Highness (The Lonely Heart Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

from pissing your life away and calling it looking for yourself ?”
    “This comes from a man who has known exactly what he wanted to be since the day he was pulled from his mother’s womb,” Michael snarled.  “All hail the king.”
    “Well, Michael, as much as I love you, it’s a well-known fact that you were born without a compass at all.  That is not my fault, but it has been my burden.”
    “Was I brought out here to be chastised, or is there a real purpose for this meeting?” Michael asked, rolling his eyes.  He was growing tired of the conversation. 
    Richard cut to the chase.  “Mother wants to know details.  She doesn’t understand why you broke up with Thalia and neither do I.  She’s beautiful and bright.  She comes from a good family, and she understands protocol.  What is there not to love about the girl?”
    Michael’s cool façade broke.  With slumped shoulders, he shook his head.  “She doesn’t love me – not Michael…the man.  I would think that such a thing would be a prerequisite for marriage.”  Michael finished the contents of his glass and stared into the bottom of the glass.  He smiled as he recalled the encounter.   “We were having a quiet night in and after a few drinks, we started to talk about our relationship and that’s when she dropped the bomb on me.  She said that she had known since she was a child that she would be a princess.  When we started to date, she picked out her wedding dress.  By the time that I proposed, she had already picked out our children’s names.” He paused.  “ Dreadful ones by the way .” 
    Richard raised a brow.  “I don’t see the problem.  She’s aggressive and knows what she wants.  What’s wrong with that?”
    A chill ran down Michael’s spine.  “It wouldn’t be an issue if she loved me, but she does not.”
    Richard audibly gaffed. “How can you be sure?”
    “She told me!”  Michael’s voice rose.  He hit his knee. “I asked her out right if she would have given me a second look had I not been the Prince and she said no.  She said sure she would have slept with me, but there was no way that I was marriage material.” He threw up his hands.  “But the consolation prize was that she was sure that she would grow to love me, because right now she was incredibly fond of me.  Fond of me , Richard!  She’s been lying the entire time.  Normally, she’s demure and so well-poised until you completely miss that under all of those hours of etiquette training and charm school.”
    “So what made her suddenly be so honest with you?” Richard asked.
    “The wine. The notion that we’d gotten so far in the planning stages of this fucking wedding that it was too late to end things.  Maybe she just wanted me to know that she’d gotten over on me.” He felt himself hyperventilating little bit.
    “Stop your dramatics.  Maybe she was just drunk,” Richard rationalized.
    “Well, here is a question for you. If you weren’t going to be the next King of England, would Madeline have married you and given you children?”
    “Yes.” Richard defended, as if any other situation would have been ludicrous.
    “My point exactly.” Michael said, point made. 
    “This isn’t a reason to call off a wedding that millions have already been spent on,” Richard said, feeling badly for his brother, but unwilling to show it.  “You have no idea if she was just drunk. From what I’ve heard, you ended things and stormed out.  There was no clarification on anything.  It was a slip of the tongue and too many drinks.  You can’t possibly hold that against her.”
    “Wouldn’t you clear out if a woman told you that?  This is my life we are talking about, Richard.  The woman whom I choose to be a permanent part of it should at least know something more about it than the fact that I’m second in line to be king.”  Michael rolled his eyes under his heavy lashes and clutched the glass closer in his hands.