Page 75 of The Princess and the Fraud

Though it was petty, I muttered, “So special that you had to get another girlfriend, huh?” We were getting close to entering Bayview’s city limits, and I watched the buildings come closer into view. I knew what he was doing. Mr. Holland had mentioned that he was bringing his girlfriend to Addison with him, and, presumably, she hadn’t arrived yet. He was most likely trying to set the narrative with me before she arrived. “Fine, say your piece, Grant. But after this, it’s never happening again.”

Grant sat up in his seat, clenching the wheel tighter. I could practically hear his thoughts.My chance. “Would you believe me if I said that what you saw had been our first kiss?”

And we were already starting off with a lie. “You’d been dating since June?—”

“Wemetin June,” he corrected calmly. “Through our parents. They wanted us together, but I… I held out.”

Did he want a round of applause? “What a gentleman.”

“I don’t love her,” Grant said with zero hesitation. “I love you.”

I’d always wondered what it’d be like when I saw Grant again, if old feelings would return. The anger lingered—of course it did. I’d probably never be able to shake it. But honestly, I had worried how I’d respond to Grant’s schmoozing—because I knew it would come. If there was one thing similar between Aaron and Grant, it was that they both knew how to be charming.

You can be with someone for four years, rip their heart out, and still call it love?Aaron had asked me at the piano.If that’s what love is, I don’t want it.

“That isn’t love.” I’d meant it before, and I meant it now. “If you loved me, the idea of losing me would’ve driven you mad. You wouldn’t have been able to put it off because asemester was starting. You wouldn’t have cheated on me to begin with.”

“Things with her aren’t that serious, but you and me?—”

“When does her flight get in?”

That was another thing about Grant Holland. He might’ve thought out the future, but he never thought the present through. “I—she?—”

“I’ve moved on, Grant.” I turned my attention back out the window. “You took too long.”

Grant drove through the Bayview streets silently, no doubt trying to come up with his next line. But there wasn’t much to say, was there? I should’ve been more heartbroken, should’ve been raging at Grant, begging him for answers. Aaron seemed to draw out the fire within me so easily, but even now, sitting in a car with my cheating ex, that fire was dormant.

And perhaps that spoke more than I realized.That wasn’t love, I’d said. For him, nor for me. And it’d taken me this long to realize it.

The broader idea of it caught at me, though, and the conversation Aaron and I had about it.I don’t understand love, he’d said, a confused twist to his expression. I mean, sure, love could be complicated, but loving someone wasn’tthatconfusing. Aaron was a pianist. Didn’t he understand what it meant to follow the flow of the notes?

I told her that people like us aren’t made for love. I thought she was like me, but she wasn’t.

Like you?

Like me.

Someone who wasn’t meant for love. So that was what Aaron had meant? That he wasn’tmade forlove?Aaron doesn’t believe in love, Annalise had said, but that wasn’t it. Not quite. Not believing in love and thinking you weren’t made for it were two different things.

He didn’t think hedeserved it.

A soft breath escaped me, and I wasn’t sure why the thought hit me square in the chest this time. That was why Aaron wasn’t concerned with marrying for love, why Annalise said he didn’t believe in it—he didn’t believe in it forhim.Meantfor love, as if it was some predetermined fate he couldn’t change. As if, when he’d been born, the universe had decided Aaron Astor didn’t deserve to fall in love.

I only wondered where he'd gotten that thought for a brief moment before the next domino in my realization fell. His family. Never finding love from his brothers, from his parents—had that led him to believe he didn’t deserve it?

I closed my eyes. How many times had Aaron convinced himself love wasn’t something meant for him, simply because it had never been given freely? How many times had he laughed off the idea of it, not because he didn’t want it, but because wanting it would only make the absence hurt more?

I wanted to tell him he was wrong. Love wasn’t something you had to be made for—it was something you found, something you chose. He wasn’t unworthy just because the people who should have loved him first never did.

But even if I did tell him, I wasn’t sure he’d believe me. Not after I had become essentially another person in his life to point out his flaws.

“Lovey.”

My eyes flew open, and I found the car parked along Bayview’s main street. Grant held himself stiffly in the driver’s seat, not quite looking at me. “I’m sorry… that I’m making you so uncomfortable.”

I sighed. I’d almost forgotten he was even there. “Where was Caroline’s reservation?”

Grant tipped his head to peer out the windshield. “Pierre’s.”

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