Everlastingly Loving You - Chapter 76

Author’s Note: The wedding reception is of a distant cousin of Sophia’s and another royal, which is why she isn’t a bridesmaid/the maid of honour, etc etc, and also why there’s paparazzi swarming the palace. And also, that the wedding reception is held at one of Beldovia’s finest and most prestigious hotels. Right, back to the story!

After getting herself together, she managed to make it over to Louis’ quarters without breaking down.

She knocked.

“Who is it?” She heard Louis ask.

“Lou, it’s me,” she answered in return.

She heard Louis scoff.

“Then what are you waiting for, come in!” Louis called.

Sophia laughed softly before she entered her brother’s quarters.

Louis was adjusting his tie when his sister entered his quarters.

“Soph,” he greeted.

“How do I look?” He asked, smiling in his tuxedo.

“Great, Lou,” Sophia answered with a grin.

She closed the door behind her.

Sophia began, “So…”

“Bee in your bonnet, sister?” Louis asked.

Sophia raised her brow.

“What?”

“I saw you running.”

“Oh.”

“It’s nothing,” Sophia lied.

Louis studied his sister’s face.

“You sure about that?” He asked worriedly.

Sophia nodded.

“If it were serious you’d be the first person I tell, apart from Clarisse, of course,” Sophia said, shooting Louis a reassuring smile.

“Oh really?” Louis raised his brow, looking his sister directly in the eye.

Sophia averted his gaze. She sniffled.

“Okay, something’s wrong, spill,” he demanded.

Sophia stared at Louis before she began telling him everything.

What she’d overheard, what Ava had said, what Nicholas had done.

She told him it was all a ruse, his and her relationship. Everything was faked.

She couldn’t care any less about the ruse, it was over. Completely over.

Louis had been deceived. Both him and Clarisse.

He found out everything he’d seen was a lie, although some part of him was convinced it wasn’t.

The chemistry his sister and Nicholas had couldn’t be forged, not without any repercussions, at the very least.

How his sister reacted was evidence enough. She was distraught.

He croaked, “It was a ruse?”

“All a ruse?”

Sophia, who hid her face in her dress, nodded.

“All a ruse,” her voice broke as she confirmed it.

“Nothing was real,” she said to her brother.

“He did it all for power,” she said to Louis, trying hard not to start sobbing hysterically.

“It was all a lie,” she said, trying to convince herself it was.

Louis knew what Sophia did was horrible; creating this ruse and keeping it from him, but what she was going through was horrible enough, so he kept his sentiments to himself. She was dealing with enough at the moment.

He patted her back as Sophia continued on ranting.

“I was so foolish,” Sophia said on the verge of tears.

“I shouldn’t have believed him,” she mumbled to herself.

“I shouldn’t have trusted him in the first place,” she said.

Louis had a hand on Sophia’s shoulder.

“You still up for the wedding reception?” He asked her.

Sophia nodded.

“I am,” she said not too confidently.

“You know, there’s always the option not to go,” Louis assured.

Sophia shook her head.

“I’m coming,” she insisted.

Louis sighed, “Alright.”

“And I suppose you’ll be coming with me and Clarisse?”

Sophia’s eyes lit up.

She nodded, telling Louis, “There’s just one thing I need to take care of before that.”

“Alright, we’ll be waiting for you,” Louis said, helping Sophia get up to her feet.

Sophia adjusted her gown before she and Louis exchanged goodbyes.

“You’re not actually going to tell Claire, are you?” Sophia asked.

Louis smirked, “We’d have to see about that.”

Sophia shot Louis a look of scorn before she briefly left.

She strode to the palace lobby with newfound determination in her eyes.

She found Nicholas already waiting for her there.

“Perfect, you’re already here,” she said, shooting Nicholas a grin.

Nicholas immediately sensed something was wrong the moment she got there.

It was quite obvious, after all, with the way she avoided his gaze, and how fake her smile seemed.

His eyes were filled with worry.

He opened the car door.

“Windsor,” he greeted with a warm beam. She looked stunning.

“Ambrose,” Sophia said distractedly.

She was unsure if she really wanted to do it.

