The Wicked Prince

I couldn’t imagine what the ghosts in the room, scandalous as they were rumored to be, must have thought about her very unrevealing gown. We stood there, as the priest held mass and the beautiful couple proclaimed their loyalty and said their vows, which were generic but somehow made me cry nonetheless. From the other side of the makeshift altar, I caught Aramis looking at me and forced myself to look away. I wasn’t one of those people who didn’t like showing emotion or crying in front of people. On the contrary, I embraced anything I was feeling and was okay putting it on display, but that wasn’t Aramis’s way. It wasn’t Pilar’s or Elias’s. These were people who were skilled in not showing their emotions at all. How many times had I warned Adeline against marrying Elias for that very reason? I thought once more about the kiss we’d shared and the photographs that had been taken. Something about it all was unsettling. The way he pulled me out of my conversation with David to do that. The way the journalists knew exactly where we’d be standing, even though they were supposed to be on the other side of the hall. I knew he’d done it on purpose because there was nothing Aramis didn’t do on purpose. I just didn’t understand why. Everyone cheered and pulled me out of my thoughts once again. I realized Ben and Pilar were sharing their first kiss as newlyweds and smiled, cheering along. They walked down the aisle. King Elias and Queen Adeline followed. Aramis held out his arm for me to take, and I did, ignoring the way my heart launched its way up to my throat once more.

Chapter Nineteen

Aramis

I sipped my champagne and watched Joslyn as she spoke to David a few feet away from me. I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but it didn’t look like a friendly conversation, with the way he kept shaking his head and she kept rolling her eyes. I’d already interrupted them once and didn’t want to do it again. Far be it for me to look like a needy boyfriend or childish lover. If Joss wanted to try to mend things with him, she was welcome to try. For starters, we weren’t actually dating, and also, it wasn’t my place to tell her who she could and couldn’t see. That didn’t mean I didn’t hate the idea of her with him, or any other man, for that matter. Somewhere between the kiss in the woods and tonight, I’d decided that I was ready to commit to something real with her. I just wasn’t sure how to tell her. I’d spent the majority of our lives poking her and making her think that I wasn’t interested. How does one go from uninterested in a person to full-on committed? Furthermore, how does an assumed commitment-phobe give into commitment? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t have any of those answers. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was done playing the field and wanted to be with someone and that someone was Joslyn. This wasn’t something new. I hadn’t been able to kick these emotions for almost a year now. In that year, sure, I’d thrown parties and kicked heiresses out of my apartment and left them banging on my door, but I hadn’t actually banged them. My accident was tragic. People died. I survived, but a part of me died that day as well. The part of me that took life for granted. And now that I had Oscar, I definitely knew I needed to change, to grow into a man he could be proud to call his father. Something I’d never been proud to call my own.

As if on cue, I felt a tug on the bottom of my jacket and looked down to see Oscar looking up at me.

“Can Asher and I play in the garden?”

“Not tonight. It’s dark and cold out.” I patted his head. “Where’s Rose?”

“She’s sitting with Asher.” He pointed toward the table and I saw that both Rose and Asher were writing on the linen.

“They’re writing on them?” I started walking in that direction and Oscar grabbed my hand as he followed.

Joss was normally paying attention to every detail at weddings and parties that she put together, but tonight was different. Pilar asked her to hire other people to do that for her so that she could enjoy the wedding. Something she would be doing if she wasn’t so busy arguing with David, who should be non-consequential at this point since they’d broken up and now we were together. Nevertheless, I’d get to the bottom of this. I stopped in front of the table and both Rose and Asher looked up.

“You can’t write on the linen.”

“We’re not.” Rose laughed lightly, lifting the edge of what looked like linen but was white paper. “Joslyn set this area up for the kids, so they wouldn’t want to go outside, but Oscar has other ideas.”