Page 94 of The Princess and the Fraud

So I’d decided not to think about it until after the fundraiser. I’d put my all into the event, stay faithful to my Princess of Alderton-Du Ponte title, and then reevaluate when the chaos died down.

But since I wasn’t thinking aboutthat, my mind was free to wander to other things.

Like the piano perched on the stage, which ultimately led me back, once more, to Aaron Astor.

“Lovey?” I lifted my head to the call on the other side of the music hall. Brett stood near the stage, a cardboard box in his hand. “I finished putting all the bows on the seats.”

I stood at the back of the room, finalizing the centerpieces on the banquet tables set up behind the row-style seating. “I think we’re about finished in here. If you want to go check and see how the others are doing in the ballroom?—”

“Really?” he asked, and the fatigue in his voice was punctuated by a wide yawn. “It’s way past my clock out time.”

“We all came in together,” I reminded him, wiping my fingertips, but the glitter from the centerpiece didn’t flick off. “Let’s leave together, yeah? Remember how Mr. Roberts said we should be a team?”

I could see Brett’s scowl from here. “I’m not staying past ten-thirty. Even Mr. Roberts went home.”

“Do what you want,” I said with a sigh. I wasn’t going to fight him on it.

And my flippancy was all Brett needed, because, with the box underneath his arm, he walked out of the music hall.

There were no windows in the hall, which made it hard to really gauge what time it was. It didn’t feel like ten o’clock—it felt like midnight. I leaned my palms on the table, letting my head droop. I shouldn’t have, but just like every other moment my brain quieted, I thought of Aaron.

The last time I’d seen Aaron had been when we toured the house Sunday. I’d been thinking and wondering about what would come the next time we saw each other—if things would change between us, or if he would finally broach the topic we’d avoided. But thenext timenever came.

I’d been stuck in the Du Ponte Music Hall all week, scrambling to right mishap after mishap. The flower arrangements had started wilting way too early, the programs were printed with the wrong date, and the tablecloth company had accidentally sent us 10 ivory ones when we needed white. There was always something that needed to be fixed, and as the Princess, I was always the one volunteered to fix it. I’d been too busy to go looking for Aaron, but not too busy to have him fill up nearly every thought.

“Ridiculous,” I found myself muttering under my breath.

At first, I’d told myself I needed to get a grip. The house tour was just that—a tour. He’d been helping me see sense, pulling me away from a dream that wasn’t mine. I should’ve been grateful. But instead, I couldn’t stop thinking it’d felt like something more. Something real.

Maybe I’d wanted it to mean more than it did. Maybe he’d only been trying to make a point.

Monica came in through the music hall’s doorway then, with a crate of flowers in her arms. “What’s that?” I asked, straightening from the last table I’d adjusted. “We’re all set on flowers in here.”

Monica stopped. “Mr. Roberts called and said to bring these in here.”

“Apparently they’re doing some kind of big surprise tomorrow,” Trisha said, coming in behind Monica with another crate of flowers in her arms. “Last-minute thing. These just got dropped off.”

“At this hour?”

“After hoursdoesn’t mean crap to these people.”

Normally, I would’ve glanced around for an elite, worrying if they’d overheard the dig. I didn’t this time. “Did he say where to put them?”

“On the stage,” Monica said, dropping the crate on its surface at the same time. “He said Mr. Astor would move them in the morning.”

My fingers stilled on the vase. “Mr. Astor?”

Trisha dropped her crate down, too. “Yep.”

She didn’t go on, so I looked to Monica. “Mr. Roberts just said it’s for a surprise Aaron organized. He didn’t say anything else.”

My chest tightened, but I forced a smile and nodded. “Oh.”

The girls didn’t notice my hesitation, already heading back out of the music hall. I swallowed back the knot in my throat and turned back to my own work, trying to shake off the unease that crept through me. A surprise Aaron was planning—like a proposal? Would he really propose to Fiona at the event? What else would he order rushed delivery flowers for?

I needed to tell him. I hadn’t fully made up my mind, but I couldn’t let him marry Fiona.

If I proposed to you, would you say yes?

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