made Hayley want to take the nearest table and smash it against the wall. Hope didn't deserve this, to have to spend each day as miserably as this.
"Hope..." she didn't even know what to say anymore. Hope never answered. "I want you to sit up for me, okay? We have to talk about something, but you can't ask any questions yet."
Hope didn't move but her eyes moved more towards Hayley. Hayley sighed, sitting down gently next to her daughter and trying to calm her appending anger at the Hollow, at herself… at everything.
"Are you okay sweetie?" She asked softly as she reached forward and stroked her daughter's hair when Hope still didn't sit up.
"Yes mum," Hope replied quietly, her face as vacant and detached as ever.
Hayley waited several long moments for her to continue, but instead, Hope remained silent.
Hayley let out a soft sigh as she forced a smile and slowly moved towards Hope, putting her hands on the younger girls side as she pulled her daughter up a little bit. Hope finally complied, sitting up against the headboard as she looked at her mum and waited for her to continue, the frown not leaving.
"Tonight, your dad and I want you to come downstairs and see something," Hayley began, floundering around for the right thing to say. She wished Klaus were here; he would've known what to say. He always did.
"For what mum?" Hope asked her quietly, her voice slightly rough.
Hayley opened and closed her mouth once before smiling tightly, clearing her throat. "Just trust us honey, okay? For your dad and I?"
Hope seemed to consider her mother's words deeply before she responded with a heavy sigh. "Okay."
Hayley let out a deep sigh of relief, and smiled again, this time true happiness coming to her at her daughter's words. "Thank you, Hope." She moved to hug her daughter who didn't respond to the hug, but remained still.
"I come bearing gifts!" A loud, cheery voice called from Hayley's bedroom. Rebekah; Hayley thought with a smile. "You in here with my favourite niece, Newbie Mikaelson?"
Newbie Mikaelson? Hayley Internally rolled her eyes. Oh how she loved Rebekah. "In here!" She called back with a chipper voice.
The door to Hope's room swung open with an extra dramatic creak that accentuated Rebekah's entire personality to perfection. What was it about those siblings and making dramatic entrances? God knows; they were experts in that particular field.
"Hello, love." Rebekah greeted Hope with a bright smile that wasn't returned by anything but a brief, polite hello. She shot a dramatically worried look to Hayley.
"Not now," the hybrid mouthed silently to the blonde, gesturing instead to the ten or so bags that the latter was carrying. "What's in the bags, Barbie?"
Rebekah simply rolled her eyes at the nickname and smiled brightly. "It's a surprise!" She teased, looking to Hayley and wiggling her eyebrows.
"Wonderful," Hayley muttered sarcastically, "I hate surprises." She hadn't always, but if her time alone as a teenager had taught her anything, it was that usually the surprises she received were far from pleasant.
"Well you and Hope are going to love this one," Rebekah said, her voice final and leaving no room for disagreement as she pursed her lips and stared at the hybrid who just nodded her head with a muttered word under her breath.
"Lovely," Rebekah said, her smile returning. "This is for you, my darling," she continued, handing hope a powder blue bag with perhaps the biggest smile Hayley had ever seen. "Your father and I picked this out especially for you. It was—"
"REBEKAH!" Kol's irritated voice suddenly called. He too, it seemed, had taken it upon himself to enter Hayley's bedroom without knocking. "Where are you, you blonde-tasseled wench? I thought you said that you had a GIFT for me, not this... whatever it is. I look bloody ridiculous!"
"KOL!" Freya shouted abruptly from the doorway, eliciting a loud sigh from Hayley.
God, not you as well, she thought. Boundaries obviously hadn't existed in the 1100's.
"Yes my dear older sister?" Kol said, sarcasm to his tone as he dramatically turned to look at her.
"Get in that closet right now, shut up and stop pestering the girls before I break your neck, brother," Freya ordered, her tone leaving no room for argument as she moved past her brother and entered Hope's bedroom. "Hope sweetie, how are you? Your dad wants me to help you with something, okay?"
"Okay Auntie Freya." Hope said, her already sad sounding tone being added to with a small sigh as she hopped off the bed and grabbed her aunt's hand as they left the room together.
"Can I come out now, or not?" Kol's irritated voice floated through the doors of the closet the second that Hope and Freya left the room. Hayley and Rebekah shared a humoured look at his impatience.
"Oh, my God," Hayley let out a bubbly burst of laughter at the site of Kol, having to hold a hand to her mouth just to shut herself up before Kol snapped and broke her neck, or worse ripped her heart from her chest.
"What, the holy hell, Is that?" she continued asking, trying with all her might not to keel over with unstoppable laughter.
"What?" Rebekah asked confusedly. "I thought it was adorable."
"Well then…" Kol said bitterly as he moved more towards his little sister. "You are bloody off your rockers."
There Kol was, dressed from head to toe in a White-Rabbit costume; tweed waistcoat, floppy ears, pocket-watch and all. Freya, it seemed, had painted a rabbit face onto his skin with her magic as payback for his earlier resistance. Hayley smirked, wondering if Kol had seen what his face looked like yet. Considering his calm state, she highly doubted it.
