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)
“I’ve been trying to entertain the princess for almost two weeks now, and I’ve felt like she was bored out of her mind the entire time. But whenever you’re around… everything is just easy.”
“You’ve got to stop thinking of Emma as royalty, and just think of her as a person,” Henry said with a shrug. “Easy.”
“Of course she’s a person,” I said. “I’m just… I’m no good at hosting guests. Never have been.”
“Because you don’t like it?”
I shook my head. “I just always want everything to be perfect.”
Henry reached out, squeezing my upper arm. “I know,” he said. “That’s something that hasn’t changed about you at all.”
The warm weight of his hand on me felt criminally good. I ached for his touch. It was only there for a brief moment and then gone again, but all I wanted was to curl up in his arms and stay there forever. His presence was like a warm blanket, smoothing out my rough edges and making the world seem like an inviting place.
Magic. He’d never admit it, but I’d always think Henry Denton was magic.
He nodded to his left after popping a red-and-white-striped peppermint in his mouth. “Don’t look now, but there are a couple of teenage girls taking pictures of you with their cell phones.”
I whipped around and saw them. They looked away quickly, trying to act casual about it, but Henry was right.
“I told you not to look,” he said.
“I know, I know,” I said. “I’m going to go offer to take selfies with them. Meet you at the Ferris wheel?”
Henry nodded.
The teenage girls were sweet and almost jumped for joy when I walked over to offer them a photo. They said they followed a small royal gossip website and that I was by far their favorite prince that got coverage on the site, because I was “the cutest.”
It still made my cheeks hot when I heard things like that. No matter how long I’d been living in the castle, when I was down here in Berrydale, I felt like my old self again.
Especially when Henry was around.
I looped back and found everyone by the Ferris wheel, waiting to get on.
“I think your driver may have found someone,” Henry whispered in my ear as he handed me a hot cup of cider. I clutched the cup, glancing over to see Xavier talking to a woman in a big red scarf, both of them laughing and practically batting their eyelashes at each other.
“That is the happiest I’ve ever seen Xavier, and he’s been my driver for years,” I said.
“I’m excited for this ride,” Emma said.
“I love Ferris wheels,” Genoveve said. “I call dibs on the blue seat. I’ve decided it’s got to be the most comfortable one.”
“I’ll sit in that one with Genoveve,” Emma said. “If you don’t mind, Sebastian?”
“By all means,” I said.
It was painfully obvious that Emma had no interest in me, and I was plenty fine with that. It made everything easier. I still didn’t know what that meant in terms of marriage, however. Emma was intelligent. She may have known as well as I did that unifying her family with mine could be the best strategic move for both of us. There hadn’t been a royal family merger in far too long, and I was sure Emma knew that if she married me, she could do whatever she liked at all times.
We certainly didn’t have a drop of chemistry, but at least we had mutual respect.
The Ferris wheel cleared off and we started to hop in, Emma and Genoveve taking the blue seat. Xavier joined his new companion, which meant that Henry and I were the only ones left.
“Guess you’re stuck with me,” he said as he hopped into the next seat, swigging cider.
“So long as you don’t kick me out of this thing when we’re at the top.”
“I might be grumpy, but I’m not homicidal,” Henry said. “Come sit.”
The Ferris wheel seats felt ten times smaller now than they had when we were teenagers. I was squished right up against Henry’s side, which was both exactly what I wanted right now and also a huge problem.
Wanting Henry was… useless.
I couldn’t want him. His body or anything else. If everything went according to plan, I was supposed to eventually marry someone like Emma, and yet here I was, the side of my body pressed up against my childhood friend. It was the best thing I’d felt in years, and also the most agonizing.
As the Ferris wheel slowly started to spin, I let out a long sigh, my breath visible in the air in front of us.
“All good over there, Prince?” Henry asked.
I furrowed my brow. “I told you to stop calling me that,” I said.
“Fine. Sebastian, are you okay? You look like you’re about to have an aneurysm or like you just smelled something awful.”