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"You knew, didn't you?" I ask. "When did Lily tell you?"
She doesn't answer me.
"When did she tell you?" I shout at her.
She stares at her feet. "A little after you showed up to the ranch."
I reflect on all the time we've spent together since then. The entirety of our engagement. It feels like a full lifetime has passed in such a short amount of time.
My rage bubbles over. "You've been holding this secret for that long? She's been holding this secret for that long?"
"I didn't want to hurt you," she says with tears in her eyes.
"So instead you joined in with everyone else lying to me. And after all the talk you gave me about phonies."
"Alex..." she starts to say before trailing off.
"Turns out you were half-right," I tell her with disdain. "I wasn't a prince pretending to be a rancher. It's always been the other way around. I'm just a sham. Like this whole relationship."
She shakes her head. "That's not true."
"I was starting to think..." I stop myself.
I allowed myself to think that we could be something real. I fell for it, just like everyone else.
Bella had stirred real emotions in me, from the very first day we met. But clearly, she didn’t respect me enough to tell me the truth. She knew about my life but didn’t tell the one person it impacted directly.
She looks at me with her wet eyes. "Alex, what do you want to say to me?"
"I just want to say congratulations," I manage to spit out. "You've done your duty to Lily. You protected her at all costs, damn anyone else. It must have been hell to pretend to care about me for so long."
The bitterness in my words is almost palpable.
"You don't have to pretend anymore, Bella. It's over. It's all over."
I glance at the crowd, a sea of faces in shock, disbelief, and judgment. "Ladies and gentlemen, my sincere apologies for the events that have unfolded tonight. It seems the party has come to an end. It's become clear that the engagement is off."
I start to walk out of the room. Bella reaches out for me. "Alex, please."
“Don’t.” I step into the hallway, not turning back. I lock the door behind me and feel the tears start to sting.
I started this day as the son of Ronaldi, a prince of Solvaria. And yet I was in line to be heir to the throne. I was the future husband of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. The love of my life.
Now the only thing I know about myself for certain is that I'm the illegitimate accident who nobody actually wanted.
32
ISABELLA
Along with everyone else, I watch Alex disappear out of the ballroom. But I’m the only one who’s watching her life disappear along with him.
Slowly all the eyes turn from him to me. Alex’s brothers are still standing there, obviously shocked. And as beautiful as the speeches were, especially Christian’s, he doesn’t actually know me. He only knows me from the lie that we told the world.
I can’t imagine what he thinks of me. Or maybe I can. Which is probably worse.
What do I do?I think frantically. I’m in a foreign country, surrounded by people who I don’t know. The man I’m in love with just looked at me like I completely betrayed him. Which I guess I did.
You can hear a pin drop in the ballroom.
