Page 39 of The Cinderella Prince

She stared at me.

My thumb slipped over the screen, opening the camera app, and she noticed it. Taking a step as if to turn away from me, I lifted my phone and snapped a shot of her. “Hey, you! Hey!” I photographed her as she turned around and hurried down the street.

A moment later, the floodgates broke, and the queue of undelivered messages and calls set my phone on fire. It vibrated with messages from my valet, my security contacts, my younger siblings, the official representatives from the palace, and, of course, Alexanderhimself.

I didn’t read a single line of text he had sent. Instead, I attached the image of the stalker and sent it to my brother.

As the white heat of rage cleared from my burning face and faded vision, hollowness opened in the pit of my stomach.Fuck. But it was too late to consider all the options. It was too late to do anything else.

My phone vibrated, and Alexander’s private number flashed on my screen.

My throat tightened. The hollowness in my stomach was filling quickly, and it felt as if I’d swallowed a rock. My guts twisted, my blood chilled, and hairs rose along the back of my neck.

I knew I couldn’t argue with my brother. There were no views of the world that we shared. Proving anything to him had always been impossible, so I postponed it. I put it off. I waited for some other time when I would be ready for this, as if it could ever end any other way.

I wish I had more time, I thought before I pressed the green button on my screen and lifted the phone to my ear.

“Cedric. You live,” Alexander said calmly. He was so stiff that even his mouth barely moved.

“Like you don’t know that already,” I said, my voice tight with anger and edged with fear. I hated myself for revealing the latter.

Alexander was quiet for a short time. “Are you ready to return?” Before I could answer, almost as if he could hear me frowning, Alexander continued. “You’ve had your adventure. It’s time to come home.”

“Don’t…” I choked up and hissed through clenched teeth. “Don’t talk to me like this.”

“How am I speaking to you, Cedric?” he asked.

“As if I were a child,” I accused.

Alexander let a beat pass, allowing me to understand the trap I had entered. “If you wish to be spoken to as an adult, then act like one.”

“I wish you’d leave me alone,” I said.

Alexander sighed. “Why are you so hostile, Cedric? Do you not understand that I have placed security near you for your own good? However much you wish to pretend otherwise, you are not like everyone else.”

“Oh, is that so? I’ve been doing just fine,” I lied.

“Scraping pots and scrubbing floors? It is almost as if you wish to create a scandal. You always were eccentric.” Alexander’s tone hardly changed from its flat, deliberate way of speaking. “This is not the first time you ran away, and I highly doubt it will be the last. Unless you force my hand, brother. In such case, I will have no options but to assure you remain here.”

I barked out a bitter laugh. “You’d imprison me?”

“Life at the palace can hardly be equated with imprisonment, Cedric. You play out your fantasies in some run-down bar, but you know so little of the way the world works,” he accused. “It’s time to come back before there are consequences.”

“Is that a threat?” I asked.

“Nothing of the sort,” Alexander said flatly. “You are to be engaged, Cedric, but not even the Marquis de Beaumont will wait much longer. Any disasters that come from this will be entirely of your own doing.”

I snapped my mouth shut and let a wave of anger thunder through me. I had been rash enough. It was time to be smart, even if the mention of that ridiculous engagementfelt like someone prodding an open wound with a muddy stick. “If you know where I live and what I do, then you know about him.”

“He is irrelevant,” Alexander said. There was no insult in his tone and none in his mind. He simply spoke a fact the way he saw it.

“He isnotirrelevant,” I shouted. “Don’t you dare say that again.”

Alexander held his tongue for a moment or two. “Your little affair will not affect our plans negatively.”

Same shit, I thought but held back the words. “If you think you’re convincing me of anything, you will make a poor diplomat.”

“Brother, you misunderstand the nature of this conversation,” Alexander replied coolly. “I am not trying to convince you of anything. As far as everyone is concerned, there is nothing more to discuss. This is plain courtesy that I am informing you of what comes next. If you wish, you may pretend you have a freedom of choice.”

---