Chapter l461

Chapter 0461

I blinked, staring at Julian. Go on vacation with them? Was he talking about the reward for the theater event? That would explain Veronica’s presence.

I stepped back and welcomed them into the room. Then I reminded them, “I’m not one of the high ranking candidates.”

Julian shrugged. “Who cares?” He had a devil–may–care kind of blasé behavior about this. One of those, I’m a prince and can do whatever I want, sort of attitudes.

“Surely, Veronica…?” I looked to her. This was her chance for personal one on one time with Julian. I knew she had said she was okay with losing the competition if it was to me, but there was no way she would just actively hand me her chances.

Veronica shrugged. “I’m more than okay with it. It was my idea.”

I stared at her in shock.

“It’s true,” Julian added. “Actually, she came to me this afternoon and told me all about it. Neither of us want you to be excluded.”

I still had trouble fathoming it. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for such a clearly generous gift, but… “Why?”

Veronica looked at me flatly. “Why wouldn’t we want you there?”

“If we leave you here, you’ll just sit around and be miserable the whole time you are here,” Julian said. “Wouldn’t it be better to see what those two are up too, rather than imagine it?”

Those two. He was talking about Nicholas and Bridget. And honestly, I wasn’t sure that would be the case. Would I truly rather witness their coupledom myself?

Though maybe he did have a point. Maybe it would be worse to imagine it. So far, despite what Bridget has said about her and Nicholas being official, I haven’t seen any affection from Nicholas to indicate that was actually true.

If I left them alone on a beach though… in front of romantic sunsets…

No. I shouldn’t be fantasizing about getting in the way of their courtship. This was how things were always meant to be. Nicholas was always going to leave me for someone else.

I needed to respect that. I needed to stay away.

“Come on, Piper,” Julian said. “Don’t be such a worrywart. We won’t be with them every minute. We could have some fun too.”

“It’s supposed to be beautiful there,” Veronica added.

“It is,” Julian replied. “White sandy beaches. Blue–green waters. Bonfires in the evening. Boat drinks only a hand wave away.”

He made it sound like some kind of tropical paradise or resort. As the royal family’s retreat, maybe that’s exactly what it was.

During our conversation, Elva had been playing near the corner of the room. She perked up

+15 BONUS

when she heard us talking about beaches.

“Mommy?” she called. “Are we going somewhere?”

“I don’t know, honey,” I said, wondering just how much she overheard. “Probably not…” She left her stuffed animal tea party and skipped over to us. “Mommy, I want to go to the beach.”

Okay, so she heard most everything. “I don’t know, honey. We weren’t exactly invited…”

“I just invited you,” Julian said.

“Me, too,” Veronica added.

Elva looked at both of them and then turned her doe eyes onto me. God, I’d never been able to resist that pouting look.

Elva had never really been on vacation. I’d always been so busy working, and her illness was such a consideration, we never ventured far from a doctor. Thusly, Elva had never seen the ocean. She never stepped on the sand. She’d seen it on television, sure, but never experienced it for herself.

I had a very hard time denying Elva anything on my best days. Now, when I was already caving, it wasn’t too difficult to let myself fold entirely.

I lifted my gaze from Elva to Julian and told him. “Elva will need a doctor on site, just in case.”

Julian nodded. “Priority one.” His smile started to grow. “Does that mean you two are going to come with us?”

Elva’s eyes went impossibly bigger.

I sighed. “Yes.”

4HO

“Yay!” Elva began to jump. Julian took her hands and together they danced around in a circle. “You are making the correct choice,” Veronica said. “You need to relax.”

With Julian and Elva amusing themselves, I leaned closer to her and asked honestly, “You really think I’ll be able to relax there? With Nicholas and Bridget?”

Veronica pressed her mouth hard together. “It would be better for you and Julian to have each other.”

“Veronica…”

“You’ll need a swimsuit,” Julian said. His dance with Elva had ended and he now cut into Veronica and my conversation. He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Maybe you’d like to model a few for me? I can help you decide which to wear.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. I resisted the urge to smack him… because the truth was, “I don’t have a swimsuit.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I had worn one. Just as Elva had never been on a vacation, neither had I since taking her in as my own. I had been to the beach, long ago, and taken Elva to the pool a couple of times, but not nearly enough to warrant owning a swimsuit, let alone bringing it to a competition like this.

+15 BONUS

Charlotte, who had been cleaning up around Elva’s tea party now that she moved, smiled as she too came to join us.

“Wait one minute,” she said, and sneaked past us and into the closet. She returned with a bag from a name brand clothing store. “I suspected this might come up sooner or later, so I took the liberty of preparing a couple of things.

Charlotte reached into the bag and then procured two different swimsuits, one a nice, conservative one–piece, the other, a more risqué two–piece that would show much of my curves, top and bottom.

think you should go

with the two–piece,” Julian said. “I’ve seen your…” He glanced at Elva, who was looking at him curiously. “Er… assets.” He immediately censored himself.” There’s no shame in flaunting what

you have.”

“You should wear what you are most comfortable in,” Veronica said.

“Yeah, sure,” Julian said, “But when you took your clothes off and jumped into that lake “Julian!” I hissed. “This is exactly why people think something happened between us.

“It doesn’t mean anything to recognize the… figure of a person you are acquainted with,” he

said.

“You and I know that, but the rest of the palace doesn’t,” I said. “Those rumors are still floating around. Or should I credit you with starting them.”

‘His sharp smirk slipped a little. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said.

>>

I went too far, I realized. I knew he wouldn’t. I was just so angry and scared about it. That rumor had driven Nicholas away from me. It had made the other girls look at me differently. It had given the royal family an opportunity to further chastise me, even though, with our fake relationship, they had already suspected we’d been sleeping together for months.

Then I remembered. They weren’t mad about my supposed sleeping with Julian. They were mad that I was caught.

“Actually,” Veronica said. “I’ve been looking into that. I’ve asked everyone and traced back the rumor to its source.”

“And what’s the source?” Julian asked.

Veronica held his gaze as she said, “Bridget.”