read, his life is pretty magical.
Trips to the Maldives, parties in Ibiza, private planes, a fleet of royal yachts at his leisure, women lined up everywhere he goes, throwing themselves at him.
Screaming.
Crying.
Professing their love.
If they only knew the real Prince Julian.
“Anyway, what is it you needed to talk to me about?” I ask, checking my watch and ignoring a text from Gillian that flashes across the screen. She’s probably pacing my room, wondering what the hell is going on. And in all fairness, I never told any of my friends that I knew royalty.
That my first kiss was a prince.
That I gave my virginity to the future King of Chamont (more like he stole it).
After my sixteenth summer, it seemed irrelevant, and Julian wasn’t anyone I wanted to bring up ever again.
“Do you remember that pact we made?” he asks. “The marriage pact?”
My stomach heaves and my blood runs cold.
Of all the things I expected him to bring up tonight, that was the last.
“If you’re talking about the pact we made where we promised never to marry each other, then yes. I remember it. Clearly. In fact, it’s the one thing from that summer that stands out most.”
I’ve never told a single soul about our promise. I never wanted to have to explain it. I never wanted to explain him. Without the facts and details to accompany such a pact, it wouldn’t make sense anyway.
I’ve had friends who’ve made marriage pacts of the mainstream variety—if we’re not married by thirty, we’ll marry each other, that sort of thing—but ours was … unique.
And also necessary.
Our fathers were absolutely convinced that we were going to end up together one day, and our mothers used to throw around the word “betrothed” like candy at a parade with smiles on their faces as they were intoxicated off pricey white wine (and oblivious to our mutual disdain for one another that started long before either of us had so much as reached junior high).
After Prince Julian so callously and carelessly shattered my naive little teenage heart into a thousand-billion pieces, I had to make it clear in front of both of our families that a marriage between the two of us would never happen.
It was funny how quickly the word “betrothed” left our mothers’ vocabularies after that.
“Good,” Julian says. “I’m glad you remember it … because we have to break it.”
I start to reply but choke on my words, barely coughing out a simple, “What?!”
He can't be serious.
Julian smiles a devilish smile for all of two seconds before regaining his composure. He always did love getting reactions out of me.
“No,” I say. “Absolutely not. Please tell me you didn’t fly all the way to North Carolina to ask me to marry you.”
“What if I did?”
“Then I’d say you’re ….”
“What? I’m what?”
“Delusional?” I half-chuckle. “Insane? Arrogant? Mistaken? I would never marry you.”
My hands fly through the air as I speak. I’m pretty sure I’m the one looking insane right now, but I’m too worked up to care.
Julian rakes his hand along his sharp jaw, exhaling. The tiniest bit of five o’clock shadow darkens his sun-kissed skin. I imagine he’s been traveling all day and he’s exhausted, but that isn’t my problem.
I'm not the idiot who thought he could walk back into someone’s life and expect her to say yes to his sorry excuse for a marriage proposal.
“I realize I’m asking the world of you, Emelie,” he says, and I wish he’d stop saying my name. It’s distracting coming from those full lips and soaked in that rich accent with his smooth cadence. “But I wouldn’t come all this way and ask this of you if I weren’t in dire straits.”
“You’re twenty-six.” And the world’s most eligible bachelor … but I don’t tell him that because he can’t know that I’ve kept up on him all these years. “Why would you want to get married now? And to me? I don’t even like you, Julian. What makes you think I’d even consider marrying you?”
My words are harsh, but the audacity of his request has me all kinds of stirred up and confused. I swear I’m feeling emotions I never knew existed before, and it’s making my mind run a million miles per hour with contradicting thoughts.
I don't know what it is about first loves, but even the briefest ones leave their marks and the tiniest, most microscopic part of you can’t un-love them, even if you can't stand them.
“You have every reason to feel the way you