Chapter 265

Early the next morning, I awoke to the sound of loud and persistent knocking on my door. It was so early, Charlotte hadn’t even arrived yet and the curtains were still drawn over the windows.

The guards were talking with the morning visitor, who was nearly shrieking in her reply. It was Bridget. She sounded upset.

I checked on Elva, she was still sound asleep. Then I rolled out of bed. I threw on a silk robe and rushed to the door.

The moment, Bridget saw me, the tears began to flow down her cheeks. “Oh, Piper! I have to talk to you at once.”

Fortunately, at that same moment, Charlotte was approaching us down the hallway. I asked her to keep an eye on Elva, and went with Bridget to her own room where we could speak privately.

Bridget plucked a handkerchief from her nightstand and dabbed at her tear tracks. She was still wearing the same clothes she had worn at the party. Had she been up all night?

Where? And… with whom?

“What happened?” I asked. “Are you alright?”

As much as I distrusted Bridget, I would never wish her harm. With the underground organization out there, and their teleportation powers still unchecked, if Bridget had been out alone, she could have run into anyone.

My stomach tied up in knots. Maybe it wasn’t right to keep so many secrets from the royal guard. Nicholas and Julian’s personal guard couldn’t possibly be enough to keep the entire palace safe.

But then, I smelled it. A touch of cologne. A cologne I recognized as Julian’s.

Oh no.

My stomach totally dropped out.

He didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but Julian confessed his feelings to me last night,” Bridget said. “He told me he had been in love with me most of his life. I couldn’t believe my ears. He’s so clearly in a relationship with you, and yet he still has these feelings for me.”

I wasn’t surprised. Just, disappointed. I had thought he was making progress in moving on from Bridget. Small steps, sure. Baby steps, even. But steps forward all the same.

Surely that kiss during dress rehearsal should have been the final nail in the coffin, when she’d used him to try to make Nicholas jealous.

Yet maybe he felt he needed to confess to truly move forward. To tell Bridget his feelings, receive her firm rejection, and then move on.

I sighed but wasn’t otherwise affected.

Holding her handkerchief to her cheek, Bridget watched me. “You are handling this news quite well… Admittedly, if the man I was dating told another woman he has loved her all his life, I would be furious.”

“I’m going to talk to him about it later, sure,” I said. What, did she expect me to cry? Though maybe I should have made more of an effort, or she might have suspected that we weren’t actually dating.

“I mean, I am pissed as hell,” I said. “But…” I tried to think of some excuse for my lack of true upset. “It is unfortunately the nature of the competition. I’m Julian’s favorite, but he’s not here to find love. It’s about who would make the best Luna.”

That was a good enough reason, right?

“It’s not just that,” Bridget said. Fresh tears started. “It was the way he was talking about you…”

That gave me pause. “What? What was he saying?”

“Oh, he said such terribly things, Piper. Things I don’t even want to repeat.”

I frowned. What could he have said? We were friends.

“But I must repeat them!” Bridget said suddenly. She walked closer to me. “Oh, Piper, you should know the kind of man you are dating. He will give you roses to your face and then spew the most hateful rhetoric behind your back.”

I frowned deeper. Julian was always playing the angles. Would he have put me down to impress Bridget? That didn’t really sound like him.

“He called you… oh, forgive me. A manipulative tramp. A two-faced woman. Someone who only cared about him for his money and power.”

Julian would not say that about me. He knew, after all this time, that those things weren’t true. After everything we’d been through together, I struggled to believe he would say those words even in an attempt to win Bridget.

I tried to see through her tears now, but God, she was such a good actress. She truly seemed genuine.

But then, did Julian actually say those things…?

“The worst,” Bridget sniffled. “Oh, Piper, if I could unhear these things I would.”

“It’s alright,” I said.

She nodded. “He said he is only kind to you because he feels so bad for you. A single mother from a lower class. What hope do you have in the competition without his help?”

That one stung, striking straight through my chest like a spear covered in barbed wire.

I didn’t want to believe Julian could say something like that. I wanted to think that our friendship was mutually beneficial to us both. But… I was so far beneath the princes socially, and all I’d seemed to do since my arrival was bring them trouble.

Maybe Julian had said that. Maybe he’d meant it.

I didn’t know what to believe.

“I’m truly so, so sorry,” she said. “After this happened, I couldn’t think of what to do but to tell you.”

“I understand,” I said, while a hurricane raged inside my chest. Still, through my own pain and misery, I had one lingering question. “What did you tell him?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“When he told you his feelings? Did you reciprocate?”

She vehemently shook her head. “Of course not! It was bad enough to hear those words. How could I do that to you?” At once, she stepped forward and tugged me into a hug. “We girls have to stick together.”

By the nature of this very competition, that was untrue, though I supposed I appreciated her sense of girl power and togetherness.

After our hug, I said my goodbyes, and hurried back to my room to get dressed. By now, Elva had roused and was eating the quick breakfast

Charlotte had prepared her. Charlotte cast me a suspicious sideways glance as I came into the room. I gave a subtle headshake. Whatever had just happened, I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

I kissed Elva on the top of her head, wished her good morning, then went into the closet to change.

One thing, I knew for certain: I had to talk to Julian.

Yet when I went to his room and knocked on his door, neither Brian nor he answered. Pressing my ear to the door, I could hear only silence within.

I couldn’t help but question Bridget’s story. Any or all of it could be a fabrication.

But.

So many parts of it would not surprise me if they were true, that I reasoned, by that logic, all of it could be true.

I hurried down to the dining room. A few early-rising candidates were there, but no Julian.

Then I checked the ballroom, and there he was.

“Julian!” I called, and rushed down the stairs.

Whatever he had been doing, he immediately stopped. He rushed toward me.

I opened my mouth to speak.

But then he kept walking straight past me.

“Julian?”

He didn’t say a word as he left the ballroom, leaving me there alone.

Then I realized, I recognized his outfit. He’d worn that same suit the day before.

Like Bridget, he hadn’t changed.

Maybe they had been together.

Maybe her story was true after all.