“You ready?” Nicholas asked her.

“Ready for…?” Sophia asked confusedly.

“The wedding reception,” Nicholas answered.

“What else?” He asked.

Sophia blinked. She nearly told him something else.

She momentarily forgot what she’d wanted to do.

She blinked once more before she asked,

“There’ll be paparazzi swarming the palace, and I’d like to exercise the power to my military.”

Nicholas’ heart dropped.

“So, no. Hell no.”

“I’ll still be coming to the wedding reception but don’t expect to have me by your side, I’ll be with my brother. Someone who didn’t use me all this time out of greed.”

Nicholas began, “Soph–”

“Save it,” Sophia said before she whirled around and walked away from Nicholas without another second thought.

She was better off without him; she lied to herself.

Nicholas watched miserably as Sophia became smaller and smaller in the distance; as she walked away.

Sophia arrived at one of the palace’s other lobbies, where Louis and Clarisse were already waiting for her.

“You really don’t have to go,” Clarisse said reassuringly.

She’d only been told Sophia had a lot going on, with no details as to what it was exactly, even though she had a couple of her own assumptions and suspicions.

Sophia said insistently, “I really do,” as she ducked and carefully entered the car before Louis and Clarisse did.

Louis and Clarisse exchanged a look.

“Let her be,” Louis said.

Clarisse narrowed her eyes.

“Like that? Have you seen Sophia?”

“You understand I can hear you from here,” Sophia said from the car.

Clarisse sighed.

Louis shrugged. There was nothing he could do to stop her.

She was a grown woman, it was up to her to make her own choices.

He opened the door wider for his friend.

Clarisse smiled appreciatively at him and entered the car.

Once Louis entered the car, he shut the car door and they were off to the wedding reception.

Back to Nicholas, who hadn’t moved ever since the minute Sophia left.

She’d heard everything; everything Ava accused him of doing.

That was why she’d been acting strange.

And that’d been why Ava suddenly decided to bring the topic up.

‘It was all a set-up to drive a wedge between me and Sophia,’ Nicholas realized.

He felt idiotic and horrible.

The chauffeur asked Nicholas if he was still going to the wedding reception after seeing Sophia storm off.

Fortunately, he hadn’t overheard his and Sophia’s previous conversation, but Nicholas didn’t know that.

He entered the car.

With his arms crossed, he ordered the chauffeur not to speak a word of what he’d seen to anyone else.

The chauffeur agreed instantly, out of fear of permanently losing his job and crossing the prince.

“Of course not, your royal highness,” he said before he started driving.

Nicholas didn’t speak a word throughout the drive to the wedding reception.

He continuously looked out the window, thinking of how he’d attain Sophia’s forgiveness.

Easier said than done, he quickly realized.

Sophia wasn’t one to forgive and forget too easily.

He stared out the car window, thinking of how he’d do it.

Sophia seemed pissed, as one should when they discover their partner-in-crime used them because they were too greedy.

He sighed.

What was worse was that he’d still have to face Ava at the wedding reception. The one person he couldn’t bear looking at.

It wasn’t her fault Sophia found out the truth, she’d just speeded up the process, ‘is all.

If Nicholas were to be perfectly honest, he’d never planned on telling Sophia why he did all this, excluding the letter he wrote, which he hadn’t expected Sophia to read in the first place.

Of course, Sophia still hadn’t told him she’d read the letter, so he still thought she knew nothing about it when the truth couldn’t be any further.

Heck, Sophia was under the impression that he wrote it under false pretences, and that none of the words he’d written contained a single grain of truth when as a matter of fact, it did. None of the words he wrote in that letter was untrue.

He wrote everything from the bottom of his heart; Sophia didn’t know that of course.

He felt incredibly guilty; that Sophia thought he did all this for power.

She must’ve been furious with him.

He was determined to make it up to her – and by that, he meant attain her forgiveness and make things right again, the way they used to be.

What he hadn’t realized was that things would never again be the same between the two. Not after this, it wouldn’t.

The chauffeur informed Nicholas they’d arrived at where the wedding reception was held.

Nicholas thanked him before he stepped out of the car, fully determined to get his partner-in-crime back.