Behind It All (Charles Leclerc FF)

Chapter 2: First Meeting

A/N- Please comment if you do not understand any words! Thank you for reading once again!

I know Charles's Father has passed away. Rest In Peace. It's just that in this book, it's like this! The timeline is present time btw!

So, I'm actually learning French and like I wrote the french myself below. That's why it's there cause usually I'd write English and just italic and underline it because English is my native language. It ends really soon cause I wanted to finish it for y'all faster. (Im lazy)

___________________________________________________________________________
KEY:
amimsie - french (ITALICS and UNDERLINED)

Père - Father

Mère - Mother

Frère - Brother

Beau-père - Father-in-law
___________________________________________________________________________

Last time on "What The Hell Is Going On In My Life", dear Emer, aka me, walks into the room that the supposed waiter that her dear brother assigned. But what does she see? Her lovely family? No! That is not what I was seeing.

What I saw was a confused chocolate haired dude with blue-green eyes staring at me. He seemed to look really familiar. However, I couldn't quite place my finger on who he was.

There was a middle-aged couple right next to him. I assumed them to be his parents. It was a table for 8 but only 3 people were sitting there. All of them were staring at me and expecting me to say something. I was caught off-guard and I quickly composed myself before I made a bigger fool out of myself. I spoke French as I assumed they spoke French as I was in Monaco.

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry for interrupting your lovely dinner! I must have entered the wrong room. I'll be leaving now, thank you!"

"You haven't entered the wrong room, Emeraude"

I cringed at the sound of my full name and the thick familiar French accent that I listened to growing up. I looked behind to see my Father entering with the rest of my family, my mother and brother.

"Père!" I exclaimed. At this point, I was literal confusion.

What the hell was going on now?

"Who are these people? Why are they here? What am I doing here? What are you mad at me for?"

I exclaimed, asking all the questions in one breath. I gasped for air and was about to start speaking again when my father silenced me.

"Emeraude, this is are the Leclercs. They will be joining us for dinner as they want to get to know you."

Get to know me? What does he mean by that?

"Bonjour, je m'appelle Émeraude! Enchantée. Comment allez-vous?" (Hello, my name is Emeraude. Pleased to meet you! How are you?)

They smiled warmly at me and Mr Leclerc replied, "Salut! Ravi de vous rencontrer aussi! Je vais bien. Que diriez-vous de vous?" (Hi! Nice to meet you too! I'm doing great. How about you?)

"I'm doing great! Thank you"

After our brief conversation, the atmosphere turned really awkward. My family didn't seem to notice anything wrong and sat themselves down at the table and I really awkwardly walked over next to my brother and was about to sit down at the table when suddenly, he nudged me forward to sit in front of him and beside the stranger whose name I had yet to learn of, disallowing me to sit next to him.

I shot him an icy glare as I again, awkwardly sat down on the table. My oh-so lovely Brother grinned cheekily as he saw the pure discomfort and disdain I was experiencing.

I could feel the stranger's stare on me and that cause me to feel even more awkward, if that was even possible. I silently nod my head at him and he nodded back. Talk about awkwardness.

Our parents eyed us for a while before my father started speaking.

"For decades, our familes have been the best of friends but we wish to be something more. Have a closer relationship. To do that, we have both decided that you both will be getting married to finally unite our families."

What the freaking hell? I did NOT hear him right. I am not getting married to a stranger and not this close to coronation. I'll never be able to take over!

See, in Monaco, the rule works like this. If you are the female oldest, you can only rule if your last name, the family name, is intact. In other words, not married. This rule was put to ensure that the line would preserve or be given to another house. Therefore, there wasn't actually any queens before, only king consorts. I was supposed to be the first queen.

I sat there silently as I took time to process the information. The person I was betrothed to looked so nonplussed and confused. I don't even know his goddam name.

"Père! No, I can't and would never! How could you ask me to do this? You know what the -"

"Emeraude, quiet!"

"You planned this didn't you? I can't believe you..."

My mother just looked at me with sympathy and my father just ignored my pleas by looking away. My brother sat there with a blank stare that I couldn't see through.

I knew there and then that I would get married to that guy. My father was really stubborn and once he made up his mind, there was no changing it.

I looked at my new fiancé and he seemed... oddly calm. He took in deep breaths and gently asked his father, my soon to be beau-père.

"Father, is that what you really want? If so, I'll marry her."

"Charles, I don't want to burden you and give you trouble with this but this is what I've really wished for a long time- to unite our families."

So his name was Charles Leclerc. It sounded really really familiar but I just couldn't get it.
He seemed to be really obedient seeing as he agreed so easily. I hunched my shoulders in defeat as I proceeded to have the most awkward dinner ever.

He didn't seem to be interested in me so I just ate my food and stared at my brother like a creepy weirdo.

Soon enough, the dinner ended and our families went their separate ways. All through the car ride, I was silent and refused to look at my parents. They just betrayed me and proved that I didn't really matter in their lives. My brother, noticing my mood, decided to keep his usual snarky comments away from me. Well, that was a smart choice. I would have hurt his precious family jewels otherwise.

Once I returned home, I ran to my room, threw my phone away on the carpet and changed my clothes to nightwear. I was feeling really depressed at everything going on in my life and I just needed to slow down and get my head over what just happened this day. I faceplanted on the bed and cried even more.

Why the hell was my life like this?