Page 50 of The Cinderella Prince

Something tugged the corners of my lips down. Something else tickled my heart gently and made it rise.

“You always knew right from wrong,” Dad said. “And you were always the first to help anyone who needed it.”

I failed to help everyone, I thought.

“We can’t change the past, darling,” Mom went on. “What is gone is gone, and Jen’s not coming back. She was a beautiful girl. And she was smart, you’re right. And when she died, a bit of light went out of the world. But all we can do is go on, baby.”

“You can’t let that tragedy shadow over your whole life, son,” Dad explained. “It’s not right.”

“And it’s not fair to compare yourself to something that simply doesn’t exist,” Mom said.

“Especially when you’re such a fine man already,” Dad finished.

A small, stubborn part of me woke up and believed them. And when it did, there was no shutting it down. That night, and the next day, I believed they were proud of me. We spoke more, and I told them about Pudding the Panda and where most of their money was going. Theylaughed and shook their heads in disbelief. We visited Jen’s grave and left flowers. I cried.

By the end of the following day, I began wondering if I should return to the Hudson Burrow and start making things right with Roman and, even more so, Mama Viv. My parents thought I had overreacted, but they didn’t blame me for it. Not when every deeply buried trauma had resurfaced in an instant.

I failed to tell them who Cedric was and what he left me for. It didn’t matter.

He had picked the comfortable life of a young royal instead of the calloused hands of a kitchen helper. I couldn’t blame him for taking care of himself. I only blamed him for kissing me in the first place.

That thought was followed by regrets. I didn’t mean that. I wanted all his kisses, and I didn’t want them to ever stop. But if they had to stop, I wanted to remember the kisses as clearly as I could.

Roman called me one evening, and my heart climbed into my throat. I didn’t feel ready to face him, but I wasn’t going to make things worse by ignoring him.

“Um…hello?” I shut the door of my room and sat on the edge of my bed. Only a reading lamp was on, and an old book about Apollo and Hyacinthus was on my bedstand, procured from my mother’s collection the day before.

Roman cut right to the chase. “I know you don’t want to hear from me. I’ll respect that, even if I don’t get it. But this is important. More important than whatever we’re fighting about, alright? I need to tell you something…”

Mama Viv’s voice came from the background. “Is he alright?”

My heart ached. I was such an asshole.

“Hush,” Roman replied to her in frustration. “Let me tell him.”

“What does he sound like? Does he sound well?”

“Tris, you there?” Roman asked. I sucked in a breath of air; it was most I could do now that the emotions threatened to overwhelm me again. “Look, Tris, it’s about Cedric. You better be sitting down.” For a moment, panic spiked in me, but the controlled laughter in Roman’s voice removed the fear that something bad had happened to him. “Oh boy, I don’t know how to…” The sound was filled with static, and something clicked and clacked.

“He’s a prince, darling,” Mama Viv said far too loudly. “Some Vermont place in France, Tristan. Rafael recognized him and saw the news.”

“Verdumont,” I corrected her, then frowned at myself. That was the least important part. Rafael? News?

“Ah, yes, you see, you know better than…hold on. Tristan, darling, did you know this?” Mama Viv was scandalized.

“What is it? He knows already?” Roman demanded in the background.

“Darling, you never said,” Mama Viv cried. “I made that boy scrub pans twice because he didn’t remove the grease well.”

A laugh pealed from me toward the ceiling. I could imagine Mama Viv quivering with anxiety now that she knew all the things she had asked a foreign royal to do in Neon Nights.

Roman stole the phone back. “Tris, you knew this?”

“I…yeah, I knew that,” I said softly. “But how did you find out? What’s the news?”

“Oh, well, Rafael follows these French magazines, and some duchess or whatever was photographed with Cedric a couple of days ago. They say they’re getting engaged.” Roman said, bewildered.

“Who says?” I asked, my heart sinking lower than I had expected.

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