“Nya?” Annie’s voice quavered a bit, and it reminded her of her father.

Would you leave me, too?

There was a noise above them—a sudden summer rain peppering the roof of the gazebo. It came down hard and unrelenting, blurring the colorful flowers outside the gazebo behind a wall of liquid gray.

“Praise Ingoka, bestower of blessings!” Annie said in a steadier voice, raising her hands and clapping. “‘The goddess cries when good tidings arise.’”

Nya was confused at the sudden shift in the mood in the gazebo. “Wait—”

“I was worried, but this is a good omen. Your grandfather will be so happy! Both of our granddaughters have found their true love match!” Annie let out a joyous ululation, her anger apparently having been washed away by Ingoka’s tears.

Nya sighed. She hadn’t been wrong about the goddess getting a good laugh from her life.

“Not quite the reaction I expected,” Johan said from beside her. His hand slid over hers and she was certain he would remove the ring. Instead, he ran his thumb over it absently, then over the sensitive skin on the back of her hand.

She shivered; the brush of such a small, inane patch of skin shouldn’t have made her whole body tense in anticipation.

Of what?

She looked up at Johan, at the muted sunlight filtering through his long lashes and the contented look on his face. He glanced at her, and the side of his mouth that was in her line of sight curled upward. “We’ll just have to try harder to shock them. If you wish.”

His thumb brushed her hand again, somehow both a threat and a promise of what shocking things they could do. Together.

This was just an act. This was just a dating simulation in three dimensions. She would live this fake happily-ever-after until the end credits rolled, because even if her dreams were too big, they were hers.

She wasn’t going to let this one be a disappointment.

“Yes. Let’s shock everyone,” she said, and she meant it.

Chapter 8

Last night, when I tucked Johan in bed after the wedding rehearsal dinner, he was quieter than usual. When I asked him what was wrong, he said that he was worried. Worried that he would lose me, now that I was going to be wife to a king and queen to our people, and worried that his jealousy meant he was a bad boy. I will never stop marveling at how much this boy feels, and how he pays attention to those feelings. I told him that he would never lose me, no matter what. Then he asked me why I had to marry Linus anyway and I tried not to laugh. I just told him that one day, he’d meet someone special, and he’d have his answer then.

—From the journal of Queen Laetitia von Braustein, Private Collection of the Castle von Braustein Library

What’s the script, mate?” Tavish asked before taking a sip of his beer. He and Thabiso had stopped by Johan’s room after the subdued engagement celebration—a big party would take away from the wedding they’d just attended. Nya and Johan didn’t want to be those wedding guests, and besides, having a real party for a fake engagement seemed a bridge too far, even for Johan.

“Yeah.” Thabiso had been looking at Johan strangely since he’d arrived back from the gazebo, with Nya wearing his mother’s ring and Annie shouting the good news to everyone. “How did this situation arise? Because you’ve never paid her any mind, from what I could tell. And she thought you were weird.”

Johan transferred a crisply folded oxford shirt into his suitcase, laying it deftly over the disgruntled face of Bulgom Pamplemousse, who had been safely stowed away before his friends had come into the room.

Thabiso was one of the people that Johan didn’t lie to. Not really. But he couldn’t reveal that he was just as confused as everyone else. He’d spent the whole evening trying to pinpoint the exact moment when his last shred of control had been carried off by a passing bird or gust of wind.

When exactly he’d lost his damn mind.

He’d intended to find Nya in the garden, tell her about the annoying article in the paper, say he’d enjoyed their time together, then bid her farewell. He’d considered what Linus had asked of him, but had ruled it out because, well, he did like Nya. And he really didn’t want to. He’d been so close to making a clean getaway, but when he’d stepped into the gazebo and found her sitting beneath a trellis festooned with flowers and the sunlight pouring over her, he’d been unable to resist the fairy-tale bait.

He’d mimed for her, for God’s sake. He kept all photos from his miming phase in a lockbox, but he’d happily busted some moves for her without a second thought.

Now he could only await the despair.

“Weren’t you just telling me I couldn’t be a bachelor forever?” he asked, deflecting.

“I did say that.” Thabiso pushed off the wall and strode over to where Johan was packing, casually flipping the suitcase closed. “But I didn’t expect you to jump on the first vulnerable woman you encountered and ask for her hand in marriage.”

Ouch. Johan hadn’t expected Thabiso to be supportive, exactly, but was this how his best friend saw him?

“We already told you how this happened,” he said blandly, tucking away that bit of hurt. “It’s not real.”

“That makes it worse,” Thabiso said. “Nya’s not a woman to be dated and disposed of, like you usually do.”