"Well, I think you look lovely," Hayley said, trying and failing to hide a laugh as his bunny ears flipped to the side as he looked to her. "J-Just lovely."
"And your little bunny nose!" Rebekah gushed, clapping her hands together. "I wanna hug you—"
"My WHAT?!"
"She's right," Hayley agreed with a giant grin. "It looks cuter than a Snapchat filter!"
"What the bloody hell is Snapch—" Kol cut himself off when he turned to the left to see himself in a full size, clear as hell, mirror…
"FREYA!" he screeched, only making Rebekah and Hayley burst into yet another fit of laughter. "FREYA, I WILL TEAR YOUR ARMS OFF AND BOIL YOUR BONES!"
"NO! No, no, no," Hayley tried to speak over both her own laughter and Rebekah, who practically had her head buried in the brunettes shoulder to shield her own frantic laughter. "It's— it's cute. Hope will love it; I love it. W-We love it," Hayley said before breaking into a fit of giggles once again.
Kol glared at them something fierce, but at the mention of his niece, the anger faded from his eyes and he sighed heavily. "I'll have you know that both of you are stark-raving mad," he told them, his eyes locking onto Hayley. "But for my niece... For Hope, I will graciously wear this atrocity that you call a costume. Pfft, and they say I'm the mad one?"
"Thank you, Kol," Hayley said; her laughing stopping as she genuinely thanked the Mikaelson brother with a kind smile. She knew how much Hope would love this. Hell, how much Klaus would love this.
It would be something that all of them talked about for the next century, bringing the photos of the occasion out at every Christmas, just to mock and humiliate each other.
Kol smiled a genuine smile at Hayley's remark, and bowed his way out of the room. "See you at the ball then," he chirped, but when he turned to leave, both women let out the same, high-pitched squeal.
"This is going to be epic," Rebekah said to her with a smile as she looped her arm around Hayley's.
"I have that feeling too," Hayley grinned back as she watched the youngest Mikaelson brother leave the room. "Does Kol know that the back of his costume is a giant, stuffed, Cheshire cat?" she added in a whisper.
"No," Rebekah laughed. "But who was I to pass up such a deal? Two costumes for the price of one; I would have been mad not to have taken it!"
"You mean Klaus would have been mad for you entirely draining his credit cards of all that he owns?"
"What Nik doesn't know won't hurt him." Rebekah dismissed with a grin and a wave of her hand.
"Don't let him hear you say that," Hayley mused. "You of all people know how paranoid he can be."
Rebekah couldn't argue with that as she just shrugged and moved on. "Anyway… Kol has his costume, Hope, Freya, Keelin, Marcel, Davina, Elijah—"
"You went very overboard didn't you?" Hayley asked, amused.
"I wouldn't say that. I just... made the most of the opportunity at hand. Oh, by the way," the blonde added, handing Hayley the largest of all the bags. "This one's yours."
"…Mine?" Hayley asked slowly, eyeing the large bag that Rebekah practically shoved at her. She had to admit, even for Klaus that was quick.
Rebekah gave her a knowing smile, as if she knew exactly what the hybrid was thinking. "Oh, no love," she said lightly, "That's been ordered all week. It had to be custom made, you know!"
"Custom made?" Hayley repeated, her eyes wide and her mouth gaped open. Klaus. "That son of a—"
"Now come on Hayley," Rebekah rolled her blue eyes at the hybrid. "At least look at it before you completely freak out."
"Freak out? I-I'm not freaking out!" Hayley exclaimed a little too quickly, feeling as a light blush crept up her cheeks. Obviously Klaus had known that she would forget her own costume, considering that was a department in which she lacked skills.
How the hell was it possible for someone to know her so well? She couldn't remember anyone who had. Not Jackson. Not Elijah. She tried to be angry, to keep her pride and be upset over the fact that Klaus just had to know she would forget a dress but she couldn't bring up even an inch of anger.
"Hayley...?" Rebekah's confused tone sounded far away and slightly tinny to the former, who was swimming in a pool of her thoughts. "HAYLEY!" She shouted a second time, this time clicking her fingers to pull the hybrid out of her trance. "What on earth are you doing, girl? I was telling you about the importance of the accessories that I picked out for you!"
"Sorry Bex," Hayley said with an apologetic look, hoping the use of the blonde's favourite nickname would earn her forgiveness, which it did. Rebekah smiled brightly and continued on about the beautiful dress that Hayley still hadn't even seen yet.
"Anyway, Klaus organised the whole thing. All I did was pick it up from the boutique and bring it here to you. Yes, and before you ask, neither I nor Klaus told you about this because we knew how you would react, and now... well, now you can't argue with what's in the bag!"
Hayley groaned and rolled her eyes. A part of her wanted to throw the bag out the open window, but a bigger part of her couldn't wait to open it. If Klaus was the one who had picked out the costume, she knew without a doubt that it would be beautiful.
