Chapter 37

Nicholas didn’t say a word. He simply turned and left.

“Bye, Nick-lass!” Elva called, before happily returning to her waffles.

Deflated, I corrected my chair and flopped down onto it. None of the girls spoke to me during the rest of breakfast.

Susie might have, but she was still too embarrassed from her own comment. Her gaze never lifted to mine.

The longer I sat there in silence, with the girls chattering amongst themselves, the more suffocated I began to feel in the palace.

The girls’ conversations had more or less returned to the same topics as before, as if I had not spoken up at all. I hated being surrounded by so much vanity and selfishness. It made me worry that I was becoming that way too.

By the time Elva and I had finished breakfast and were on our way back to our room, I felt like I might vibrate straight out of my skin. I was uncomfortable and unhappy.

The looming threat of my punishment weighed on my mind too.

Mark was still waiting outside of our room, talking to the new guards. I stopped in front of him and tried to gather my thoughts.

“Something wrong, Piper?” he asked.

“Not wrong, exactly. But I do have a question.”

He nodded, encouraging me.

“If I wanted to go somewhere during my off-time, would I be allowed? Somewhere off the palace grounds. With Elva, of course.”

“Of course!” Elva chimed in.

“I might be able to arrange something,” Mark said. “But where would you want to go?”

“Somewhere I could center myself, and maybe do some good? I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking everything.” I rubbed my forehead.

Mark looked at me curiously, like I was a puzzle yet to be completed.

“Somewhere like an orphanage, perhaps?” I suggested. “I could help serve lunch later, and Elva could play with the kids.”

Elva gasped. “Yay! Let’s go there! I want to play!”

Mark’s eyes went a little wide. Had I surprised him? Maybe he spent too much time in the palace too, if he was thinking the worst of everyone like I was.

“I know a place. It should be okay, but…” He looked away.

“But?” I prompted.

He shook his head, then smiled at me. “Never mind. I’ll take you myself. Meet me out front in fifteen minutes.”

“Yay!” Elva cheered, and this time I joined her.

As soon as we arrived at the orphanage, Elva went running to the playground to meet and play with the other kids.

Mark introduced me to the head caretaker, an older woman who was exceptionally sweet. She shook my hand many times in a row.

“We’re so pleased to have another helping hand,” she said. “So many generous spirits in the palace.”

Her words took a moment to sink in. Another helping hand?

“It seems even here, I cannot escape from being intruded upon.”

I looked up to the open entryway where Nicholas was standing. He stared at me expressionlessly for a moment, before his gaze slid to Mark.

“Your Royal Highness! You didn’t tell me you were coming here!” Mark said, sputtering.

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed marginally, in suspicion.

I faced Mark as well. He hadn’t mentioned that Nicholas might be here.

Mark was nervous under my stare, too. “He comes here sometimes to help, but I swear I didn’t know he would be here today, or I wouldn’t have brought you.”

To Nicholas, he explained, “She wanted to get out of the palace for a while. She asked if there was an orphanage nearby, where she could help out. Of course, I would bring her here.”

“So… it’s a coincidence?” I asked.

Mark crossed his heart with his finger.

I turned back to Nicholas, but he was already heading back inside.

The caretaker smiled. “Prince Nicholas is truly a good man.” She patted my arm consolingly. “Don’t be off-put by the hard shell he wears. It’s the inside that counts.”

Inside, he hated me too, but I didn’t want to tell her that.

“Truly, having you both here is a blessing. Sometimes the kids are more than these old bones can handle.”

With a statement like there, I had no polite way of backing out. Not that I would. These kids needed me, and Elva was already having fun with them, playing on the slides.

Nicholas and I would just have to put aside our differences long enough to help the kids. After that, we could go back to not getting along as usual.

After confirming I would be staying, the caretaker offered to lead me and Mark inside.

“I’ll stay out here,” Mark said. “Keep an eye on the kids.”

I was grateful. If he watched Elva, I knew I wouldn’t have to worry.

Inside, I joined Nicholas in the kitchen. He was washing dishes, preparing for the day’s main event: lunch. And what an extravagant lunch it would be, if the piles of containers were any indication.

“Did you bring all this from the palace?” I peeked under the aluminum foil on one of the containers. Inside was at least ten servings of garlic potatoes.

“One of the cooks is particularly fond of me,” Nicholas said. “She makes special servings when I ask.”

“She must really like you. There’s a ton of food here.”

“She knows it goes to a good cause. Plus, I make sure she’s well compensated for the extra effort.”

More money? No wonder she liked him.

Nicholas finished washing a plate then set it aside on a wet stack. Grabbing a towel, I went to his side and began to dry.

This was… domestic. Him washing and then passing the dishes to me to dry. It reminded me of when we had been dating. How many times had we shared moments just like this?

Even the location wasn’t all that different.

“Do you remember at the Academy? We used to help out the kids at the orphanage like this all the time.”

I had felt that with all my good fortune from being there, it was the least I could do to pay some of it forward and help the less fortunate.

Nicholas had always accompanied me. Often times, he went even when I couldn’t.

“I never stopped,” he said.

I wished I could say the same, but after Elva, with her sickness, we couldn’t always go like I had used to.

“Once a year, Elva and I help out at an orphanage closer to home. For the holidays.”

Nicholas grunted in acknowledgement.

He probably didn’t want to reminisce, but it was hard not to.

“You and I had some of our best conversations like this,” I said. “Do you remember that time when you dropped that dish and I caught it? I’ll never forget. I felt like a superhero with quick reflexes.”

“I’d asked you a question, and you knew you were going to surprise me. You were ready for me to drop it.”

“I was?” I didn’t remember that. “What was the question?”

He stopped scrubbing at a dish to glance at me. His face was entirely passive, but his eyes almost looked… sad.

I tried to remember on my own.

We’d been talking and laughing. Someone had mentioned the future. Had we been talking about kids?

“So what about it? If we had kids someday, how many would you want?” Nicholas had asked me. He’d been holding that dish right in front of his chest. It was wet and he was gripping it too tightly, like he was nervous.

“Ten, at least,” I’d said with a cocksure grin, only half-joking. If he’d wanted that many, I would have gone for it in a heartbeat.

His eyes had gone wide. That plate had fallen.

And I had caught it.

Now three years and a handful of days later, we stood in a different kitchen, in a seemingly different life, staring at each other. Frowning.

The air between us was thick. Just like then, I could tell he was building up to asking me something. But unlike then, this time I was sure to dislike the question.

“Piper, did you break up with me so you could marry and have children with someone else?”