Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 30190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
The sheikh went very still. “What did you say?”
“I’m considering marrying someone else.” The words came out calm and steady, even though my heart was pounding so hard I could barely breathe. “There are several candidates, actually. All from good families. All perfectly suitable.”
“You can’t—”
“But I can, sheikh.” It was a miracle that my voice came out soft and steady still, even though all I wanted to do was cry. “I may be your ward, but I’m also from another kingdom, and governed by those rules as well. If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I still have to choose from my suitors—”
He moved so fast I didn’t even see it coming.
One moment I was turning away, and the next his hand was gripping my arm, spinning me back around, and then his mouth was on mine.
Oh.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tender. It was bruising and desperate and furious, and I hated how my body responded to it instantly, hated how my hands fisted in his robes, hated how I arched into him like I’d been starving for this. A sob escaped my throat, and he swallowed it, kissing me deeper, harder, until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
“You will not marry anyone,” he gritted out against my lips.
My lips were still tingling. My whole body was still trembling from the force of that kiss. And I hated that even now, even after everything, all I wanted was for him to kiss me again.
But I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
I shoved him away, hard enough that he actually stumbled back a step.
“I’ll f-forget that ever happened.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer, turning to walk away without looking back.
And I kept walking, kept my head up, my shoulders straight.
Just a few steps more, a few steps more—
Finally.
The moment I made it to my room and locked the door behind me, I sank to the floor and just let everything go.
H-How could he have kissed me when he wanted to marry someone else?
How could he want to spend his life with another woman b-but kiss me like I was the only thing he wanted in the world?
And why couldn’t he just choose...me?
I could still taste him on my lips. Still feel the bruising pressure of his mouth, the desperate grip of his hands. And even as I cried, even as my heart shattered into a thousand pieces, my body was still burning for him.
If only he would just let me go. If only he would stop giving me hope only to crush it again. If only I could make myself stop wanting him.
The tears kept coming, hot and relentless, soaking into my sleeve as I pressed it against my face.
I had told myself I wouldn’t break.
I had promised myself I would be strong.
But as I sat there on the cold floor of my dormitory room, crying so hard my whole body shook, I realized that I had already broken a long time ago.
The moment I fell in love with him.
And maybe that was the cruelest fairy tale of all—not the princess who slept for a hundred years, but the one who woke up only to discover that her prince had never been hers to begin with.
Chapter Seven
IT HAD BEEN WEEKS SINCE Lady Aurora had started living in the dorm, and the impact of this on Michael was quite...noticeable.
Perhaps to strangers, it wouldn’t be as evident. One look at the royal sheikh, and they would see that his presence was still commanding, every inch the handsome and powerful ruler of Layla. But because she did know him just a bit more than strangers did...
Ella knew that the tightness around his eyes was not typical of him. Or the way his jaw never seemed to unclench. She had seen the way his gaze would drift whenever Aurora’s name was mentioned—like a man haunted by a ghost he himself had created. Seen the hunger he tried so hard to hide. Whatever was between them, it ran deep.
The things she noticed were all little things, but they were little things that mattered, with a man as composed as the sheikh, and that was why when he asked her for a favor...
She didn’t hesitate to say yes, and in her eagerness to help, she failed to realize what this would mean to her. She forgot how all eyes were on her, too, waiting for her to make a mistake. All she cared about was taking the letter from the Sheikh of Layla and doing her job as his trusted courier.
After all, what was a fairy tale without a good messenger?
And so off she went to the dormitory of Michael’s ward, letter clutched in her hand.
Here goes nothing...
Ella knocked on the door but didn’t wait for an answer as she entered the room.
Oh.
The curtains were drawn against the afternoon light, as if the girl inside had decided that sunshine was too cheerful a thing to bear. Aurora sat curled on the narrow bed, still in her nightgown despite the late hour, arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold together pieces that kept falling apart. Her golden hair—the kind of hair that belonged in a storybook, the kind that princes were supposed to climb—was tangled and unwashed. And even from across the room, Ella could see it: the way the girl’s fingers kept drifting to her lips, touching them absently, as if the memory of his kiss was a spell she couldn’t break.