There was less than an hour until the ball began, and Hayley still wasn't wearing her costume. Nor had she even looked inside the bag that currently held it. After Rebekah had gone off to get ready, Hayley had just sat on her bed and stared blankly out the window trying to convince herself that what she was feeling, her nerves and her admiration towards a certain blonde hybrid, was nothing more that the product of what they'd talked about earlier…
She was panicking; the ball, the possibility of this not being what would make her daughter even remotely okay. She didn't know what to do.
And Klaus?
The way he'd spoken to her, like she was the most special person in the world... it truly freaked her out. As if worrying about Hope hadn't been enough already, Hayley suddenly found herself worrying about what Klaus would think of her when she wore the costume he'd had made, just for her. What if she didn't live up to his expectations?
Up to the Mikaelson expectations? Rebekah acted and looked like a Queen, same with Freya. She wasn't like that despite her costume for the night. Why the hell has Klaus wanted her as The White Queen anyway?
Half of her knew that Klaus truly thought of her like that, as the only true queen amongst them all. But the other half...? The other half of her wondered if he was just telling her these things simply to make her feel better about herself.
After all, if it were true, wouldn't someone else have told her this before?
How did he always manage to make her believe it though, even if she had never truly heard it from anyone else? Even though a part of her wanted to roll her eyes, the other felt her heart explode.
Maybe it's because that she knew, despite everything that they'd been through good or bad, that Klaus had not lied to her. Not once, ever. They were always honest with each other, and Klaus never said things of such emotional intensity if he did not mean them. That was not her assumption, but a straight out fact.
She sighed and shook her head as her eyes met the bag Rebekah had given her. She let her thoughts fly at the possibilities of what was inside… knowing Klaus; it was over the top and beautiful.
Hayley found that she was not able to resist any longer. She had to see what was waiting for her inside the bag.
She slowly walked over to it, picking it up and sitting it on the bed…
One-by-one, Hayley extracted the contents the bag and laid them out on her comforter, each item an ostentatious component of her White Queen costume. First came a platinum wig, the tresses of which were dusted with a fine sprinkling of glitter and gems.
Next, were the accessories that Rebekah had told her about; Necklaces of white gold, bracelets and faceted rings, sparkling ear cuffs and a giant pair of pearlised diamond earrings.
The shoes came next, Cinderella-inspired, they were, made from cut crystal and filled with a weighted liquid that allowed iridescent glitter to float inside, suspended and trapped between the two layers of glass.
Then, Hayley pulled out the dress.
It was the most beautiful piece of clothing she had ever seen.
It was something truly awe-inspiring and Hayley felt her breath hitch as she realised that Klaus had had it made, just for her. He was treating her like a true queen, and she couldn't believe the obvious truth behind his earlier words. The pure beauty of the dress almost made a tear come to the hybrid's eye, and she rarely let that happen. This was not her.
Though not like anything she had ever wear she couldn't stop her stare. It was just… perfect. Like nothing she had ever seen before. It was beautifully white and she could tell it would go just bellow her white heels. The sleeves were clear with some sparkles and cut into a V-neck that would make the necklace Klaus had gave her look even more stunning. The bodice seemed to be a glittering, beaded, lace-up corset that was decorated with fine silver chain and tiny shining gems. It was the sort of bodice that Hayley was sure a living girl would've died from wearing, due to lack of oxygen.
"I guess that means I won't be peeing tonight," she joked under her breath as she continued to look the dress over. The poufy skirt was overlain with a fine white organza material, and covered with both thousands of iridescent crystals and several stars of David, cut from a metallic silver mesh.
She let a small smile come to her lips; he had this made for her. Before she had even asked… she couldn't even imagine the cost of the luxurious dress.
Hayley could've stared at it forever, but then her eyes caught sight of the last item in the bag, and she dropped the dress to the bed in a silently stunned awe.
The crown.
Her crown.
It was the last thing in the bag, and Hayley knew that it was the most expensive of all her gifts.
She gasped when she saw it. Reaching forward before stopping, she was even scared to touch it. It might have been the most beautiful thing of all.
At least eight inches high, made of pure white gold and encrusted with genuine diamonds and rubies, her crown sat winking at her, drawing her in with all of its powerful glory. Every peak of it was moulded into a New Orleans-inspired Fleur-de-Lis and it sparkled and glinted every which way. It truly was the crown of a queen. But not just any queen, either.
It was a crown that could only belong to the Queen of the King of Kings.
Hayley sucked in a shaky breath as she took it in her hands gently, flipping it around and re-examining every single inch of it. It was perfection. She couldn't even mentally picture herself in it, but she found herself wanting to.
Hayley Marshall, Queen of New Orleans.
It certainly had a ring to it, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't like how the title sounded. She walked across the room towards her mirror and gently placed the crown atop her head, half expecting it to be too large, but it wasn't.
It fitted her perfectly.
She stared at her reflection in complete and utter awe... she actually did look like a Queen.
We are so awesomely amazing and incapable of restraining ourselves that we have officially decided to add a third and final part! Hope you enjoyed! Keep a look out for part 3!
