Stay with me

✧The Proposal ✧

They walked through the court in silence, thick and awkward, the kind that sits in your chest and demands to be filled. Danica kept glancing sideways at the sculpted hedges and stone archways lining the garden path, half-searching for something safe to say, some comment about the scenery that might break the tension. She'd just opened her mouth to try when Hans beat her to it.

"Don't fret." His hands were clasped neatly behind his back, voice cool and unreadable. "I just needed an excuse to get away from my parents. This was the only one I had."

She blinked, thrown off completely. "Escape? From your own parents?" It came out half a question, half disbelief. What kind of prince needed an escape from the two people the entire kingdom envied him for having?

His jaw tightened. When he spoke again, his voice dropped low, but the frustration under it was impossible to miss. "Because I can't stand them."

That landed harder than she expected. They passed under a vine-covered archway into the garden's center, tulips and hibiscus blooming in loud, deliberate color on either side of the path. Danica slowed, chose her next words carefully.

"Forgive me, Your Grace — but what exactly did you mean by that?"

He exhaled and dragged a hand through his hair, undoing some of its careful styling in the process. "Honestly? This entire marriage thing. It's not mine. I never asked for it. Don't want it now. Might never want it."

Her steps slowed to match his. Something cautious and unexpected stirred in her chest — she hadn't imagined he'd admit any of this, let alone this openly, to a stranger he'd known for less than an hour.

"Why not just tell them that?" she asked quietly.

A short, bitter laugh cracked out of him. "You'd think being a prince would mean something, wouldn't you? It doesn't. Not to them. My parents didn't want a son. They wanted a legacy. If that costs me the rest of my life, so be it — as far as they're concerned."

Something in her chest pulled tight. Because underneath all the titles and the flower gardens and the gold-rimmed china, they weren't so different. Nobody had asked her either. She was just supposed to smile, say yes, and disappear quietly into somebody else's version of her own life.

Hans slowed to a stop near a wooden swing tucked beneath a willow, glanced around once, and sat. He patted the space beside him. "I brought you out here because I want to propose something. A deal. I think you'll actually like it."

She hesitated — but curiosity won, and she sat, eyes fixed on him. "What kind of deal?"

He turned to face her fully, studying her like he was trying to solve something. "First. Do you actually want this marriage?"

The question caught her off guard enough that her lips parted before any words came out. Of course she didn't. Not like this — not to a man she'd met an hour ago, in a life that had never once made room for anything she actually wanted.

"No," she admitted, and her heart thudded once, hard, at the confession. "I don't."

Something like satisfaction flickered across his face. "I figured as much. You've got fire in you, Danica — I saw it the second you started talking about your art. I like that." His voice dropped, quieter now. "And... I care about someone else."

Her breath caught. "Someone else?"

He leaned back, watching her reaction closely. "Her name's Jane. We've been together a while now, but—" His voice darkened around the edges. "She's not noble. My parents would never accept her. That's the whole reason they're marrying me off to a title instead of letting me choose a person."

Danica went quiet — not from shock that he had someone, but from how easily, how openly, he was handing her all of it.

He turned toward her fully, voice picking up urgency. "I need someone to play the part. The perfect fiancée. Buy me time to figure something out while everyone's convinced this is real. And in exchange — you get to keep chasing whatever it is you actually want, without anyone pushing you to become some decorative royal wife."

Her breath caught somewhere in her throat. Not a marriage proposal. A performance proposal. A carefully staged lie, wrapped up in silk and good manners.

Her mind raced through every possible consequence at once. What would her parents say? Her mother had probably already picked wedding colors in her head. And the Queen — the Queen had looked so genuinely delighted at the table, like this was everything she'd dreamed of for her son.

"What about the royal family?" she asked, voice tight. "My own family? If they ever found out — what then? What if they feel betrayed? What if I shame everyone?"

His eyes went dark. "Then maybe they'd finally understand what it feels like when nobody asks what *you* want."

She turned her gaze toward the garden instead, watching a cluster of tulips shiver in the wind. And there it was — the image she'd been chasing for years, clear as anything: her own art school, somewhere in Brooklyn, kids painting under real skylights, hands smudged with color up to the wrist. A life that actually meant something. Freedom, in a shape she recognized.

She didn't notice how long she'd gone quiet until she felt his eyes on her — waiting, searching, a little impatient. Something about the way he watched her made her nervous, though not in the way she'd braced for. Not fear. Not duty. Something else entirely, something warmer and more dangerous than either.

He leaned in slightly. "Maybe you should jus—"

"I'll do it." She cut him off, voice steady despite everything happening inside her chest.

The swing creaked beneath them. For a second, that was the only sound in the whole garden. Then, slowly, Prince Hans smiled — not the sharp, self-satisfied smile she'd expected from him, but something quieter. Relief, plain and simple.

He didn't say anything else. Just reached over, patted the top of her head with a gentleness that surprised her, and stood.

"Thank you," he said, simple as that.

And then he walked off, leaving her sitting there alone on the swing.

Danica stayed frozen for a long moment, heart still hammering. A short, disbelieving laugh escaped her before she could stop it.

"What," she muttered to no one, "have I gotten myself into."

Back toward the palace, Hans walked with something close to triumph humming under his skin. The plan had worked — better than he'd expected, honestly. She was sharper than he'd given her credit for. Passionate. Grounded, in a way that made the whole arrangement feel less like a con and more like something almost real.

Neither of them had any idea yet — sitting on that swing, walking back through those garden paths — that the quiet little deal they'd just struck beneath a willow tree was about to unravel into something neither art nor royalty could have prepared either of them for.

The game had officially begun.