Page 3 of Once Upon a Royal Summer
“Lacey, sweetheart.” Mark reached for her hand and took it in his. “You can’t keep playing dress-up forever.”
A painful lump formed in Lacey’s throat.
Had she just heard him correctly?
Surely not. If anyone knew why Lacey’s job meant so much to her, it was Mark. They’d been dating for almost three months before she’d told him about losing her mom when she was seven years old. She’d opened up to him about it in a way she rarely had before—or since.
“Mark, you know being a theme park princess is more than playing dress-up. So much more. I’ve wanted to do this my entire life.”
“I know, sweetheart,” he said. Lacey really wished he’d stop calling her that. “But you’ve done it. It’s been, what—five years? Isn’t it time to start thinking about a proper career? Your schedule is grueling. I barely see you. If we’re going to build a life together, shouldn’t we see each other more than only on the one or two nights a week you don’t have to close down the theme park?”
He had a point. They didn’t spend as much time together as either of them wanted to, but Lacey thought being married would solve that problem. She and Mark would be together all the time, morning, noon, and night. Well, except when they were at work. And their schedules didn’t exactly overlap much. They’d both been working extra hours the past few months.
Again, Lacey knew this discussion had been coming. She was in full agreement with everything he was saying. She’d thought she was, anyway. Now that the conversation was actually taking place and giving her notice seemed imminent, Lacey wasn’t so sure.
She took a deep breath. One more month. Just give me one more month, and then I’ll quit and go back to school to get my teaching certificate. Why did everything have to happen right this second? “I know the hours aren’t the greatest…”
Mark arched an eyebrow. “And by the time you leave work, you’re covered in glitter.”
“You say glitter like it’s a bad thing,” Lacey said, mustering up a smile. What kind of person didn’t like a little sparkle?
The kind you’re going to marry, apparently.
And suddenly, Lacey knew she couldn’t marry Mark. Not now, and not however many days, months, or years into the future it might be when she couldn’t do her dream job anymore.
Clearly, she’d missed some major red flags. Mark had always seemed so sweet and attentive, even though he’d never used any of the free passes she’d given him to Once Upon A Time. Lacey liked how close to his family he seemed. She’d met so many men her age who didn’t spend much time at all with their parents.
She’d obviously misread the comments he’d made in the past about her career choice as interest—maybe even pride in how much she loved what she did—when really, they’d meant something else entirely.
Lacey swallowed around the lump in her throat and slid her hand away from his and back to her lap.
They were about to break up, weren’t they?
She blinked hard, waiting for the tears to come. The anticipation of the impending heartbreak was excruciating.
But then the strangest thing happened: nothing at all. No wracking sobs, no sniffles, not even a single tear slipping poignantly down her cheek. She simply felt…numb. Which seemed like an even bigger problem than her lackluster career choice.
“Mark, I don’t think this is going to work,” she said quietly.
Did she actually love him?
If there was even a glimmer of doubt in her mind about that, she couldn’t go through with an engagement. Doing so wouldn’t be fair to either one of them.
Mark shrugged one shoulder. “If you don’t want to sit on a board, you don’t have to. I’m sure we can come up with something else more suitable.”
“Suitable?” What was happening? How had this dinner gone so spectacularly off the rails? “When you put it like that, it makes me wonder if you think there’s something wrong with my job. Or worse, with me.”
Why did there have to be a time limit for her to figure out her future?
Mark sighed. “Lacey, would I want to marry you if I thought there was something wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. You just said I wasn’t suitable. That sounds an awfully lot like you think I’m not good enough to be your wife.”
“Lacey…”
“You know what? It doesn’t matter. When I said I didn’t think this was going to work out, I didn’t mean the board job. I meant us.” She felt her chin start to quiver.
Don’t cry. Do not.
