His Royal Sweet Tooth

Chapter 3

My face was hurting from all the smiling.

After numerous retakes with Nicholas, our ‘mini’ talk together was ‘perfect’ and thus made it possible for me to get away from Nicholas as much as I found inside this place.

Hours later, with a full stomach of the tastiest, and best looking food I have ever eaten in my life, it was time to go back to my normal life, filled with burnt toast, and runny eggs.

“Good job today, Charlie.” Christina, another contestant said as we all got into the bus, and sat in our seats.

“You too.” I watch as she sits next to me, smiling from ear to ear.

“I can't believe we just met the king, I'm still in disbelief, even if I didn't win, it's crazy right?” She mumbles on, as I forced a smile, for the millionth time today.

I couldn't share the other contestant's excitement, not when I've not only met him before, but slept with him, and almost… almost had a relationship with him.

Almost, huh?

Who was I kidding? 

Nicholas and I were never going to happen, I knew it as much as he refused to admit it, he was going to be King, and I'm just a baker, who spends too much time in the kitchen, and not enough time for anything else.

Looking back at the palace as the bus drove off, I couldn't help but picture his eyes, the bluest, kindest, yet saddest eyes I had ever seen.

Nicholas looked good, as always, and whilst I was happy to see him, I couldn't help this feeling inside of me that was sad, knowing that this could be the last time I saw, or talked to him.

He was still out of my league, and unreachable, as much as he tried to reach out to me, I knew better than anyone that the best thing I could do was to pretend like none of it happened.

After all this time, I had gotten so good at it, I was starting to believe it never happened.

*****

A week had passed and life was slowly getting back to normal.

My winnings were sitting in the bank and I was still coming into the bakery when I had nothing else to do to help out the shop.

The bakery had only grown in popularity since my win and for that we were constantly sold out by lunch, which made everyone happy to get off work early.

Everyone but me.

I hadn't heard anything from Nicholas since that last texted, when he congratulated me.

Every night before I go to bed, I stare at my phone and wonder if I was doing the right thing by ignoring the texts, wondering if I should just text back, but everytime I do, I turn my phone off.

What would I even say?

We had pretended not to know each other that day at the palace, and I had completely ignored him during the meal he had thrown for the contestants and crew by sitting as far away from him as possible.

It was obvious to nobody but him and I, as I felt him look at me from one end of the long table, to the other where I sat.

I felt suffocated, and guilty for what I did, but I knew it was for the best.

I go to turn off my bedside lamp and then tuck myself into bed, ready to just forget all about today and get some sleep to be ready for tomorrow, but the moment I go to tuck my phone under my pillow, it starts to ring.

Who would be ringing me at this time?

I saw the time before I saw who was ringing me, but when I saw the ‘UNKNOWN’ caller ID, I felt my whole body freeze, and my heart to skip a beat.