Page 70 of The Princess and the Fraud

“Lovisa has to clock out now, or else we’d love to stay and chat.” As smooth as ever, Aaron reached down and picked up my hand in his, winding our fingers together. The ease of the movement stunned me further. The gentle touch. I couldn’t help but think back to that night at the piano, when my hand was laying over top of his.So this is what the spaces between his fingers feel like. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holland. Have a nice trip back to your room.”

And then Aaron led me by his firm grip toward the passageway that led to the country club, giving my hand a comforting squeeze. My feet followed along on their own accord, stumbling forward in a daze.

The passageway was ghostly with all the dark windows. All the shadows were almost claustrophobic. “He hasn’t followed us,” Aaron said, checking over his shoulder. “I think we’re?—”

“He came back early,” I breathed, andnowthe trembling had begun to set in. My thoughts that had slowed upon his appearance now picked up into double-time, racing around me. “I told—I told Mr. Holland that I wouldn’t see Grant, but now?—”

“It’s all right.” Aaron reached out with his free hand and coasted his fingertips underneath my bangs, brushing them from my eyes, infinitely gentle. “If anyone says anything, I’ll counter it. I’ll tell them that we were never even in the elevator.”

His words were meant to be comforting, but for some reason, they couldn’t burrow deeper than the surface. Unease still gripped my stomach, spreading coldness through my body.What if he tells his dad he saw me? Why did he have to come early? Why did he have to request towels?

Aaron’s fingertips along my cheekbone had me lifting my gaze to his, finding nothing but concern written across his face. My hand felt heavy in his.Why did Grant have to come at that moment?

“Are you all right?” Aaron asked, and the slight fingertips on my cheek became something more like a caress. For a brief moment, instinct had me turning into the touch, even just a fraction of an inch. “Or shall I go back there and properly defend your honor?”

And that was what broke the moment. My honor wasn’t his to defend—I was not Fiona. I dropped his hand, pulling my head away from his touch. “You shouldn’t have told him that,” I said shakily. “You shouldn’t have told Grant I proposed to you.”

Aaron tilted his head. “But you did.”

Panic gripped me, almost as urgent and strong as it’d been when Grant stepped into the elevator. It shouldn’t have surfaced now, though. Not when the poisonous flower that was Grant Holland was still at the reception desk waiting on new towels. But here, standing with Aaron and his beautifully wide brown eyes,alone—it reared its head in full force. “I—I didn’t mean it.”

Yes, you did. In that moment, when you said it, you meant it.I shoved the thoughts down, on the verge of hyperventilating.

“When I said I’d marry you—or when I told you to marry me.” I shook my head, trying to clear it, as if the shake would ease some of the lung-constricting panic. “I didn’t mean it.”

I couldn’t explain what I was doing, what I was saying, only that everything was too much all at once.

The next time I looked up at Aaron, something had changed. The concern in his eyes had disappeared, almost as if shutters eclipsed their brightness. He no longer seemed stunned, but a hardness filled its place, transforming him entirely. “Of course you didn’t,” Aaron said flatly. “Because who ties themselves to someone out of pity?”

“It’s—it’s not that.” At least, not entirely, even though itdidsound crazy. “I can’t justmarry you. And you don’t want to marry me. I’m—I’m not at all put together. I’m?—”

Aaron’s eyes flashed. “I swear to God, Lovisa Hahn, if you call yourselfthe helpone more time?—”

“I’m not impressive,” I said over top of him, breathing hard. “I didn’t go to college. My highest degree is a high school diploma. I’m not smart, or refined, or even remotely on your level?—”

“One glimpse of the ex has you rethinking your decisions, does it?” Aaron turned his face away, scowling down the dark hallway. “He was quite handsome, wasn’t he? I was hoping he’d be ugly, not looking like a Greek god in football pajamas.”

“Aaron.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to marry you.” He turned back to me, abruptly bored. His expression was flat, lips twisting with an almost irritated frown. “If I am correctly recalling, anyway,youwere the one trying to dissuademe. But marrying you and starting a business from scratch, or marrying Fiona with her winery? An easy choice, isn’t it?”

I deflated with his barbed words. They shouldn’t have hurt as much as they did. In reality, I was the one rejecting him first—afterI’dbeen the one to offer. It made no sense to feel offended, and yet those words—an easy choice, isn’t it?—slid under my skin like the blade of a knife.

Aaron glanced down at his palms. “It seems I’ve forgotten my ice bucket.” He smoothed one hand down his arm, as if dusting for invisible lint. There’d been a tremble to the movement, though, one he couldn’t hide. “Thank you for listening to my sob story, Lovisa, but if I find out you’ve told a soul, I’ll buy your mother’s dream house only to burn it down.”

I opened my mouth to call after him, but he strode away too quickly, and my brain couldn’t come up with a response quick enough. Not that it would have mattered.

I almost felt sick as I stood there, his final words echoing in my head. I saw them for what they were—his way of lashing out. Just as I lashed out that day at the piano, calling him a fraud, he lashed out now. But it was different. That day, Aaron had just been saying something I hadn’t wanted to hear.

I was worse. I offered to marry him, to save him from marrying Fiona after he’d confessed he didn’t want to, to help him start a business to impress his parents—and then practically shoutedjust kidding!

But I hadn’t even thought it through before blurting the proposal. It’d been a temporary insanity, one driven by the choked quality his voice had taken on. I couldn’t marry someone I mettwo weeks ago. In that moment, I’d have done anything to relieve him of the pressure—now, though, what had I beenthinking?

And this time, I didn’t think a simple white flag would fix this.

Heart heavy, I forced myself to walk down the country club hallway, heading to the employee lounge to clock out, but the suffocating shadows from the passageway never left me.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

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