Page 111 of The Princess and the Fraud

The ugly rock that’d glittered on her finger. He’d given it to hertwenty-four hours ago.“Before I found you?”

“After.”

My brain couldn’t catch up. “After,” I echoed, but the word sounded foreign, like I’d never heard it before in my life. The horror that had swamped his face last night—I felt it now in mine, spreading like ice cracking across a lake. I couldn’t tell who was speaking on the microphone now, if it was still Caroline or Mrs. Holland, but their words were nonsensical gibberish, a different language entirely.

Aaron ignored all of it, too, almost as if he stood in this dark corner of the stage alone.

“After,” I repeated, the back of my throat burning. “After I played for you. After wekissed?”

His arms were tight to his sides, head down. When had Aaron and Caroline even gotten close enough to have that conversation in the first place? When had she even become an option to him? Had he sought her out, or the other way around?

“How could you do that aftereverything?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“You—you don’tlikeCaroline.” Her name felt wrong on my tongue, like it didn’t belong in this conversation. I blinked, trying to process whether this was real or some horrible dream I’d wake up from. Was this what shock felt like? The complete inability to make sense of your own reality?

“Not as much as I don’t like Fiona.” His hands curled into loose fists at his sides. “You were right. It would’ve been hell living my life having to pretend. But Caroline… knows everything.”

She knew everything—because I’d told her. “So do I.” My pulse picked up in my throat. “But apparently I’m not good enough?”

Aaron’s chest halted mid-inhale, the accusation hitting him like I’d shoved him. “Caroline… she can give me everything I need.” His voice was flat, like he’d already convinced himself this was the only way forward. Like he’d rehearsed this moment a hundred times. Gone was the awe from minutes ago when we’d played the piano together. It was as if we’d stepped into another timeline entirely. “I’ll get my inheritance, yes, but marrying into her family, inheriting their realty business—I have a chance at becoming something to mine, too.”

It was like the breath had been knocked out of me mid-sentence. I tried to inhale, but the air wouldn’t reach my lungs—it was stuck behind the lump forming in my throat. “I told you before. Your life isnotnothing if you don’t have your family’s approval.” I could feel my features twist up, and now it wasn’t just my throat burning, but my eyes, too. “You can’t lose who you are just to appease someone else.”

His voice was a whisper. “You did.”

I couldn’t help it; I flinched.

Aaron finally lifted his eyes to mine, and they were almost empty, save for a hardness. “You threw your life away because you needed to ease the guilt of your mother’s sacrifices. You buried your dreams for something that was never really yours. It didn’t matter that you didn’t want the house. Whatyouwanted didn’t matter. You—you don’t know how tonot, do you?” His voice almost became feverish. “You don’t know how to be selfish. You give up pieces of yourself until there’s nothing left if it means other people will be happy.”

And there it was, the truth spilling from him as he unraveled. “That’s why,” I murmured dully, realizing. “That’s why you’re choosing Caroline. Because you think me marrying you means I’m giving up a piece of myself.”

Aaron’s jaw tensed, but he couldn’t deny it.

“You don’t get to make that decision for me.”

“Someone has to.” The words were torn from him. “You’ve spent the last five years tying yourself to a dream that wasn’t yours. I won’t let you do it again and tie yourself to mine. One of us should live a good life. A life they feel fulfilled in—a lifethey choose. A life that they love with someone they love, and if it’s not going to be me, then it needs to be you.”

The breath I released seemed to almost rattle in my ears. “And you’ve decided I’m not allowed to want that life with you?”

“You onlythinkyou like me, Lovisa.” Something in him cracked, shattering through him. The mask slipped, exposing the raw pain that sat behind it. The anger that’d been there, the fury—it’d all been directed at himself. I could see it now in the glassiness of his eyes, and could hear it in the tremble of his words. “Because I was the one who made you believe you were allowed to want your own dreams. Because I told you it was okay to jump. But it had nothing to do with me—I wasnothing. You didn’t need my permission. I was just the person standing there when you remembered who you are.”

I almost could’ve laughed at the disparaging way he spoke about himself, as if his role in my life these past few weeks was minor, replaceable. As if he hadn’t singlehandedly changed the trajectory of my future by reminding me what happiness was like. Aaron had accused me time and time again of making myself smaller when here he was now, doing the same.

Aaron didn’t understand that he wasn’t the only one who’d learned to read me. He didn’t realize how transparent he was to me.

“You need someone who will build a future with you at the pace you want, not someone who will make you sacrifice parts of yourself to keep up with them. You don’t love me.” Aaron took a half step backward, away from me, as if he couldn’t stand to be close anymore. I could still see the grief in his eyes, though, raging like a storm. “Youcouldn’tlove me. I’m not made for it.”

“No,” I said, shutting that stupid ideology down immediately. For the first time since the bomb had dropped, a burst of anger shot through me. “You just don’t want to choose it.”

“Do you know how we’re different?” Aaron’s voice splintered, just for a moment, and he looked away as if afraid I might see it in his expression. It was too late, though. “You’re brave, Lovisa. You burn, and it’sbeautiful. You’ve jumped from your bridge. But I—I can’t. I may not want to get married, but I’m too much of a coward. Because… because I’mnothingif I’m not an Astor.”

His words sliced through me. The hard part was that I could see through him entirely. In his eyes, I could see how deep-rooted that false belief ran—it had burrowed into his soul and made a home there, feeding on every shred of hope until there was nothing left but duty and disappointment. If I hadn’t spent the last five years running down the wrong path, I might not have understood him as clearly as I did now.

I knew nothing about his family, but in that moment, I hated them all for making him feel that way. For raising him to believe love was transactional. Lovewasself-sacrificing, but not in the way he thought. He wasn’t giving up his dreams for the greater good—he was giving up himself, piece by piece, just to fit into a mold that someone else had shaped for him.

I could tell Aaron a million times over that it wasn’t true, that hewasmore than just his last name, but it would mean nothing. Just like how I’d held steadfast onto the idea of Mom’s dream house, there was no convincing Aaron that he was allowed to choose the path his heart longed for.

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