The Prince That Got Away ( A Royal Romance Novel )

The Fisher King

Seven Years Ago...
Emilia's POV:-
The last two months of my life had been straight out of a nightmare. In fact, these days when I woke up it felt like my reality was bleaker than my worst dreams. It had been more than two months since my dad left us. I never used the word 'died' for him. I loathed that particular word with every part of my being since Dad passed away.

" You should come tonight. I talked to your mom and she told me she was fine with anything if it meant you getting out of the house. " Tessa was on the phone. She had been constantly trying to take me out for eating or shopping which was her way of trying to make me feel better. I certainly couldn't remember the last time I left the house.

I would mostly just lie in bed and do nothing else except use my phone sometimes. Getting out of bed even for drinking a glass of water felt like a colossal effort. At first, I was just numb. Now my mind has started to process everything that had happened, all of it that I wished I could forget.

Since the beginning of the year, my life has been turbulent, to say the least. It started with my joining Ethelred school, then a string of terrible things happened one after another. Tessa's father went to prison, and we both got ostracized by the other students. Tessa because of her dad and me because I didn't stop being friends with her.

I was managing nevertheless. The other students were never really sincere friends of mine, and I knew most of them just used me when they needed help with their studies. So it's not like I mourned losing them. But then Sandra started acting up.

She had been that way ever since Freddy broke her heart again. Though she would never admit it, I knew she would have given him another chance. If it only hadn't been revealed that he was just trying to get back with her due to his selfish reasons. He wasn't leaving his wife for Samantha. In fact, his wife Nora had thrown him out after she caught him cheating on her.

I was prepared for Samantha to feel depressed. I was even trying to think of ways I could make her feel better. But what I wasn't prepared for was the sudden change in her personality. She had always had a temper but now it became worse. She oozed bitterness and was always passive-aggressive. With me, she was the worst. It always felt like she was judging me. At first, I felt I was only imagining it but it soon became obvious that I wasn't.

I remember that day when we were all sitting at the dinner table and I was regaling everyone with tales and gossip from my school. Most of it consisted of my friends Roman and Tessa. I didn't tell my family that they were together as they weren't ready to make things public. I remember leaving the dining room to get something from the kitchen when I overheard Samantha.

" Haven't you guys noticed how she talks about Roman all the time? She obviously has feelings for him! We all know Emilia is more naive and sheltered than I ever was and the boys of this school are notorious. A rich boy like him is never going to want anything long-term with her. You should be keeping an eye on her unless you want her to end up like me!"

Once upon a time, whenever she would imply that she didn't want me to share her fate, I would feel sorry for her. I would feel more determined to meet her expectations and give her anything she asked of me. It was because instead of treating me as competition like some siblings did, she wanted better for me. The fact that anyone could love me so selflessly touched me. Now I notice how easy it made for Samantha to control me.

Maybe I was bitter. Maybe she did want to protect me. But now it felt like she was choking me with the amount of restrictions and control she was imposing on me. I didn't feel as carefree as the other people of my age. I felt like the world was a battlefield and there was danger at every corner.

A week after, Samantha crossed all limits and went through everything on my phone while I was away at school. I had forgotten to put a password on my new phone and my older sister made full use of this. She now knew about the romantic poems I wrote and even some of the erotica I read from time to time and the celebrities I stalked on social media. All of it left me feeling embarrassed and exposed.