Page 110 of Spearcrest Prince

Obviously not. “I think you should.”

She turns her head suddenly, narrowing her eyes, and steps towards me, pointing an accusatory finger at me. “Hey, you’re not planning to beat him up too, are you?”

“Why would I?” I look down at her finger. If I step forward, it’ll stab right into my chest. So I step forward.

She jabs her finger right into my chest. “For the same reason you beat up Parker Pembroke? Petty, childish jealousy?”

“Why would I be jealous?” I try to sound calm and collected, but my voice is a little rough, my throat full of all the things I want to say but don’t dare to.

“Exactly,” she says with a smile. “You have no reason to be jealous.”

“No reason except the fact he’s all over your sketchbooks? What happened to the Anaïs Nishihara who doesn’t believe in love?”

She gives an exaggerated sigh. “Fine, you win. I do love him.” My heart sinks at her words. “I might as well tell you all about him since you’ve discovered my terrible secret.” I don’t even dare breathe as she speaks. “He’s twenty-two years old and lives in Japan. He likes books about characters who go on long journeys and books about places near the sea. He loves everything to do with the sea and, when he was a kid, he used to dream of learning how to sail, but honestly, he’s far too lazy for that kind of work. He wants to meet you, by the way, and when we talk about you, he calls you theRoi Soleil.”

“Like Louis XIV?”

“Yes.”

“You two talk about me?”

She shrugs airily. “Why shouldn’t I? You’re my fiancé.”

“He’s not… jealous?”

Somehow, that’s more hurtful than anything else.

“You didn’t let me finish, though,” Anaïs says with a raised eyebrow.

“Alright, go on.”

“He wants to meet you and thinks we should go eat sea bream together because of a Japanese saying he learned recently. He thinks you should come to Japan when I move. Oh, and his name is Noël Nishihara.”

There’s a moment of dull silence. Her lips curl at the corners. She’s such a cocky little shit.

“That boy’s your brother?” I look away from her because my face feels hot, and I step closer to the painting. The eyes have a similar shape and colour, the hair is dark and silky, but he doesn’t have the same ethereal airiness I associate with Anaïs. Instead, his smile is charming but a little wild. If anything, it reminds me more of Iakov than anybody else. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

Anaïs nods. “Yes. It’s because he sort of ran away a few years ago, and my parents sort of disowned him.”

“Sort of?”

“They’ll come around… maybe. One day.”

“Where does he live?”

“Japan.”

Things finally start to make sense. “Oh! Is that… is that why you’re moving there?”

“Yes.”

I hesitate. “Why did he run away?”

“Because he didn’t want my parents to use him to further our social standing in France.” Anaïs’s voice is quiet, but there’s an invisible edge of sadness there.

“So they used you instead?”

She gives me a little cynical look but says nothing.

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