I got up much earlier than I wanted to the next morning, but the tea we had started at noon and I had been too tired to shower after the ball so I not only had to be made up all prim and proper but also had to take a shower.
Luckily, I had Alessia with me to dry my long, thick hair for me. It took an ungodly amount of hair spray and bobby pins and nearly forty-five minutes to put my hair up in some elaborate updo with a braid that I never could've done myself. I had been braiding my hair since I was little, my mom had taught me before she died, but there was no way I could do what Alessia did. I hated wearing my hair up, I had long, beautiful, thick hair and I wanted to show it off but it was apparently not regal or proper or whatever.
The outfit they picked for me was a bright yellow sundress that fell to the floor but had a scoop neck and a slit to the thigh to make it more casual. I wore a pair of nude strappy heels She added some pearl earrings and a matching necklace to make me look completely unlike myself.
I wasn't a tomboy who wouldn't dress up or do my makeup or anything like that, my style was a bit more bold and, at times, risqué and borderline inappropriate. Not exactly the style that gets your father's approval or that's appropriate in royal settings.
I met with Anthony before heading down to the garden to get the school and the lay of the land before he threw me to the wolves.
There hadn't been a media presence at the ball the night before other than a few well-respected members of the press that wrote for legitimate news sources, mainly Meldevan ones, who apparently all wrote very nice stories. Today, unfortunately, would be our first contact with the media.
Anthony told me I had created quite the buzz in the tabloids. Like I said, I was a wild child who did my fair share of partying and more and sometimes I paraded my wild nature around and had more than a few altercations with people with cameras before dropping off the face of the earth at 20. I was the only daughter, the rebellious youngest child turned prodigal daughter who dropped off the face of the earth after a semi-public life filled with several semi-public breakdowns and run-ins with the media. And now, here I was, trying to win the affection of a prince and become a queen.
I was dreading the press, dreading the socialization with the other girls, but I knew that I might actually get a chance to talk to Logan.
So I sucked it up and walked through the maze that was the castle and made my way down to the gardens with Anthony where I was greeted by a flurry of voices and flashing cameras.
They were preoccupied with talking to the other girls when I walked into the garden which was more like some elaborate outdoor sitting room. But as soon as they saw me, they swarmed like bees, all yelling my name to get my attention.
Yeah, this wasn't going to be fun and it wasn't going to win me any friends if I was stealing all the media attention.
Juliette! What made you decide to come back to high society?
Are you talking to your father again?
What makes you think you have a shot with the prince?
But I couldn't answer their questions, I didn't even have a smart-ass answer, I just froze because the lights and the yelling brought me back to nearly fifteen years ago at my mother's funeral while the cameras swarmed me and my brother and sister in law as we came out of the church to go to the cemetery.
"Alright, that's enough," the strong, commanding voice of Queen Maria ordered, walking up behind me, "You've bombarded these girls enough, it's time to leave," she added, a grimace on her face and her voice stern as the camera flashes stopped and the crowd fell silent.
YOU ARE READING
not a fairytale
RomanceJuliette Lombardo lives the absolute definition of a carefree life. Living off of a hefty inheritance from her ultra-wealthy and connected father in Venice far away from the eyes of her father and her eight brothers while working as a waitress and...