ROYAL-TEA [ON HOLD]

1.

"Princess, meet Prince Anthony of England. Son, meet Princess Aaliyah of the United Arab Emirates."

I watched him bow his head at me, and I curtsied in turn, as my governess had taught me. I could see my mother nodding her head in my direction.

"Hello," I said courageously, as my governess had taught me, again. "It's so nice to finally meet you. I have heard so much about you from my parents."

His hostile eyes did not escape my eyesight. Even then, I refused to give in and act like him. I had to be nice, because my parents wanted me to strike a rapport with him.

He definitely was not interested in being friendly because his reply almost gave me a heart attack.

"Well, I have definitely NEVER heard about you... well, until today morning when my parents decided to send me here."

"Anthony, apologise!"

His green eyes bore into mine for close to five seconds before he did as told. I nodded and accepted it graciously, being the civil one, as demanded of me.

My parents expected me to show the mean Prince around while they had grown-up talk. Prince Anthony, who was ten years old, got along with my cousins and brothers pretty well. Funny thing is, he would instantly change when I showed up. He would be mean to me, tug my ponytails, or trip me. He even went as far as breaking my favourite doll.

When asked why, he'd say it was an accident and apologize. I kept acting like a good girl until eventually I couldn't take it.

So I hit him, and he hit me. We got into a brawl, and I won, but not before I got injured. He was not pleased, neither was I. Our parents were angry, and just to punish us, they made us sit next to each other over dinner.

Dinner went well. We both acted well trained. Our parents watched us while they swapped stories and discussed world news. Eventually, they forgot about us.

Anthony, being the jerk that he was, dumped all the tomatoes he had refused to eat on my plate. My eyes widened, and I tossed them back on his. My brothers thought it was a game (I can't really blame them. I was smiling when I did that) and started a food fight.

I crawled under the table to avoid getting hit by him, and left the room angrily. Which saved my pretty dress but made my parents angry with me and him. I was grounded from horseback riding for a month.

All thanks to him.

He blamed me for the food fight and his parents believed him.

Since that day, I came to view this boy as a despicable human being. He had a way of ruining my life with a single word. It scared and angered me. At some point, I stopped going to Britain for family get togethers, amd he stopped comimg to UAE, most probably as his kind of revenge towards me. With his absence, I was able to befriend his sister, cousins and even his parents. They always came looking for me anytime they visited.

As I got older,y parents realized I needed a suitor. Many came asking for my hand in marriage-royalty, noblemen, world politicians' sons, world athletes, prime ministers' sons... and even though we got along well, my parents always said "no."

Then one day, English royalty came a-visiting and my parents seemed quite glad about mentioning Anthony to me. I was a little disturbed by it. They had never been this excited before.

I figured that perhaps it was because they had not visited in months.

When my parents suggested that I accompany them to Britain for a return visit months after the friendly Queen and Prince set foot at our home, I thought, why not?

If only I had known the repercussions of my actions, I'd have run away.