The Sinful King: (a naughty royals novel) by Claire Contreras

Author:Claire Contreras [Contreras, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780998345611
Publisher: The Wicked Pen
Published: 2020-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The king.

It was impossible, of course. How could the bedridden king make all of that go away? More importantly, why? My gaze traveled back to Elias, who was sipping his tea without a care in the world. His eyes lifted to mine. Of course. He had told me he would do this, after all, hadn’t he? I’d asked him not to meddle, and he did it anyway. I should’ve probably been more upset than I was, but it was hard when I felt such relief. The video had disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. It was gone and no one was allowed to talk about it. Wasn’t that the exact thing my father hated about the monarchy? Wasn’t that the kind of thing he fought against? He hated their power to silence the press, to take away freedom of speech. Personally, I didn’t agree with it either, but in this case it was definitely benefiting me. I was being a hypocrite. I knew I was, but I couldn’t help it. I just wasn’t sure how to deal with Elias. Should I thank him for it? Berate him for it? Leave it alone? He raised an eyebrow and I realized I was still staring. I blinked and looked away.

The queen stood and clinked her glass in a total movie moment move and the entire table quieted down and looked at her. She was smiling wide, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“As many of you know, we have a lot of things happening in our family, but I’m keeping this light and will be toasting to my son, Elias, who has chosen to marry Emily, the Princess of Austria. Cheers to them. May they have a blessed and happy marriage.” She raised her glass higher. Everyone in the room lifted theirs in a series of gasps and cheers. “Long live the Crown.”

“Long live the Crown,” everyone, including myself, repeated.

I set down my glass without taking a sip of champagne. It was bad luck, I was sure, but I couldn’t stomach it right now. It was something I should have been expecting, of course, but to hear it and have it celebrated was different from having Joss and Etienne and my mother tell me about it. Now, it was real. And when I finally chanced a glance in the prince’s direction and caught the Princess of Austria smiling and holding her hand up to show off her ring, it was definitely real. It took everything in me to stay rooted in my seat. It took everything in me to meet Elias’s eyes. He looked solemnly back at me, as if he too was heartbroken at the fact that he was engaged to another woman. Maybe he was. It didn’t matter though. Despite everything he said, he had an opportunity to put a stop to all of this and he continued to play the role of puppet and go along with his family’s wishes.

Shortly after, we all stood from the table, and Prince Elias excused himself for the night.

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