The Girl Who Loved Two Princes: The Series

Marry me and I will protect you

2019, March 4th

Caines, Terres Somnia (Zoey)

Yesterday my world came together at last. Aaron looked upon me as though nothing and no one could take him from me and regardless of all the terrible things happening in the world, I could not help being happy. I was a different person. He had opened up my heart and not just for himself, but for everyone around me.

I would mend fences with the duke, if only for the sake of the wedding. My new life has given me, among other things, a brother and a best friend.

Bart held my hand while I stumbled through every situation, good or bad, since I reached Caines. I wanted to be useful to him. I knew that this marriage would finally remove the burden of the Arden claim to the throne from Bart's shoulders.

Knowing this made me all the happier that things had worked out for Aaron and I, because marriage was a sacred thing. This union had the power to change many people's lives, but would define mine and Aaron's.

Lying on my bed, getting ready to call my mother, how was I to know that my life was about to change again? As my head hovered over the red roses Aaron had given me yesterday, I smiled my last happy smile for a while.

Bart burst into my room, shut the laptop and grabbed my phone right out of my hands.

"Hey," I complained. "I was just about to call my mom."

Those busy, ever problem-solving eyes of Bart's gave way to something unsettling.

"Pack for a few days. I have to get you out of here."

He was stern and his tone, though always somewhat imposing, held an urgency to it. I grabbed at his sleeve.

"What is it? What's wrong Bart?"

"Now Zo," he yelled, grabbing the remote to close the curtains.

I jumped up and did as I was told. As I started packing, George's footsteps could be heard marching in the hallway leading to the door of my room.

"What is this?" the duke boomed when he reached me.

George shoved his tablet into my hands, livid. I looked down at the headline.

Heated Elevator Kiss Between Prince Aaron and His Intended.

Dumbstruck, I started scrolling down frantically. Aaron and I had been careful not to be spotted whenever we were together. This couldn't be.

How could I have been so negligent? This was sure to stir up quite a bit of trouble. No wonder Bart and George were enraged. I had embarrassed them.

Then I saw it and suddenly I understood. When next I knew, I felt Bart's thumbs on my cheeks and heard the whoosh of a sigh leave his body.

"We have to go, Zo," Bart said, more gently this time.

George was up in arms. "Go? After causing such an uproar you would have her run off somewhere? She must issue a public apology for making such a spectacle—"

"She must do nothing," Bart interrupted.

Bart spoke firmly, in a tone he did not usually reserve for our father. Realisation dawned on me. Bart wanted to buy me some time. He must know that I would not get it here.

My brother knew me well. It was all over for Aaron and I, and he would not let me be persuaded otherwise. Not twice. Not when he had gone against his instincts the first time and allowed us both to be swayed.

Back and forth George and Bart went about what to do. I couldn't move. Has Aaron really done this? On the night of our engagement?

All I could do was fall apart. Again and again, it hit me what he had done, and I wished I could go back to being blissfully unaware.

"We're leaving. Forgive me, father," Bart said in parting, having finished the packing.

"I cannot understand you. This isn't like you at all. They are to be wed. It's the 21st century. Certainly, it may cause some embarrassment, but the people will understand. You are being too protective."

"If you do think so, then you must really not understand. She will be safe; this I promise you."

Bart took my hand and led me through the hallways I had at last become accustomed to. Down the staircase that seemed endless and past Duchess Arden, who had no doubt come to the same conclusion George had. There was no time. We would reveal the truth to them later, or someone surely would, but right now, we had to go.

Elsewhere in Caines (James)

I knew the whole of it without need of confirmation. James Beaumont was such a sort of man. Though I could hardly predict how people would behave, I was not often surprised by them.

With eyes so green they put forests to shame, jet black hair as soft as silk, a body that seemed made to look good in anything and a chiselled face curved and sharp in all the right places, such that it was difficult not to stare, I was more than handsome.

It was no wonder I was well liked, despite not liking many people and making no effort to hide it.

I could afford this luxury, as corporations from around the world knocked on my door in want of doing some or other business with Copia. Famed for being a separate entity from the crown, the city of Copia's people wanted for nothing. What we could not make ourselves, we imported. That was the extent to which Copia had allowed anything or anyone past its borders in the last five years.

Now 26, I had not long been a duke when my mother, Lady Cassandra Beaumont, became rather adamant that I marry. To her delight, I had at last agreed.

I had at last allowed myself to be confident that I might now have Lady Emily Maine as my wife and we (even with her father needing much persuasion) had at last, after seven years of friendship, gotten engaged.

And this, I had convinced himself, was my due. This much I might expect from life. I was now a duke, her family's equal, and my rival had proposed to another woman. I thought this meant that we were in the clear. That I might at last love whomever I wanted. I was wrong.

As I stared at the monitor, scrutinising the photograph every noble in Terres Somnia had no doubt gawked at hours earlier when the news broke, I felt my heart break one more time.

