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)
“Which means…?” Henry asked.
He was calling me on my bullshit. I didn’t know if I’d rather punch him or put my mouth on him.
“Which means,” I said, “that I show up, I look good, and I eat very fancy food.”
Genoveve giggled. “Prince Sebastian is shy about his accomplishments. He has met with countless international dignitaries. He’s demanded environmental stringency for all of the villages nearby when meeting with local politicians. He’s helped bridge diplomacy between two small countries that had hated each other for years.”
“Well, that all sounds very impressive,” Henry said.
“Not as impressive as defeating a bear in the wilderness,” I said.
“Sebastian used to be deathly afraid of bears,” Henry said, picking up his own drink glass and taking a big swig. “One weekend morning, he came running over to my house to tell me he’d had a nightmare about one terrorizing his aunt’s backyard.”
A pang of sweet nostalgia hit me. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
That morning had been close to my heart. It was one of the rare times that my aunt had allowed me to walk down to the Berrydale Diner with Henry to get breakfast, because she’d seen how freaked out I was by the dream. I’d ordered a stack of pancakes and doused it in far more syrup than I should have, just because I could. Henry and I had shared a big plate of hash browns with ketchup. Once we were stuffed we walked back to our street slowly, stopping every few minutes to kick rocks or rescue worms from the sidewalk.
Henry had plucked a dandelion from a lawn and stuck it behind his ear that morning. I could still remember how it brought out the flecks of gold in his eyes.
I had loved him more than I was even aware.
“Was Sebastian a fearful child?” the Princess asked.
“No,” Henry said. “He was actually very brave.”
“Lies,” I said, shaking my head slowly.
“Not lies,” Henry told me. “He thought he was fearful, but he would have done anything to protect the people he loved.”
I wanted to slide right out of my skin. My cheeks burned hot with embarrassment at the compliment.
I knew I had been an anxious wreck as a child, and Henry’s compliments were at once agonizing and impossibly kind.
How could Henry still be this way? How could he still say these things about me when he was completely right about the last eleven years? I could have contacted him. I could have found some way, another secretive mission, to talk to him.
But I’d been too dead-set on being the prince I was meant to be. I had my little collection of small secrets but anything involving Henry—even thinking of him—had made me disintegrate inside.
And yet now he was still here. Still complimenting me.
There were far too many emotions welling inside me, especially after the amount of alcohol I had consumed.
I needed to send him home at once.
“Henry,” I said, glancing up at him as I stood. “It’s all right, Genoveve, stay. I need to speak to Henry briefly in the war room.”
“Oh,” Genoveve said, sitting down again, a knowing look in her eyes.
The war room was a small chamber down the hall from the dining room. Typically, it was only ever used for dire situations, when a dinner guest needed a stern reprimand or was being told they would be removed from the castle. My father apparently had used the war room a few times to fire workers from the castle, and my mother always told me that I should use it more often.
I had only used it twice in my entire time living in the castle. Once when I needed to fire a staff member for showing up to work drunk daily, and another time when a dinner guest was harassing a woman.
Genoveve understood that taking Henry into the war room meant I was going to be sending him home, and I could see the confusion on her face as Henry followed me down the short hall.
“War room, huh?” Henry was saying as we stepped through and I closed the heavy wooden door behind us. “Sounds real dicey, Sebastian.”
I turned on the small lamp sitting on the table just inside the door. The room had nothing more than a table, two chairs, and a few bookshelves that held old encyclopedias.
Henry looked so tall in here. He’d always been bigger than me, but something about the low ceiling made him look even more imposing than usual. He’d brought his drink glass in with him, and he held it in his hand casually, as if we were at some party.
I would have hated him if I didn’t love him so much.
“Henry,” I said, trying my best to feel powerful, princely, ready to kick him out.
“Sebastian,” he said, his voice low. “Sorry. Prince.”
His gaze landed on mine and my body filled with a slow heat.