Chapter 32

I stared at Julian, disbelieving my ears. Did he really just ask me for a solo date?

Yet everyone in the whole ballroom was looking at us. Julian still held the microphone up to his mouth.

This was definitely happening. It wasn’t a dream.

Which meant that Julian was up to something.

“Why?” I asked, before I could think better of it.

A few girls around me gasped. Only then did I realize my mistake and covered my mouth.

Julian also looked shocked, his eyes going wide for a moment. But then, just as quickly, he burst out laughing.

His good humor seemed to erase the surprise of the other onlookers. Everyone seemed to think I had been telling a joke.

With the microphone lowered, he said to me, “I insist this request is genuine, Piper.”

I didn’t believe him.

Julian always played the angles. Asking me on a date had to be some kind of move for his benefit, but I couldn’t begin to figure out how. I’d only scratched the surface of the inner politics of the royal family.

He waited for my answer. Everyone did.

I knew he was using me, even if I didn’t know how, but I couldn’t exactly turn him down. He was a prince, and this was a competition. I was just a pawn in a game.

So I said, “I accept.”

He smiled. Into the microphone, he announced, “She said yes.”

The nobles cheered. Most of the girls clapped politely. A few giggled.

“Our date will be tomorrow,” he said, no longer speaking to me, but to the waiting crowd.

In the center of the dance floor, Nicholas stood. His face was an emotionless mask, but his golden eyes blazed as he stared straight at me.

My heart ached. I wanted to tell him that this didn’t mean anything. Julian was only trying to stir up trouble again, likely just for the sake of it.

But I couldn’t reach him without publicly dismissing Julian. I had to stay where I was.

Slowly, I realized that Nicholas didn’t need an explanation anyway. We weren’t anything to each other anymore.

His fierce, hurt gaze had triggered something inside of me, like a memory response. Every impulse inside of me screamed to soothe away his worry.

Julian meant nothing like that to me.

Yet, when I looked at Nicholas now, that look had dimmed. Now he seemed entirely blank – bored, almost. He turned away from me and, even an hour later, had not sought me out again.

The girls, meanwhile, were positively charmed by Julian and his antics. Even after he had sauntered away from me, they could not stop telling me how funny he was.

“He’s so mischievous, asking you on a date.”

“He had to know it would make everyone laugh!”

None of them seemed to see me as a threat in the competition, which left me feeling relieved. Between Joseph and Lena, I had more than enough enemies as it was.

Elva, however, found no humor in what had happened.

I sat beside her on a set of chairs lining the wall. Her hands held her dress in bunches. Her bottom lip pouted out in a frown.

I wrapped my arm around her, but she shied from my touch.

“What’s wrong, Elva?”

“Are you going to marry that prince?”

“Prince Julian?” I asked. At her nod, I added, “No, honey. We’re just going on a date. We’ll probably go to a restaurant and have lunch. Or maybe walk around a park.”

Honestly, I had no idea what plans Julian had, but I tried my best to help Elva understand what was happening and why it wasn’t such a big deal, no matter how Julian had acted.

She only sunk further into herself. “But what about Nick-lass? Don’t you like him anymore?”

Heat rose in my face. “Of course, I do, honey, but…”

“Marry him, then.” She nodded, like it was decided. Like it was somehow that easy.

I hated disappointing her. I wished I could let her believe what she wanted.

“I’m sorry, Elva. But Prince Nicholas and I won’t ever be a couple. No matter what.”

She looked up at me with large, vulnerable eyes. “Not ever?”

I shook my head.

“But why?”

Because I broke his heart? Because he thought I had betrayed him? Because he’d returned the gift I’d made him? Because he was a prince, and I was just a wolf-less waitress?

There were so many reasons. All of which felt like too much information for my small daughter.

“We’re just not meant to be,” I said.

Elva had a grasp of fairy tales and happily ever after. Even if she couldn’t understand everything, she might be able to handle this much.

She must have, because her questions stopped. But then she started to cry.

“But I like him, Mommy,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “If you married him, then he would be my Dad.”

I hated more than anything to disappoint her, but what could I do? I couldn’t lie to her about this, not to then have to reveal the truth like it was all some cruel joke.

Soon, I would be eliminated from the competition. I’d had a good showing tonight, but that didn’t mean I would get to stay. Everyone knew I’d be the first to leave, including me.

After, Elva and I would be forced to leave. From then on, we’d only ever see the princes on television, unless they went back to being reclusive. In that case, we wouldn’t even see their images.

I couldn’t pretend like our future held any hope of maintaining this lifestyle, including keeping Nicholas around, even as a friend.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and pulled Elva into my arms.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and cried into my shoulder.

I gently rubbed her back to soothe her. “We’ll be okay. No matter what happens.”

Later, after the ball had ended and Elva fell asleep in my arms, I carried her back to our room and tucked her into bed.

I had thought the maids would have left us for the night, but the quiet maid stayed nearby, as if waiting for me to finish.

Stepping back from the bed, and Elva sleeping within it, I motioned the maid closer to the door. We spoke in quiet tones.

“You can get some rest,” I said. “I don’t need anything more tonight.”

I tugged at my offending gloves. I hadn’t forgotten the apparent betrayal of my maids, who surely knew about the Queen’s rules for glove-length and had not warned me.

“She gave you the wrong gloves,” the quiet maid said.

I blinked at her. “What?”

She pointed to the gloves I’d scrunched up in my hand. “Those are not the gloves I made for you. I don’t know where those came from, or why they exist. I swear to you that I made the gloves the correct length.”

News of my lecturing from the Queen must have traveled fast in the servants’ corridors. It likely wouldn’t take long until the entire palace knew of what happened.

“You have to be careful, Miss Piper,” the quiet maid said. “I don’t know why the other maid gave you the wrong gloves. Maybe it was an accident, but…”

“You don’t think so,” I said.

“No.”

So the other maid had purposefully meant to sabotage me. But why? For what purpose?

I was already going to be the first one to go home. Why make things even worse for me?

The quiet maid glanced around, like an eavesdropper might be listening at the door. “Someone might be out to harm you.”

A shiver ran up my spine.