The Luna Choosing Game

“How long did you wait, Piper? A week? Two? It couldn’t have been long.”

He sounds like he’s jealous. Or was that an illusion? He doesn’t care about me and is just mad at me.

Maybe the latter is more logical.

His dark eyes burned into me, leaving my heart in scorched tatters. Never in a thousand years would i

have thought Nicholas would be so vicious to me.

“It wasn’t like that.” I said, to try to defend myself.

He crossed his hands over his chest. He wasn’t going to listen to me,

“Why even come here?” he asked me.

“My application was selected…”

“Why even apply? Were you trying to get to me?”

“No,” I said.

“Maybe you regret your child’s father. Maybe you want me back.” He laughed once, bitterly. “Like you

have a chance.”

The words sliced into me as surely as if he’d been holding a knife. He had changed since I’d known him.

Three w

years ago, he’d been kind and patient. I’d given him my heart and he’d gently cradled it. So many

nights, we’d laid under the stars, trading kisses and stories.

Once, when he’d spent all night looking at me, I had told him, “You’re missing the

starlight.”

He’d replied, “I can see it in your eyes.”

The man before me now was nothing like the one I had known. The man here was arrogant, indifferent. and imposing in how he carried himself.

Breaking up with him had never been something I wanted to do. It hurt me still, thinking upon it, so I had tried to push it to the back of my thoughts

so many other things to focus on like work, and caring for Elva, that

him now and seeing what he had become, brought all

+15 BONUS

misremembering the past.

that young,

I said, adding some bite to my own voice. The hurt

mistake, and I intend to correct

coldly that a chill ran along my spine. “You are the only woman who ever dared to break

turned and left me, then, walking out into the sitting room, and then out into the parlor. I thought he might slam the

Elva continued resting, undisturbed.

wanted to hate

hadn’t slammed that door. He might be a cruel, insensitive bastard but he liked children. He’d been kind

to hate

beside

Elva would have been our child. If we had stayed together, maybe he would have revealed his secret in time. Maybe the three of us could

was a

My reality was very far from these golden fixtures and

to go home

I

was

quickly, my own

me Excuse me,

open

your pardon, miss, but the King Luna, and princes have arrived, I suggest you hurry to the parlor at

my

up again, he was already disappearing

couch, watching me with curious eyes. “Is it time for

my softest smile. It is. We have to be quiet though, okay?

Luna are talking.”

“Okay”

into my arms and camed her

the parlor, the royal family was standing atop some type

side. The three

than he did on the bills in my purse. He was pale with hollowed out cheeks, but

himself well and his voice camed far, like he was

he said, calming the crowd and gaining their attention “Congratulations on having

by your presence

whispered something in the King’s