Page 84 of The Little Shop of Grand Curiosities

“Wait a second,” Ryker interjected, outraged. “You’rethe Starshine Princess? You’re engaged tohim?”

“No!” I blurted out, loud enough for a few heads to turn in our direction. Apollo grinned and bowed at them in mockery of respect, and they immediately veered their heads, whispering in a scandalized manner to each other.

“We’re not engaged,” I hissed, irritation rising in my bloodstream. “It’s just a ridiculous rumor.”

“Of course,” Apollo drawled. “Can you even imagine our darling Nepheli being engaged to a heartless rake like me?”

“Your Highness, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t fret, Mister Leonos,” Apollo cut him off with a gruff littletut. “Nepheli Curiosity remains all yours.”

The second he finished that sentence, the tips of my ears started to burn. Heart pounding. Blood boiling.Whodid he think he was, telling Ryker that I remained his? As if I were an object that he owned and could decide its fate, just like that!

I swiveled on my heels, ready to give him a piece of my mind, and damn me if I cared who listened.

But Apollo was gone, his massive frame cutting through the party.

Oh, no. You’ll have to walk faster than that to get away from me.

I fisted my skirts and started after him, but a hand around my elbow stopped me abruptly.

Gods. I forgot about Ryker.

“Nepheli,” he pressed, his eyes pleading with me. “Can we talk for a moment?”

I checked over my shoulder at Apollo’s shrinking silhouette. I wanted to follow him. I wanted to fight him. I wanted to scream at him.

I wanted to kiss him until he had a heart again.

“Sure,” I croaked, trembling as a nerve-racking combination of anxiety and anger took over my body. “We can talk.”

Ryker guided me through the party to one of the quaint little balconies that overlooked the Palace’s sprawling gardens. Above, the stars were a spatter of treasure on a velvet map, and the moon was a crooked grin, cunning and insidious. But what captivated me the most was the view below. Behind a cottony veil of mist, tall, thick hedges adorned with opalescent blossoms formed a massive, intricate maze shaped like a seven-pointed star, with each point serving as a secret exit.

I put my hands on the cool, sleek balustrade and basked in the night for a moment. The evening chill stroked over me, the kind of cold early spring clung onto before the swift, sun-dazed shift into summer, and my teeth started to chatter.

“Here,” Ryker said as he stripped off his jacket to drape it over my bare shoulders.

“Thank you.” I smiled a little distractedly at him, my eyes falling off the balcony again, to the captivating maze.

“Nepheli, what are you actually doing here? What happened to the Shop?”

“That’s a very long story,” I sighed.

He seized my shoulders and spun me around, his expression as chilling as the night. “Can I get your attention for one minute, please? You owe me that much.”

“Oweyou?” I scoffed in as much bafflement as fury. “I don’toweyou anything, Ryker. We took our separate ways. It wasyourchoice to leave Elora, remember?”

“And it wasyourchoice not to come with me,” he bit back. “Yet here you are, in The Faraway North of all places. You said that you could never leave the Shop. You asked me not to expect this sacrifice from you. Was it all an excuse? Were you just trying to get rid of me?”

“I wouldn’t use the Shop as an excuse, Ryker,” I said firmly. “Circumstances change. People change.”

He laughed under his breath, the sound mirthless and self-deprecating. “But you couldn’t change for me, right?”

“That’s the point!” I snapped. “Don’t you understand? If I leave the Shop and start a new life somewhere else, I will do it for me. Not for you. Not for my parents. Not for anyone. I will not follow someone else’s path and hope to find myself along the way.”

“You followedhimhere,” he accused, his face heated.

“No, I didn’t,” I gritted out. “But that’s the problem. That was always the problem with us. You see me as someone who would drop their entire life to follow a stranger to the other side of the world. You have no idea how much I respect the life I have in Elora, and all the hard work my parents have put into the Shop. You’ve no idea how much I’ve struggled with letting go of this responsibility and allowing myself to grow into whoIam meant to be.”

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