Page 90 of Trapped with the Undercover Prince

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but—” Nicolas began.

She waved him off. “Sorry, cute stuff, not you.” She stepped closer to Anna and held out her hands in an invitation to dance.

Anna blinked. Okay.

She stepped up and discovered that Brigette was just as good at leading as Zar.

“You know,” Brigette said in a conversational tone. “For a smart woman, you’re kind of dumb sometimes.”

Anna hadn’t known she could be insulted, complimented, and confused all at the same time. “Huh?”

“I get it, though,” Brigette continued. “We probably look like we’re stuck in the Stone Age, married to tradition and all that.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope. Mother wants to separate the royal family of Lerasia from the government completely. No need for heirs beyond what why any family might want kids.”

“You know I can’t have kids?”

“Yes.”

“Zar says it doesn’t matter to him, but we’ve only known each other for a week. That’s not enough time to have given it the thought and consideration it deserves.”

“He wants to marry you, not your ovaries or your uterus,” Brigette snapped.

“But—”

“Don’t break my brother’s heart because you think you know what he wants.”

“But he’s planning to propose. Tonight.”

“So? He loves you, and he wants to give you a reason to stay, or at least come back. Besides, engagements are when you’re supposed to work shit out, supposed to talk about all this stuff and decide together what you want.”

“I...I never thought about it that way before.”

“Do you love him?”

“I do.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What about your mother?”

“My mother is going to give you hell if you leave without an engagement ring on your finger. We all like you, Anna. You make Zar happy, and you’re good for us, for the whole country.”

Her desire for Zar warred with her need to protect him from the kind of hurt she’d gone through when she received her cancer diagnosis. It twisted her gut into tight, painful knots.

She looked at him, standing next to Nicolas, watching her with eyes that caressed her skin. “I’ve never met anyone like him. He just gets me.” She met Brigette’s gaze. “He makes me feel like I’m the most important person in his world.”

“Everyone needs someone who makes them feel like that,” Brigette said as if every word weighed more than anyone should have to lift alone. “Don’t throw it away.”

“Zar said...you lost a baby.”

A tear rolled down the other woman’s face. “I lost so much more.”

Was this terrible loneliness what Zar would be feeling if she ran away from the life they could make together?

Her future had been in limbo ever since she’d lost her ability to have children. Yes, she’d lost something precious, but what if it didn’t define her end? What if the fairy-tale could be real?

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