I couldn’t believe that. Nothing from the time I had been with Nicholas to what I had experienced knowing him now indicated to me that he only cared about himself. He helped out regularly at an orphanage. He turned the other way to Mark and Susie’s romance. He spent time with Elva. He was so prote
Even imagining Julian in love felt like a stretch, though I felt like a jerk for thinking so. Why shouldn’t he fall in love? She would have had to be a special woman to keep his attention. I wondered what kind of woman Bridget really was. It was possible Julian had rose colored glasses, rememb
“Don’t worry,” Mark told me. “I will not leave this room. Elva will not leave my sight.” I nodded. That did make me feel marginally better. We’d received word earlier in the day that Terry himself was coming to the palace to personally deliver the results of his event. Since then, we’d mostly ba
Terry continued, listing each girl as well as the points they earned. Toward the end, he said, “Susie. Two points.” He offered no explanation. Susie looked relieved. “As for our final candidate,” Terry began. I held my breath because by now, I was the only one who had yet to be mentioned. “I rec
“Stop this at once,” the King said. It was then that I noticed, Julian had swiftly moved around the stage without catching his mother’s attention. I hadn’t seen him move either. Yet there he was, standing behind the King like he had been there all along. Like he had just been whispering in the K
The next morning after the event, I went with Nicholas to speak with Julian. He was in a sitting room, sipping coffee while reading through a newspaper. Terry’s face was plastered all over the front page, under the headline: Traitor. It still didn’t seem real. I expected him to pop out from any co
Beside me, Nicholas grunted. We both ignored him now. Julian smiled at me. “Thank you, Piper.” As day turned into evening, and evening into night, I could not stop thinking about Jane’s knife and how closely I had come to being skewered. If Nicholas had moved a half-second slower, and I coul
Confronted with the scenario of the man I wanted to sleep with very clearly about to sleep with someone else, I did the only thing I could think to do. I swiveled on my heel without a word and took off down the hallway. I fully intended on returning to my room, crying my eyes out, and then pretend