I would know her anywhere. Caught in a compromising, passionate, crude kiss with her arms wrapped around the betrothed Prince Aaron. It was nighttime. Aaron's body and dishevelled clothes covered hers and the lighting in the elevator was poor. This was the probable reason that the writer of the article had assumed that Emily was Aaron's fiancée, Lady Zoey Arden.

Both women being blonde and it having been a masquerade ball, it wasn’t such a stretch. Besides, who could’ve imagined that they would do something so stupid in public at Aaron's engagement party?

I understood all too well what would happen now. The House of Arden and the House of Condor were on poor terms as it was. The House of Arden must know about the prince's betrayal by now, or soon would. It would be all about reaction and politics and the dormant feud flaring back up between the two houses. And they were both, King Henry and Duke Arden, merciless men.

It seemed Terres Somnia's darkest hour had come after all and there might be war. How could Aaron be this reckless? Couldn't he at least have been discreet if he had to revert to a past hubris at such a crucial time?

With one more sip of whiskey to wash down the heartache, I called for my car.

I had to leave before Henry found me and tried to manipulate me. I had to buy some time to think. I knew about the scandal that had resulted in Aaron's fiancée being born the bastard child of Duke Arden. Having myself been labelled a bastard on occasion, I found myself thinking of the girl from small town Rosa. She would not be treated kindly.

I'd spent my childhood being hidden away by my parents, only to have to go on the run five years ago when The King's Guard came after me and my mother. I had only recently again emerged into noble society and that too, not as my father's son, but rather as the infamous Duke of Copia.

I risked my now peaceful life to do so, all for Emily. She who had long held my heart.

She claimed to always love me, but things were always somewhat up in the air with her and Aaron. Still, I had let go of my reservations, only to be betrayed.

I spent time catching up with Aaron. It was evident that he did, in fact, intend to marry Zoey. And though it was hardly usual for Aaron to take orders, he seemed so much taken with her that I was certain he had let go of his attachment to Emily.

How could I have made plans for my whole life based on Aaron's word, which had all our lives been unreliable? Zoey's big, round, sparkling hazel eyes lit up by her smile, would not leave me.

Then suddenly, they were before me again. Her hazel eyes were staring out the window of a car in the lane next to mine. They were filled with tears, shock, and devastation. They looked as I felt. I had to save myself somehow, but an overwhelming urge overtook me as I looked upon her.

It was like looking in a mirror. In a moment, I went mad. It was instinct; it was primal. It made absolutely no sense. Being in the public eye would wreck my mother. I didn't need to be part of this war. I could simply disappear again. Yes, it made absolutely no sense, and it absolutely had to be done. I had to help her.

I told myself I was out of my mind as I cut the other car off on the quiet streets of Caines. Zoey was startled. Bart glared and even bared his teeth in a low, threatening growl.

And if I hadn't had the night I'd had, seen the things I'd seen, I might've turned back and gone home to pack. But I had seen. I had been betrayed, and I had laid eyes on her again. Those innocent eyes that would haunt me forever if I didn't get out of the car right then and there.

Flashes of uncertainty accompanied images of Emily's face in my mind, but the pangs of betrayal won out.

Cautious not to make any sudden moves, I got out of the car and raised my hands in surrender.

"Move, Beaumont," Bart yelled, sticking his head out of the window.

The words may as well not have been said, because I was looking only at her. This time she looked back, too, seemingly as transfixed as I was.

At last, I found I could speak after all. Bartholomew, being privy to the details of my upbringing, was undoubtedly justified in being suspicious of me. My mouth moved on its own. I had said it before I even formed the thought.

"I wish to speak to the lady, if she will allow it," I said.

"This is neither the time nor the place, Beaumont. The lady—"

"Will speak with you," she spoke, almost too softly to be heard.

But I heard every sound that she made, so focused was I on her. What could have possessed her to agree to my request, I did not know. She seemed petrified at the very idea, and yet determined to go through with it all the same. Bart drew his fingers through his hair as he contemplated what to do. He gave her a look before he got out of the car and went over to her side to open her door.

"Five minutes," Bart said to me as he watched her walk over to my car. Bart turned his head to his sister. "I will be right here," he promised, folding his arms and leaning against the hood of his car.

She gave Bart a smile and nodded, then her eyes landed on me. Uncertainty and curiosity flooded them as she took unsteady steps towards me.

"What is it you wish to discuss?" she asked in a shaky voice.

What was I doing? I didn't know. This was new for me. I knew which companies I wanted to do business with. I knew instinctively what clothes I would buy when I walked into a*****e. I knew how to solve a problem before it had even been reported to me. What I didn't know was what I was doing in a car with Aaron's fiancée, especially on a night like tonight, when we were both sure to be looked for.

I watched her fidget, playing with her fingers and looking for all the world like she would burst back into tears at any moment. For the second time in my life and that night, my mouth worked faster than my brain.

"Marry me."

The words came out, and I wished them unsaid the next moment. Her large, vulnerable hazel eyes grew even bigger.

"I'm sorry. What did you just say?"

Still the words came, as though without permission.

"Marry me tonight," I said, "and I will protect you."