Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Back then it was with fluffernutter sandwiches, though,” he said. “Can’t say we have any of those in Frostmonte Castle.”
“Really? What kind of royalty are you?”
“We’re clearly forgetting the important things,” he said. He paused before looking up at me, hesitation in his eyes.
“What?” I asked.
“Why did you…” he started to say before trailing off.
“Spit it out, Sebastian,” I said.
He cleared his throat. “Earlier, why did you say that I ‘must be lonelier than you thought?’ I’m not lonely up here in the castle.”
I puffed out a laugh. “Sure you aren’t.”
His eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly.
“We have visitors constantly, and my staff is incredible.”
“I saw your picture in the Bugle,” I said.
He rolled his eyes. “Stupid paper.”
“I saw it in your eyes,” I said. “I don’t know what you… do, up here in the castle, but I know that you don’t have to be alone to be lonely.”
He swallowed, his gaze unreadable as he stared down at the table. Eleven years later and it still made my heart heavy as a stone to see Sebastian look so lost. I wasn’t even his friend anymore, but I could tell that he needed something.
I breathed deep. “I’ll come to the dinner if you do one thing for me,” I said. “Or… get your assistant to do it, whatever a prince does.”
“You think I don’t do anything for myself anymore, don’t you?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Depends on the day,” he said. “Can’t say I do my own laundry, but I maintain various forms of independence.”
I snorted. “Don’t have anybody jerking you off every morning, just for your princely release?”
“Christ, Henry,” he said, but he was smiling as he ate his last tangerine slice. “If that’s your way of asking if I’m dating anyone, the answer is no.”
“What about the beautiful princess?”
“Oh,” he said, his face falling. “Courting the princess isn’t… dating.”
“The newspapers say you’re set to marry.”
“The newspapers say a lot of things.”
I couldn’t stop looking at his hands, comparing them to my own. There wasn’t a callus in sight. My own hands were basically baseball mitts at this point, weathered and ugly and rough.
His skin looked impossibly milky smooth. He would probably feel like velvet. Soft, like all these years hadn’t done a thing to him.
“What is the… thing?” he asked, breaking me out of my trance.
“What?”
“Your one condition? For going to the dinner tonight?”
“Right,” I said. “Give me the contact information for the best contractors in fifty miles any direction. I’m starting renovations on my cottage immediately. I need to see about tearing down everything in the backyard, and possibly ripping out a wall inside. I don’t want to get scammed.”
He nodded once. “I can do that for you,” he said softly. “Genoveve can. She loves that kind of thing, anyway.”
“Perfect,” I said.
He cocked his head to one side, his brow furrowed. “I still can’t believe you didn’t enjoy your time at boarding school. I would have thought you had the time of your life.”
“Fuck no, I didn’t like it,” I said. “I hated every minute. I hated your mom for being the reason I ended up there, and I hated you for never contacting me.”
“I couldn’t have contacted you.”
“Bullshit,” I said. Anger rose again in me suddenly, like somebody had just floored the gas pedal. It was harder to think about these things, to hear Sebastian make these excuses, while he was right here in front of my face. He was so beautiful, and now he looked so confused, and it only made me madder.
He didn’t even know. He had no idea how much pain he had caused me.
I stood up from the chair, its wooden legs squeaking against the stone floor. I ran my fingers through my hair.
“You’re a fucking prince. You could have pulled whatever strings you needed to. Even if you didn’t know where I was, you… you could have found out.”
He was still looking at me like a scared animal.
“I know I could have,” he said, his voice barely audible. “I just… I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t why?”
“Because it would have crushed me,” he said. “Knowing where you were. Knowing I couldn’t see you. It was bad enough as it was. But if I’d talked to you? Trapped in this castle while you were still out having an incredible, normal life, fucking whatever guys you wanted, falling in love, living without me—”
He broke off, his words lingering in the air between us. Clouds passed and returned outside the window, covering the room in shade and then light and then shade again.
“I would hardly call it living,” I said. “You thought I was out having the time of my life?”
“You always made the best of every situation,” he said.
“Yeah, when I was around you,” I told him. “When I’m on my own, I’m not… it wasn’t like that. It isn’t like that.”
His eyes met mine.