Page 13 of A Royal Promise
Before she could notice the official seal he’d added to the document, Drew reached over and took the marriage pact back.
“I know, but…I sort of told my parents we’re secretly engaged…and you wouldn’t make me a liar, right?”
“You did that all by yourself, Drew.” She took a sip of her drink and then whipped her head back to look at him. “Wait, did you just say you already told your parents we’reengaged?” She yelled the last word, her eyes widening.
“You’re right. I messed up.” He tapped the piece of paper before tucking it back into his pocket. “But you made a pinky promise, and we never break a pinky promise.”
Chapter Five
Bri
Bri stared at her best friend, waiting for him to tell her this was all some big joke, but he didn’t. He looked at her earnestly, his eyes filled with hope instead of mirth. What he’d said wasn’t a lie—they’d never broken a pinky promise to each other.
They considered pinky promises to be sacred and binding, an undying oath to each other. Like the time they’d promised they wouldn’t rat each other out when their parents asked them who had dug up a garden bed to make a giant mud pit for wrestling. They’d both been grounded for a month, but from that moment on, they’d known they could trust each other with anything.
Only now, Bri was regretting the fact that she’d sealed their marriage pact with not only a signature but a pinky promise too. She needed to think on her feet. There had to be some way out of this scenario, a way she wouldn’t have to marry Drew. She didn’t want a marriage of convenience any more than he did, and there was no way she would ever make him marry Clarissa. But there had to be some other option they hadn’t thought of, onewhich didn’t require either of them to get married—to a stuck-up womanoreach other.
While she wanted to get married someday, right now the idea of it seemed scary to Bri. She didn’t want to be tied down to one place or person when there was still a whole world out there to explore, but she did want to help her best friend escape this scenario.
A giant grin covered Bri’s face as the perfect idea crossed her mind. “Well, I’m not going toactuallymarry you…but who says we can’t fake it? At least, for a while?”
Drew reared his head back, and Bri could’ve sworn she saw hurt flash in his eyes. “How could we fake it?”
She shrugged. “We know everything about each other. We could totally make a fake engagement look real.”
He was silent for a long moment. She was about to backpedal, shoot down her own idea, when he finally responded, “I don’t doubt we could make it look real, but what about the ramifications of publicly faking an engagement?”
“Did you think about the ramifications of telling your parents we were engaged when we weren’t?” she shot back at him with a quirked brow.
“Touché. I think we need to talk through what this would mean. If you really want to fake an engagement, we’d have to break up publicly too. Do you think there would be any fallout from our people? I feel like the media would have a field day with a broken engagement.”
Bri bit her lip. She hadn’t thought about that.
He ran his hands through his hair. “I never should have dragged you into this mess. I’m so sorry. I’ll tell my parents I made it all up, and…and I’ll figure out another way to avoid marrying Clarissa.”
“No,” she said adamantly.
“No?”
“I’m the one breaking our pinky promise by not agreeing to marry you. The least I can do is pretend we’re engaged until this all calms down. We can deal with the consequences when the time comes.”
He pressed his lips together as his eyes looked back and forth between hers. Finally, he said, “You’re the one doing me the favor. I’ll do whatever you want, Bri.”
“Then let’s do this, fake fiancé.” She extended her hand to him, and he took it, giving it one firm shake. “We should probably come up with some ground rules. I don’t want anything to complicate our friendship. You mean too much to me.”
“Agreed.” He let out a long breath. “What kind of rules? Like I said, you’re doing me the favor here, so I’m fine with whatever you want.”
“Okay, first we have to figure out a timeline. How long should the fake engagement last? We wouldn’t be able to put off a wedding for too long without our parents getting suspicious.”
“I don’t want you to feel trapped forever either.” Drew shot her a sad smile. “Maybe we could follow this plan until Clarissa’s parents move on and find another suitor for her. I don’t think it should take too long, but if it’s longer than a year, we can agree to fake an amicable split at that point?”
“Yeah, we’ll have to think carefully about what kind of public statement we would make so there isn’t any trouble between our families, countries, or with the press, but I think we can manage it,” she said.
“That sounds good, fiancée,” Drew added the last word with a smirk.
She felt a small pang in her heart at being called his fiancée. Even though it was fake, it still felt like a monumental moment in her life—being called that for the first time. Plus, itwouldbe real to the rest of the world.
They would have to look and act like an engaged couple. She supposed this meant it might feel real to her sometimes too. Her heart rate picked up. Bri didn’t want this to feel real. Drew was her best friend, and she couldn’t risk losing him if things got awkward between them.
