30 Days As A Substitute Prince

Chapter 18

Dania thought of all the possible reasons why a guard would kidnap her, not even knowing that it was her brother who had pulled her into the room. 

Chad closed the door so that they could have privacy, ensuring  that his hand was still over Dania's mouth so that she wouldn't scream. 

He yelped in shock and pulled his hand away swiftly when she bit down on his palm, and with one twirl Dania was ready to haul her purse to his head until she saw who it was. 

“Chad?” she questioned in confusion as he blew on his new bruise. She really bit him hard. 

“Yes. But keep your voice down. Nobody knows,” he whispered as he pulled her farther into the music room. 

With the padded walls, this was the safest place to talk to Dania without being heard. 

Dania eyed him in scrutiny. She couldn’t understand what he was doing in clothes like that, here in the royal palace looking like a prince. 

“Chad, what is going on?” she asked as she took a step closer to him. 

Chad gulped. Out of all the things he anticipated in this month, this was not one of them. He knew his sister wouldn’t have necessarily opposed it, but just like Joshua, she would’ve been sceptical. 

Still, Chad’s palms grew sweatier by the minute every time he thought of confessing to her. But he knew he had to, even if that meant that she’d slap him over his head and pinch his nose. 

And so, he did. 

He told her everything from the minute he met Zadkiel, to this very moment, leaving out nothing and including everything—even Heather and his feelings towards Aria. 

When he was done, Dania just stared at him dumbfounded. At one end she was impressed that he had been pulling this off for a little over two weeks, but at the same time she wanted to scold him for being so dumb. 

It took a while for her to process everything, and when she did, she finally gave Chad the slap he had been anticipating. 

“Are you mad?” she whisper shouted after now seeing the importance of the silence. 

Chad sighed. “Dania…” 

“You’re falling in love with the princess! While her husband will be back in two weeks? Really Chad?” 

“I know, Dania. I tried to keep distance between us but…” 

“But?” she urged with a raised eyebrow. 

“But it’s nearly impossible. I have never felt this way for someone before. And I know this is crazy, which is why I want to stay with you once this is all over.” 

It made sense to Chad to kill two birds with one stone. He had been thinking hard on his next move once this was all over. If Zadkiel’s plan of getting them out of trouble actually works and he is not sentenced to death, Chad was considering moving away like his sister did. 

And since she is the only family he has left, it wouldn’t be bad to stay with her until he could get on his feet in the new country. She lived in England after moving again last year from the US, simply because it was too far from home. 

“You’re coming to live with me? Like I always wanted?” At one end Dania was happy, but on the other, she was thinking about all the trouble her younger brother had put himself in. 

“Yes.” 

Dania nodded slowly, since she was still processing. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what you’re saying is, you are pretending to be a prince in order to help the real prince get a shot at freedom, but in doing so, you are falling in love with the princess, and she is too, and at the end of September you and the real prince will reveal the truth, break her heart and you’ll sail away to live with me in England?”