Marie-Anne's POV

"My mum," he says. I take out the small white particle he had on his hair. I show it to him "thanks," he says looking at me. He stares at me, our eyes lock into each other.

We both lean over, our lips almost touching...

Tyler pulls away quickly scratching his throat, "Get some rest, I'll see you later," he says getting up. He doesn't wait for me to answer, he walks away slamming the door loudly. I slap myself internally, what is wrong with me? I look at one of the closed doors in the room, that must be the bathroom. I take off my clothes, wrapping my hair with a scarf to take a warm shower.

''''''''''

I get out of the bathroom feeling relaxed and fresh from the warm bath. I must have been in there for thirty minutes. I open my luggage deciding to wear a short light pink dress. The top of the dress is sparkling. Not knowing if my open shoulder would appropriate, I put on a gray jacket which matches my flats. My hair is in its natural state, so I put it in a messy high bun. I put on some light make-up. I am barely done when I hear a knock on the door. "Come in," I say loud enough from the bathroom for the person to hear.

I come out and see Tyanna standing there in an elegant knee length royal blue dress that hugs her curves perfectly. Her tight curls form an afro on her making her look even more beautiful. "You look absolutely stunning," she says in her thick accent.

"Thank you, you look stunning also," I return the compliment.

"We should go, my father does not like tardiness," I nod my head and exit with her closing the door. "There will be a lot of people at the dinner because we are hosting many due to the unfortunate loss," Oh, I forgot to say sorry for her loss.

"I'm sorry about your grandmother," I tell her. Tyler doesn't care about her but doesn't mean she doesn't.

"Thank you," she says, "she was old and old people die," okay, she is exactly like Tyler. She didn't even flinch once I mentioned her. We walk for a while before we reach the dining room. Many are already seated, the queen and king are each at one end of the table. Many starts to stare at us, I put my head down due to nervousness.

"Tyanna, you are late," the new king says. Tyanna walks to him and tells me to follow her.

"Curtsy," she whispers to my side. "Father," she says curtsying. I look at her and do the same. "A princess is never late, everyone else is simply early," she says. Her father makes a hand gesture making us look at him. This is absolutely nerve wracking. Her father chuckles at her quote from 'The Princess Diaries'.

"Hello, you must be Marie," her father says now looking at me.

"Yes sir," I answer. I didn't want to say the sir. I think I should have said your highness or something. How do you call a king? He chuckles giving me a smile.

"Please call me Tyronne," he says. "Shall we begin?" He asks. Tyanna nods her head and tells me to follow her. There are two empty seats close to the king and we both take a seat. I sit next to Tyanna who is sitting across from Tyler. After I have seated, our eyes lock into each other and he immediately puts his head down.

Servants come in starting to serve everyone, there must be at least twenty people here. I only know the queen, king, Tyanna, and Tyler, everyone else is strangers. Chatter started as everyone waited for their food.

"This is my fiancee," Tyanna says pointing to the young man who is sitting beside her. He leans in and mouths a hello to me. "These are my uncles and aunts," she says pointing to multiple couples who are sitting up the table. "And these are cousins, friends," she says pointing to the rest of the people.

"Do you all live here?" I ask her. The palace is big, but this seems like a lot of people to live in one place.

"No," she says, "they are here to grieve," she says doing air quotation marks around grieve. "Only the queen lived here, my father and his siblings are Duke and Dutchess, they have their own land to take care of. Since the queen is dead, my father is in charged and now he will live here," she informs me.

"Marie, my son tells me you're a lawyer," the king says trying to start a conversation with me. Everyone at the table quiets down and turns to look at me. I gulp down not knowing why everyone is staring at me.

"I am," I say. I look at Tyler who is playing with his food, lost in another world. He looks down, I look down to see what he is doing and see him on his phone. He must have felt me staring at him because he looks up raising his eyebrows.

"Mhmm," he says taking a sip of his red wine. "Ty," he says calling Tyler. Tyler looks up lost of what's going on. "Are you okay?" He asks.

"Um...no, may I be excused?" He asks. His father looks at me then at him.

"You may leave," the queen is now talking. That's the first time I've heard her talk all night.

"Thank you," Tyler says leaving. He walks quickly out of the room, everyone goes back to their conversations like nothing happened.

''''''''''

"Did something happen between you and my brother?" Tyanna asks as we walk to my room. Thank goodness that dinner was over, the king and queen asked me a bunch of question about what I do. I thought it was weird, but Tyanna says it's because they love a woman who is in power.

"No," I say, "why do you ask?" I ask her. We only almost kissed, nothing weird happened.

"He seemed disturbed," she says. We reach my room and she stands there thinking. "Do you care about my brother?"

"Yes, I do," I tell her honestly. That's one thing I am sure of, I care about him.

"Like a lover or a brother?" She asks me.

"Um...I don't know," I tell her honestly. Is there a difference? All that matters is that you care about the person.

"You care about him as a brother," she says, "look my brother has had over a decade to enjoy life, but now he has work to do and he can't do that when his heart is still in the states. Can you just tell him how you feel so he can let you go?"

"But..." I start.

"The sooner he gets it in the back of his head, the sooner he does his job," she says.

"I thought you cared about him," I tell her, "can't you see that he doesn't want to be a royal?"

"I'm sorry that Tyler does not want to be royal, I'm sorry that he is stuck here, he is my twin I would do anything for him, but he was born for this exact reasons. I hate standing here and seeing him hurt and maybe if you tell him he will just get to work." She starts to walk away.

"Where's his room?" I ask her. I don't care about his work, but she is right he needs to know how I truly feel. He needs to know the truth.

AN

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