Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
“And so for you to go this far—”
I don’t blame you, Mirabella. But I don’t want to see you again. I can’t. Not after what you did to our baby.
“Just to hurt me—”
She was crying so, so hard now that it should’ve been impossible for him to understand her.
“How c-can I have the right to fight for you—”
And yet he did.
“—if I’m also the reason you’re doing all these things that’s not n-noble?”
Every fucking word.
But for some reason, he just couldn’t fucking move.
Even with Tiara reaching up to yank the little crown—the tiara he had chosen to shame her, the one that he intended to ask back so he could give it to Mirabella—off her head—
“A princess isn’t meant to turn princes into frogs.”
She pressed the tiara to his hand, the small weight of it cold against his palm, but it was as if pain had stolen his very ability to think.
“And I’m—I’m s-so sorry for hurting you that night.”
And then she was turning away.
The crowd swallowing the sight of her.
But still he stood there like an idiot, the tiara still in his open hand, and it was only when Mirabella reached him from behind and tugged the tiara out of his hold—
“Is this mine?”
He watched her actually put on the tiara like this was all that mattered to her, and...God.
He couldn’t even find it in his heart to hate her.
How could he when he had fucked up just as bad—
Please, God.
Arkane looked at Lucius, who had risen from his seat in the front row. Because with all the women in their family in tears, even Icelle—
His eldest brother was his only hope, and Lucius was already nodding.
I’ll handle Mirabella.
Go.
And then he was running.
Chapter Seven
WELL, I CAN’T SAY I didn’t see that coming.
But it’s all good.
I’ve got You, and life will go on.
Right?
I’m laughing and crying as I get into one of those hackneys for hire that are all over Foxtown. The driver waiting at the rank doesn’t ask questions when he sees my face. He just lowers the step for me, and waits.
“H-Holborn, please.”
He nods once and clicks his tongue at the horses, and we pull away from the curb at the slow Foxtown trot that the park enforces, and I close my eyes against the seat back.
The hackney rolls. Outside, Foxtown is doing what Foxtown always does—couples promenading along the pavement in their finery, a flower girl somewhere calling out about violets, the chime of a clock from a distant square—and none of it touches me. It’s all happening behind glass even though there is no glass.
I know...
I know in my heart that there’s not a single word I said that was untrue. I know I’m going to be okay. I know everything will be okay. Someday. And I guess that’s the part that has my heart breaking to pieces. That someday feels so, so impossibly far.
Because right now—
God, oh God.
Was this how he felt that night?
Thinking that you’ve found the girl of your dreams, and you’ve even started planning an entire future with her, and just when you’re about to ask her to be your wife—
The girl of your dreams turns out to be an idiot who likes to waste kisses on almost-drunk frogs.
A weird sound escapes my lips. It’s like this sound between a laugh and a sob. But I just don’t have the energy, just can’t make my brain work to come up with a new word to describe it.
All I know is that I’m hurting so, so bad—
I can’t stop seeing it.
His lips against another girl’s lips.
God, it hurts so, so much.
Please make it stop.
Please.
I’m so sorry for being a coward, but I just want to stop remembering—
“Tiara!”
Or maybe I should start praying that I stop hallucinating—
“Tiara!”
The hackney driver glances at me over his shoulder, the brim of his Regency top hat catching the afternoon light. “I think he’s talking to you, miss.”
What—wait—he can hear it, too?
“Tiara!”
And I don’t even have to look around because Arkane is right next to our hackney, running flat-out alongside it on the cobbled street, and I...I don’t even know how that’s possible. Was he marathoning when he was young? Or had he been Hyroxing in the past six years? Granted, our hackney has to stick with the park’s speed limits, but—
“Will you listen to me?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. There’s no—” My words end in a shocked gasp because Arkane’s—okay, I’ve figured it out! Parkour is his secret sport because that’s the only way for him to be running on the sidewalk one moment, and then he’s swinging right up onto the running board and right into the hackney next to me.
“Stop the car,” I cry out. “I mean carriage!”
But I forgot who I’m up against—
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you keep driving until I tell you to.”