Page 54 of The Princess and the Fraud

There was fixed, row-style seating that went halfway back to the far wall, with tables set up in the back half for more of a dinner-theater style. Far more seating than Alderton-Du Ponte would ever need, but it made the space much more magical to me. Nancy Du Ponte once had such an ambitious vision.

The stage itself was beautiful. Polished cherry wood that still shined, despite the dust that hadn’t yet been cleaned. There were odds and ends from other departments on top of it, boxes lined up and waiting to be sorted through.

Perhaps that was why I felt a strange sort of kinship with this room—we were one and the same.

I watched Aaron take it in, expression open as he turned, considering. “It’s smaller than I thought it’d be,” he said after a moment. “But you’re right—special.”

Instead of rounding around the back of the stage, I leveraged my hands on its surface and hauled myself up. Touching the cherry wood almost electrified me. I fully expected Aaron to round the stage and take the stairs, but instead, like me, he placed his palms on the platform and pushed himself up. He dusted his hands together when he rose to his full height, and immediately became distracted by the makeshift storage facility we stepped into.

My coworkers and I had spent all morning trying to make sense of the clutter, but there were still boxes everywhere. Aaron wandered through them like they were a maze of artifacts. Propped against a box labeledCleaning Supplieswas a hand painted portrait of Mrs. Nancy Du Ponte herself. She looked much younger than how I remembered her—maybe forty in the picture rather than in her eighties when she passed. Until last June, this portrait had hung in a hallway near the rec rooms. It’d disappeared after her funeral, only to be found leaning here, collecting dust along with the rest of the boxes.

Aaron smoothed his fingertips along her portrait, wiping her cheeks. “Pitiful,” he said.

“The picture?”

“This place. This club.” He took his fingers back and looked at the dust on his fingertips for a moment before wiping it off on his jacket sleeve. “If anyone looked underneath the glamour of Alderton-Du Ponte, you’d find nothing but waste.”

“That’s what I think. This stage—this whole room—is just wasted potential.” Now that Nancy was dead, no one had cared about maintaining a room she built.

“Untapped.” Aaron gave a small smile. “Untapped potential.”

His words felt like a promise that wrapped around me, which was ridiculous, because he couldn’t promise me anything. “Are you just saying that so the ghost of Nancy Du Ponte doesn’t haunt you?”

A startled laugh burst from him. “No. I mean it.”’

I realized I stood there, staring at him like a weirdo, so I cleared my throat. “Do you think it’s suspicious? The board refusing to cave to Rhythms of Hope’s agenda, but then volunteering the music hall for a fundraiser?”

“There’s definitely another motive.” Aaron looked around the stage. “They probably plan to use whatever money they raise to try and sway the charity’s mind.”

“Will it work?”

Aaron just shrugged.

“You were called here by the charity. You can’t say if bribery will convince them?”

“It might be bribery, but it ultimately comes down to what’s good for the charity.” Aaron slid both of his hands into his pockets. “What aligns with their vision. I can’t say what they’ll do if the Alderton-Du Ponte board offers them millions. I know what I’d do.”

“What would you do?” I was almost afraid to hear his answer.

Aaron slowly pivoted to face me. For a moment, I thought he was going to say “I’d sell,” but instead, he regarded me neutrally. “I’d make sure none of these people got what they wanted,” he said with an even voice, not even blinking. “Even if that meant running this place to the ground.”

My breath caught. “Why do you hate these people so much?”

“Contrary to popular belief, Lovisa, I hate those who believe themselves to be better than others, too.”

It took a long moment for the conversation we’d had before to come back to me, my own words echoing in my ears.You pretend that you’re better than others and don’t care about the trouble you cause them. I hate people like you.

And what had he said in reply?Perhaps you just don’t know me well enough. Perhaps you’d change your mind if you knew how sad and twisted my insides are.

Sad and twisted—two words I wouldn’t have used to describe Aaron Astor. But I realized in that moment howlittleI knew about him. Just like I had my own secrets buried underneath the surface—my mother’s house, Grant—Aaron had to have his own. “I want to get to know you better,” I said, the words coming unbidden.

Aaron’s lips parted in surprise. “So you can decide if you’re in the right for hating me?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“It’s okay,” he replied, and inexplicably, Aaron smiled. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

Something twinged in my chest then, like a pinprick to my heart. He’d smiled, but with the spotlight illuminating his expression, the gloom in his eye had been crystal clear. I’d never purposefully looked for it before, but I saw it now.

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