not a fairytale

eleven

 We spent the weekdays mostly with the other girls, we went around town and had a few public appearance things but nothing too crazy. I kept up with what the press was saying, what the people online who followed the royal families of Europe and everyone loved me and talked me up. Talking about how my family lineage was basically royal and rivaled that of majority of the girls in the contest. After all, Meldeva was such a relatively young country, Logan's parents were only the fifth King and Queen, their nobility wasn't as well known or high ranking in the grand scheme of things. The descendant of a Medici? Everyone knew who that was. Adding that my father's family had ties to the first settlers in the Lombardy region in northern Italy, I was practically royalty anyway.

I knew it was good for me in the grand scheme of things for people to be talking about me but that also meant that the other girls were angrier that I was there and on their turf.

The upcoming weekend we the start of the Meldevan Independence festivities. The Independence Day Derby was the first event to celebrate and the first big race in the Mediterranean of the year. We were really out in the public now and in with the people at all the events during the days and then with the nobles and other high society from Meldeva and some of the other smaller island countries.

I wasn't too worried about the derby, I'd been to my fair share of horse races, if there was money being gambled away and important people in Italy or anywhere in Europe, my dad was usually there. It was a good excuse to mingle with other important people, most of whom my dad wouldn't want me sleeping with and I typically could find at least one or more willing participants at some sort of after party.

The Royal Family obviously had their own box at the race track and had another reserved for the girls in the contest and anyone that came along with them.

We had just a little bit of downtime during the week, the derby and the picnic we were having was on a Friday followed by the Regatta the next afternoon.

I wasn't a huge fan of hats, but the massive outrageous ones people wore to these things were so extra and I was all about being extra.

I had a massive black hat with a tulle bow around it and a huge brim that had a layer of tulle under it as well. Alessia stuck to simple makeup today, I just had some slight black eyeliner to accentuate my eyes. She put on a fairly natural finish foundation but really contoured my face without it being too overboard. I again wore a deep red lipstick to have a pop of color with my white dress with a few different sized black stripes. The straps on the dress fell about halfway off my shoulder but were structured enough to have it not fall. The dress had a v-neck neckline and the stripes on the bodice followed the same angles that the v-neck of the dress had, but then were horizontal on the skirt. I was going to wear my mom's red heels but Alessia had a pair of Tiffany blue heels that matched the Tiffany necklace my dad had bought me before I left for Sicily that all matched a Tiffany blue crossbody bag. It was totally extra but then again, so was I.

Nobody really knew why I ran away, everyone assumed I just didn't want to live under my dad's rules anymore, but it was more than that.

My mom had been killed in a car accident that was orchestrated by another family, she had been riding with my dad's driver when it happened. She never liked to be driven around, but she had taken me back to Sicily after what was supposed to be a trip to Switzerland with my brothers and I got upset about something and my dad got upset with me because of it and they ended up fighting and she took me back to Sicily. She'd only agreed to have the driver pick us up because she was angry and exhausted and whoever had been targeting him hadn't known it was her and I in the car and not him.

It traumatized me, obviously, but my dad had no idea what to do with me so he sent me to New York to live with my mom's parents who had gone there when they retired. One of my brothers was going to school there anyway so he figured sending me away would help me. I don't know if it did, but I came back at twelve hating my dad for sending me away. Which was probably why I was out sleeping with inappropriate boys and partying by the time I was 16. I got so sick of the comparisons to my mom, how much I looked like her and people asking me what she'd think about different things that were happening with our family I got so sick of it. I had to leave. My dad remarried when I was 16 too, that didn't help anything. I put up with it for three more years but I took off a few weeks after I turned 20. Everything in my father's house reminded me of my mom and it sort of comforted me, but this new woman wanted nothing more than to erase any trace of her and I couldn't take it.