Page 89 of The Princess and the Fraud

Aaron didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to fix it or tell me I’d be okay. He just held me, his touch solid and real in a way that made me think maybe I could let go. Maybe, for the first time in my life, I didn’t have to carry everything alone.

And that was another part of why I cried—not just for what was gone, but for what still remained.

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

Icried long enough that the realtor ended up coming back in to check on us—and then awkwardly backed out of the kitchen and returned to his car.

I’d let one thing direct me for the last five years, and it’d been this house. Every decision I’d made always had the undercurrent ofhow will this push me closer to 1442 Everview?Picking up extra shifts, skipping eating out, putting almost all of my paycheck into my savings rather than treating myself. The dread had compounded as the time passed, but I hadn’t noticed—not until I’d come face to face with the reality.

It was hard to reconcile the decision in my mind, putting my mother’s dreams to rest. It felt selfish, wrong. I felt like a bad daughter, choosing myself over her. But Aaron was right—Mom had never asked me to set my dreams aside for hers. She never would’ve. And she would’ve hated knowing I’d done so when my traitorous heart called for something else.

Maybe I was a bad daughter for not buying the house, but I’d be a bad daughter if I did.

After my cry session in the kitchen, Aaron and I had toured the house in its entirety, checking out the rot in the basement and the decaying drywall upstairs. We even wandered down to the bay, quietly soaking in the view. In each room we wandered through, I allowed myself to feel all the pain and loss, but it was less suffocating now. A weight fell off my shoulders with each step through the property, getting to see the place my mother always wanted, and knowing I could leave it ashers.

Especially with Aaron there beside me every step of the way, the back of his hand brushing mine in a silent reminder.We’re here together.

By the time we left 1442 Everview Road, it was mid-day, with the sun beginning its slow descent toward the horizon. Sitting in the passenger seat, it was almost comical how different I felt as we drove back toward Addison. The sunlight thawed me, leaving me feeling brighter than I had in a long, long time.

That, combined with “Ave Maria” playing over the speakers and Aaron’s hand curled around mine in my lap, for the first time in a while, I felt nothing but peace.

Aaron had reached over as soon as he’d pulled from the driveway out onto Everview Road, as if even though we were leaving the dream house behind, he wanted to remind me he was there. His slender fingers wrapped around my long ones, the sight strange, but like the sun, it left me warm.

“This piece played before, in the country club lobby,” Aaron murmured, the fingers of his left hand curled around the steering wheel, his elbow propped against the door. “Right? I remember you seemed… stunned by it.”

“It’s the piece I chose for my mother’s funeral,” I told him, listening to the rendition that bled from the car’s speakers. Aaron had selected it from his playlist, knowingly or unknowingly, I wasn’t sure. “I hadn’t heard it since. It felt like a sign.”

“A sign?”

“That I was on the right path.” I’d thought hearing it meant I was doing the right thing, helping Fiona and Aaron get together, but thinking back, the piece hadn’t started playing when Fiona came into the lobby. It’d started playing before that, when I was speaking to Aaron. “But maybe it was a different sort of sign.”

Aaron didn’t ask what I meant and didn’t push further. Instead, he gave my fingers a comforting squeeze, and my heartthuddedin response.

That was another thing that felt different. Looking down at Aaron’s hand, tracing the bumps of his knuckles with my eyes, I could feel the difference almost as if it were a physical thing. As if, when Aaron had his arms around me, whatever existed between us shifted. We’d been on a similar station before, but now, it was like the static between us cleared. My body wholly relaxed now, leaving itself unguarded for the first time in a long time. I felt light with him. Safe.

It was terrifying, confusing, and exhilarating all at once.

And the horribly huge, unspoken thing still sat between us:If I proposed to you, would you say yes?I was ninety-nine percent sure those words hadn’t been a drunken fantasy. Those green tea shots might’ve given me a small dose of creativity, but no way would I have come up with Aaron Astor sayingthat.

The reasons why I’d almost immediately taken my words back hadn’t changed. I wasn’t refined, or well-educated, or impressive. I didn’t have wealthy parents or a family business to run. But I did have one leg up on Fiona—I liked Aaron. For real.

I let out a little breath at the realization, a silent exclamation. I liked Aaron Astor.

But enough tomarry him?

It wasn’t like I had an infinite amount of time to mull it over. Aaron’s birthday was in two weeks. He needed to bemarriedby then—to someone. Could I really marry someone I met two weeks ago? It sounded insane. Who was I kidding? Itwasinsane. But the whole situation was off the hinges. Forcing someone to get married to receive their inheritance? How the heck was that legal? What kind of loving grandma would put that upon her grandson?

I forced myself to speak before I could spiral further. “Aaron?”

“Yes, Lovisa?”

And then I hesitated. I needed to ask it, to launch into the topic that plagued me, but the sunlight was still so bright in the car—too bright for such a dim conversation. “Did someone tell you that you weren’t made for love?”

On instinct, I tightened my curl around his hand, almost afraid he’d tug away. He didn’t, though. If anything, his hand settled more heavily in mine. “No.”

“Then why did you think that?”

Aaron blinked at the road, hesitating as if something suddenly knocked him back. I wondered, with pain like a knife to the chest, if he was thinking about his family. I knew that pause. It was the kind you made when the ache was too big to name. “I’ve just… never felt it before.”

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