The Luna Choosing Game

I stared at Julian, disbelieving my ears. Did he really just ask me for a solo date?

Yet everyone in the whole ballroom was looking at us. Julian still held the microphone up to his mouth.

This was definitely happening. It wasn’t a dream.

Which meant that Julian was up to something.

“Why?” I asked, before I could think better of it.

A few girls around me gasped. Only then did I realize my mistake and covered my mouth.

Julian also looked shocked, his eyes going wide for a moment. But then, just as quickly, he burst out

laughing.

His good humor seemed to erase the surprise of the other onlookers. Everyone seemed to think I had

been telling a joke.

With the microphone lowered, he said to me, “I insist this request is genuine, Piper.”

I didn’t believe him.

Julian always played the angles. Asking me on a date had to be some kind of move for his benefit, but I

couldn’t begin to figure out how. I’d only scratched the surface of the inner politics of the royal family.

waited for my answer. Everyone

he was using me, even if I didn’t know how, but I couldn’t exactly turn him down. He was a

was a competition. I was just

said, “I

microphone, he announced,

of the girls clapped politely.

be tomorrow,” he said, no longer speaking to me, but to

stood. His face was an emotionless

stared straight at

I

tell him that this didn’t mean anything. Julian was only

again, likely just for the sake

without publicly dismissing Julian. I

Nicholas didn’t need an explanation anyway. We weren’t anything to

anymore

fierce, hurt gaze had triggered something inside of me,

me screamed to

nothing like

look had dimmed. Now he seemed

away from me and, even an hour later, had

girls, meanwhile, were positively charmed by Julian and his antics. Even after he had

could not stop telling me