Page 45 of Royal Rebel

He’s acting like he has no idea what he did, but he has to know. “How could you let her touch you? You were in love with Anastasia. She was the one woman you would have married besides me.”

I can see the recognition in his eyes. “Lia, she’s nothing to me.” He reaches out, prying my fingers off my arms and holding them. “Yes, she and I had a relationship once, but that doesn’t mean anything now. Nothing has mattered since you came into my life.”

“But she does matter to me,” I argue. “I saw it, an article of the two of you, about how you were going to marry her. At the time, I knew I was your betrothed, I felt second best.”

“I’m sorry.” He lets go of my hand and runs his hands through his hair. “What did you expect me to do? I had no idea what was going through your head. I had no idea what was going through mine.”

“And maybe you didn’t.” I do my best to keep my lip from trembling. “But I went and threw myself at Callum, because I didn’t want to feel like second best,” I whisper.

“Lia,” he sighs, reaching out, grabbing me by the neck. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.”

“You’re right though.” I wipe at my eyes. “Back then, neither one of us knew what would be happening now. If we did, I’m sure we both would have decided to do things differently.”

I do my best to contain my emotions, sniffing. “I’m sorry I ran from you.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you.” He reaches out, and I fall into his arms.

With the hope of a young girl, I choose to trust him, and I hope this is the last time we have to speak of this.

“Bad news,” Shannon tells me the next morning, throwing a newspaper on my desk. “The press picked up the argument you and Tristan had last night.”

There, in full color, is a picture of me running from the party, wiping tears from under my eyes. Along with that is a series of pictures featuring me and Tristan. You can clearly see we’re having some sort of argument, but then we can be seen embracing one another.

“How did they even get these pictures?”

“Parker is trying to figure it out.” She shakes her head. “He’s furious.”

I glance at the clock. “How do you know he’s furious? It’s early in the morning to know Parker’s furious.”

Her face goes a bright red, and I have all the answer I need. “Well I hope you had a great birthday.”

“It was.” She giggles. “A wonderful birthday. I feel bad being so happy when you and Tristan have these articles floating around about you.”

After last night, I feel more secure than I ever have. “This will happen,” I throw it over to the side. “People will make their own assumptions, and we all know what assumptions are.”

If anyone does, I do, and I promise myself I’ll never make one again.

CHAPTER 27

TRISTAN

WEEKS LATER

The calendar is staring me right in the face. The time Lia and I have had here is close to coming to an end. There’s a big red circle on the pristine white paper. It’s a date, the day we’ve picked to marry one another.

We’re finally in the same month of the wedding.

It’s weird, I always assumed seeing the date would cause me to be anxious, instead I’m excited, more excited than I ever thought I would be. Running my hand through my hair, I sigh as I realize how close we are to being in charge of this country.

“What are you sighing for?” Parker asks from where he stands at the entrance to my office. “You’re three weeks from marrying your bride.”

“That’s part of the problem.” I sigh again, realizing how much responsibility we’re going to have. How much time isn’t going to ours anymore. We won’t be in our small,secluded, private piece of paradise. We’ll be in a great big ocean where people don’t care about how we feel. “We’re about to leave this place where everything’s perfect. There’s not as much pressure here as there will be at the palace with Dad. Here we don’t have paparazzi chasing us, trying to get pictures. Once we get back, they’ll be clamoring for a piece of us. I don’t know how Amelia will react.”

“I think it’s less about how Amelia will react and more about how you will.”

Sometimes I hate Parker because he’s so intuitive.

“Perhaps.”

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