Page 47 of The Princess and the Fraud

But… had I loved him?

“Even if my story confuses you about love,” I began, trying to shake away the building unease, “it doesn’t really matter.” Since Aaron stopped playing, I lifted my hand to the keys and began the crescendo, remembering how his fingers had moved underneath mine. “It’s not like you want to fall in love, anyway.” And then, when I got to the next part I couldn’t remember, I just dropped my hand back into my lap.

Aaron said nothing. For a moment, we sat in silence side by side on the bench. We were back inlikeableterritory, and it was comfortable. Something about the moment felt strangely vulnerable, like we both laid a little more out to bare. I didn’t worry about what he thought about, or if he judged me. It was like that night back in June—we were just two people who understood.

“I like listening to you speak,” Aaron murmured. “I feel like I understand you a bit more now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why you move through this world as you do.” Before I had a chance to ask him what he meant by that, he went on. “Why you’re so invested in the house. The connection you have with it. Why you gave up playing the cello—for your mother.”

The way he phrased it sounded wrong. “I didn’t give up the cello for her.”

“No one ever said you couldn’t do both. You could’ve still played in your free time, as a hobby or for side gigs, while working to afford your mother’s dream. But you didn’t. You gave it up entirely, because you were afraid you’d realize it wouldn’t be enough.”

I sat up straighter, skin prickling. “That’s not true?—”

“You were afraid your dreams would distract you from your mother’s.” Aaron tilted his head down at me. “But there’s a reason they areyourdreams, Lovisa.”

I sucked in a quick breath, because just like that, we’d begun tipping back towardunlikeableterritory. “You’re wrong.”

“Your friends didn’t even know you played the cello.”

“I—I stopped playing before I met them.”

“And what? They never asked you what you did growing up? Never asked if you had any hobbies? Or did you just lie?”

His words burned through me, igniting something raw and defensive in my chest. I wanted to throw accusations back at him; to tell him he had no idea what he was talking about, but Aaron Astor had an infuriating knack for being right. Caroline and Grant and even Annalise hadn’t ever pried deeper into my past. I told them I grew up in Addison, told them my mother died, and that was all they’d needed to befriend me.

“Either way, Lovisa, you don’t feel comfortable being yourself,” he went on, still in the same neutral vein. “That’s why you call yourselfthe helpand make yourself smaller. You never talk about yourself, never speak up, never do whatyouwant. It’s no wonder you asked me back in June if I ever resented my life—because you resent yours.”

Pressure had been building behind my ribs, like a bowstring winding too tight, and at Aaron’s last words, it snapped. A cold shock flooded my chest, followed by an almost overwhelming sense of relief. Like admitting a long-held secret—humiliating and freeing all at once. And though I hadn’t spoken it, the truth hummed through me, coming to light.

That relief only lasted a second, though, quickly replaced by an all-consuming, red-hot anger.

I jerked my legs around the piano bench, slamming one hand on the keys. The notes screamed, and the sound rattled in my bones. “Youunderstandme?” My voice was raw, unsteady. I pushed to my feet, clenching my hands into fists so tight that my nails bit into my skin. “How could someone like you understand someone like me in theslightest?”

Aaron’s shoulders dropped. “I didn’t say it to make you angry?—”

“Then what? To point out just howpitiablemy life is?” The words scraped out of me, raw in my throat. “I’ve been busting my back for the last five years to buy a house to honor my dead mother, and what are you doing? Tricking a stranger into marrying you so you won’t be broke—and don’t pretend you’re doing this for your grandmother,” I added with a scoff. “You’re doing this foryou. For the five million inyourpocket. It’s none of your business if I resent my life or not, and even if I did—” I gasped in a breath. “Even if I did, at least I’m not a fraud.”

A soft exhale escaped Aaron at the impact of my words, as if they’d crashed into him. His jaw clenched, but his eyes—vulnerable and wide—betrayed him. He didn’t hide the hurt; it was there in every inch of his expression, too real to mask, too sharp to ignore.

What I said seemed to echo in the air, far, far uglier than the music we’d made. For a moment, neither of us moved or spoke. With the burst of fire now gone, something cold began creeping in, my heart twisting with something I couldn’t name. I wanted, more than anything, to go back to five minutes ago—back to that euphoric feeling that’d come from his hand playing the piano underneath my own.

But I couldn’t go back. The thick silence stretched between us, until I could no longer bear it. I spun on my heel and stormed out of the room, anger and regret a chaotic symphony reverberating in my chest. Aaron didn’t follow, nor did the sound of the piano. There was nothing but the loud snap of my shoes against the marble floors, the rustle of the trash bags when I snatched them up, and the roar of my pulse in my ears.

As I walked away from the ballroom, I repeated the same sentiment over and over in my head. Aaron Astor didn’t know me.

And I had to stop imagining what it’d be like if he did.

CHAPTERTEN

Growing up, intense emotion came easily to me when I played the cello. I’d fall into a piece almost as easily as breathing. When I would finish, gasping from the rollercoaster the composition had taken me on, my instructor would, without fail, say, “Passion is not a substitute for precision. Play with your heartandyour head.”

Every. Single. Time.

She was right, of course. Too much emotion could ruin a piece. Intonation could waver. Phrasing could suffer. The music could lose its clarity. Great cellists knew better. They mastered technique first, and emotion followed. Controlled playing didn’t weaken a song’s feeling, but strengthened it. Instead of drowning the music, I needed to let it breathe.

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