Page 105 of That Prince is Mine
“I don’t know.” Even Prince Michel felt too stunned to think. “I never thought… But my duty—”
“You didn’t tell me.” Her hands fisted on the dining table, their cheerful brunch cold and forgotten. “All this time, you were engaged to someone else and you didn’t tell me.” She brought a fist down hard enough to make the silverware clatter on her plate. “Yesterday, you asked me to give up everything… And all this time, you had a backup plan. You wouldn’t have had to give up anything.”
My God, I’ve lost her. Emma’s Michel—his true self—scrabbled to take control. Fuck Prince Michel. He needed to do this. Michel had to fight for her with all his desperation. All his fear. All his love.
“You are my everything.” It was a fervent vow. “My heart is yours and yours alone.”
“Such pretty words.” She rose abruptly to her feet. “But I’m done with your lies.”
“Emma, please.” He gripped her hand, but she shook him off with a violent jerk of her arm. “I love you.”
The tears had dried, and only ice remained in her eyes. “Goodbye, Prince Michel.”
His heart sank to his stomach. He hated hearing her call him that. He never wanted to be anything but Michel to her. But as she walked out of the dining room and the front door clicked shut behind her, he realized that she might never call him anything again.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Emma parked her car in the driveway, unable to recall how she’d gotten home. Her head was filled with screams, and she couldn’t form a coherent thought. It probably hadn’t been a good idea for her to drive in the first place.
With her forehead pressed against the steering wheel, she forced herself to do some breathing exercises. In through the nose and out through the mouth. She couldn’t fathom counting, so she just breathed slowly and methodically.
She didn’t know how long she sat in her car like that, but the pressure in her ears began to fade, and she could hear herself think past the devastation sweeping through her. Michel is engaged to another woman.
“What the literal fuck?” She pounded her palm against the steering wheel in time with her rant. It made her feel marginally better, so she did it again. “Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuck.”
Emma decided to take advantage of her anger to get herself inside the house before she turned into a zombie again. But her hands were shaking so wildly that she couldn’t fit her key into the lock. She kicked the door and started stabbing it with her key instead… because that was a perfectly logical way to get the door to open. She dropped her hand to her side and stared at her toes in shame. As she contemplated apologizing to the door, it opened wide to reveal her dad on the other side.
“What was that? I heard all these noises…” His confused frown morphed into alarm when he caught her expression. “Emma, what’s wrong?”
He tugged her inside by her hand and led her to the living room. With gentle pressure on her shoulders, he convinced her to sit, then settled down beside her on the sofa. There wasn’t much else to do except to throw her arms around his neck and redefine ugly crying. His arms came around her, one hand cradling her head and the other patting her back.
Her dad held her tight as though he wanted to hold her together and keep her safe—as though he wanted to absorb her pain so he could hurt for her instead. Ever loving and ever patient, he said nothing until her sobs became quiet hiccups—but only until then.
“Whose ass am I whooping?” he gritted through his teeth.
She laughed into his shoulder even though she knew he was dead serious. “No ass whooping, Appa. I don’t want you to go to jail.”
Besides, Sophie was duty bound to protect Michel, and her dad wouldn’t stand a chance against that badass. Her laugh turned a little hysterical, so she pressed her lips shut.
“You’re right. That won’t do.” Her dad smoothed his hand down the back of her head. “Who’s going to take care of you if I’m behind bars?”
“Right?” She sat up and looked at him, her eyes blurry with unshed tears. “You’re much too important for me to risk like that.”
And she didn’t really want to see Michel get hurt, because it would hurt her just as much. But thinking about him almost sucked her back into crying mode, so she glommed on to the traces of anger inside her. Michel lied to her. He was a liar. She was angry because he was a lying liar.
But did it really matter that he’d kept his engagement a secret from her? An engagement in name only? Until she realized she loved him, hadn’t she planned on finding herself a perfect-on-paper husband once Michel left?
Would it have changed anything if he’d told her about his engagement? Of course she would’ve been shocked at first, but it would only have confirmed her stubborn stance that they were just passing through each other’s lives. She probably would’ve convinced herself that she didn’t care if he was formally engaged, because they were never supposed to have a future anyway. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. If he hadn’t proposed.
But he had proposed. He asked her to leave everything behind to be with him. That changed everything.
“I know you’re worried, Appa.” She squeezed his hand and stood up. “But I’ll be okay. I just need a little time to myself.”
“Let me know when you’re ready to talk.” Her dad let her retreat to her room even though she could tell it was hard for him.
Emma had hoped to cry herself to sleep, but no such luck. She paced the room like a caged animal, every instinct in her telling her that she had to run away. Run away from what? It didn’t matter. Her muscles ached, taut and alert, and she was going to crawl out of her skin if she didn’t do something. She had to cook. She needed to lose herself in it.
Time and distraction were all she needed. She would’ve lost Michel in two weeks anyway. That had always been the plan until last night. It wasn’t the end of the world that it ended now instead. And no matter what, she would not think about his proposal.
