Accidental Royalty

“We are never, ever, ever getting back together. You go talk to your friends talk to my friends talk to me, but we are never ever, ever, ever getting back together.” – We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift

Chapter One

“I’m done!”

Two simple words, which could be interpreted in so many different ways. There was always the happy exclamation over the fact that you were finished with whatever you had been working on, or the relieved version that could be taken the same way. There was the sad, all-hope-has-been-abandoned kind of “I’m done”, which was a rather depressing “I’m done” indeed.

But this one wasn’t happy, or relieved, or sad. It was angry, which was the worst kind of all.

The angry “I’m done” is almost always used in break ups, and it almost always means that one person has given up on the relationship and has lost hope that the squabble would ever end. And this was the kind of “I’m done” that Marianna had used on me before she had thrown her engagement ring in my face and stormed out of my hotel room.

Our break up had been completely unnecessary and an in-the-heat-of-the-moment decision on Mari’s part – at least, I hoped so. We were due to be married in three days, and God knows how well the fact that I practically got left at the altar would go over with the family. They all adored Mari, especially my sisters, and wouldn’t let me live it down, something that I was not looking forward to.

Which is why I found myself standing in front of a “hip” coffee shop somewhere amongst the extensive streets of Manhattan, clutching a to-go cup of rapidly cooling tea and waiting for some sign of my former fiancée.

Shifting my weight from one foot to another to try and generate some heat, I took another sip from the small paper cup in my hand. The tea wasn’t all that great, but seeing as it was really the only thing keeping me warm at the moment, I wasn’t complaining. I was used to cold winter temperatures – England wasn’t exactly a tropical paradise – but New York gave the word a whole new meaning. Even under three jumpers and a coat, accompanied with a scarf, a hat, and some very warm socks, I was freezing. Mari better show up soon, I thought to myself, shoving one of my quickly numbing hands into my coat pocket.

I glanced inside the window of the coffee shop, looking at the black-rimmed clock mounted on the wall opposite. 3:37, it read, and my agitation grew. I had told Mari to meet me at the café at three, and she was now 37 minutes late. The girl was rarely on time to any place, but she was never more than five or ten minutes over. At nearly forty, I was about to give up hope. The message was clear – she didn’t want to see me, even if it meant sacrificing a trip to her favorite café.

A large cloud of steam billowed out of my mouth as I sighed and threw the half-empty cup of tea into a rubbish bin. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I began trudging down the street, now at a complete loss. What was I supposed to do? Mari was probably the love of my life, and now she was gone, just like that. I didn’t know how we were going to patch things up before the wedding was supposed to happen, if we patched things up at all.

My thoughts turned to the fight from the night before. How was I supposed to know that she was going to be in New York that day, and would expect me to do something grand for our anniversary? She was supposed to be in some sunny, tropical island somewhere, filming for whatever movie she was working on now. But apparently, the second that she had learned that I was going to be in New York the day of our anniversary (I was supposed to be sitting in on some UN thing, which I had promptly ditched), she had started making plans to visit. Along the way, Mari had somehow gotten it into her head that I would magically know of her arrival and have the most romantic evening planned for her.