Page 46 of The Cinderella Prince

“You really made a mess of things when you ran away, Cedric,” she said, teary-eyed as I had never seen her. “You’re so goddamn romantic. You thought running away would solve your problems. Did you imagine you would earn your keep by playing a harmonica in the old Wild West?”

I would have chuckled were she not so hurt by it. “Why does this upset you?”

“Because you could have fought it before,” she said. She wore her dark brown hair short and stylish. Her makeup was minimal and always on point. She had been the last mischief-maker in the family, together with Maximilian. Her rebellion had gone out earlier, and it seemed that Maximilian’s was settled, too, in my absence. That left me. The sole troublemaker. Sophia shook her head jerkily. “Alexander won’t speak of you. Mother and Father allowed him to handle the situation, and he is taking it far tooseriously. Not even Madeleine can get him to bend enough to just listen.”

Listen to what? It’s settled, I thought. “Sophie, you are upset over nothing,” I said dully. “What’s done is done.”

“You don’t listen,” she accused me, a sob bursting from her. “You never listen, and that’s the problem.”

I shook my head slowly. “Because it won’t change anything. Élodie and I understand each other. We…” I shrugged and faked a smile. “We have a lot in common, it turns out. I don’t know. Maybe marrying her won’t be that bad after all.”

“Cedric, you are rambling,” Sophie warned me coolly.

“But I’m telling you,” I assured her with a fake calm. The truth was, I wanted to cry and rave and rip everything around me to bits and pieces. “It’s all just for show, Sophie. She doesn’t expect me to love her, and she won’t love me back. We’ll…manage.”

“Because she loves Maximilian, you dummy,” Sophie said, her voice a thin sob that cut right through my heart. The world tilted on its axis. “And he loves her, too.”

I didn’t know if it was heartbreaking pain or crazy hope that I felt. There was no hope. Nothing could be done. I had been photographed with her just today. It had been rumored that we would be engaged for months, years. “W-what do you…?”

“Just listen,” Sophia said firmly, getting back the control over her voice. “You left on the night Élodie was supposed to arrive. Alexander put Max on the task of keeping her occupied and properly honored. She doesn’t care about museums or history or art. She loves jazz, just like Max, and they’re crazy about vintage vinyl records.When they bonded over that, they became inseparable. But Alexander was too busy and too angry with you to notice a solution right under his nose. And if he suspected it, he now refuses to let you off the hook.”

“He’d ruin all three of us just to prove a point?” I heard myself ask.

Sophie raised her hands and shrugged. “A month ago, I would have told you not to be an idiot. Now? I don’t know anymore.”

“What about Mother and Father?” I asked urgently.

“What about them?” Sophie asked. “They are watching all those anti-monarchy parties rising in popularity, and they aren’t allowed to say a thing. Grandmother is ill, and Mama is with her almost all the time. Father’s too stressed to sit through dinner. If you had any misconceptions about who is in charge of your life, you weren’t paying attention.”

I covered my face with both hands, the book forgotten in my lap. Leaning back, I sank deeper in my chair. “They never would have fallen in love had I not left,” I whispered.

Sophie was quiet for a moment. “It crossed my mind. I think they would have. Eventually. Would it have been too late, I don’t know. But your absence went for too long, and Alexander won’t forgive it.”

“He can’t trap all of us,” I said, looking at Sophia hopefully.

She shook her head. “Max thinks he’s being chivalrous. And Élodie does what she is told. And you do whatever the hell you like. I seem to be the only sane person in this palace, and I don’t know what to do.”

“They’re in love?” I whispered. I couldn’t wrap my mind around that. It seemed so impossible. Maximilian wasimmature. Other than his fascination with jazz, he was just a college prankster with little interest in anything else. And Élodie was prim and proper, the spitting image of regal perfection.

“Oh, they’re in love,” Sophie assured me. “I’ve never seen Max so gutted as the night Alexander announced you would return.”

No wonder he refused to speak to me. I had accidentally ruined his happiness together with everyone else’s. I closed my eyes as if to mourn the loss of someone dear to me. I had broken all the hearts, but all I had ever wanted was the freedom to love whoever I wanted to love. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Don’t be sorry,” Sophie said. “Think. Think of something and change the ending.”

Although I nodded, hoping to put her mind at rest if I couldn’t do it for everyone else, I doubted there was anything I could do. If Alexander were so spiteful, he would want to see me step up no matter what. He would gladly pay the price with Max’s and Élodie’s hearts just to see me brought to heel.

Sophie left me alone, and I tossed the book to the ottoman because my focus was in tatters. I covered my face and wondered if I should have hidden with Tristan for longer. Could I have drawn it out until Max reached a breaking point and declared his feelings for Élodie? Or would it be all the same to Alexander? Would he still seek to bring me back at the cost of ruining Tristan’s life and everyone else’s?

Too many questions and no time to answer them.

But in the end, hardly any answers mattered.

I was never getting Tristan back. Why shouldn’t I simply let my brother dictate the course of my future? That way, we could all relax and pin all the blame on him.

It was a sweet, hateful thing to contemplate, but a spark of rebellion had returned to me. Something had to be done.

CHAPTER 15

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