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  As we get closer to the door, my adrenaline is spiking, my heart is racing, and I can feel my hands are getting sweaty. My hand slips out of Jake’s and someone walks between us, separating us. He’s not there when I look up. Where did he go? “Jake? Jake, where are you?”

  I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I hear, “Ellie,” being shouted, but I can’t see where it’s coming from.

  Suddenly, two hands grab my arms and I’m pulled to a stop. “Come with me, young lady.”

  I pull away from the man who I see is wearing a TSA uniform. “Where’s my friend?”

  “He’s been taken away for questioning. Did you really think you’d get anywhere? Your photos are on every screen in here. It’s all over the news on the radio and TV. This is the biggest thing to hit this state in years.”

  He takes me into a room and I ask, “Where’s Jake? I want to know he’s okay.”

  “He’s in another room. His parents are on their way and so are yours.”

  That’s all I need. My parents coming means I’ll be in big trouble and my chances of running away with Jake are fading into the distance of my mind.

  “Look, you don’t know me or anything about my life, but I need to get out of here. My parents are marrying me off to some old dude and I don’t want that.”

  “And that interests me why?” The security guard stands leaning up against the wall just looking at me, bored.

  “I shouldn’t have to be made to marry someone I don’t know.”

  “I don’t care, lady. Your parents are on their way and they’ll be here soon.”

  By my estimation, it will take about nine or ten hours for my parents to get here. We left the hotel about two, maybe nearly three hours ago, so it looks like I’m going to be sitting in here a long time. “Can I get a drink of something, please?”

  “I’ll be right back.” He leaves the room.

  I rest my head on the table and sob. I’d felt alive for the first time in years when I was with Jake. Now I’ll have to go back to living in the castle and doing everything my parents say, and the first thing they’ll make me do is marry the guy I’m betrothed to.

  I wonder if I’ll ever see Jake again.

  The door opens and I look up to take my drink from the TSA guard but see my parents instead. Well, they got here quickly.

  “Ellie, you’re okay,” Mum says, lifting me up from the table and enveloping me in a hug. I push away from her. I don’t want to hug her. I hate my parents right now. She scowls at me. “What were you thinking, young lady? Did you really think you could run away?”

  I sob. “I… I didn’t really think. I don’t want to marry some old prince. You can’t make me marry someone I don’t know and I already know I won’t like him.”

  “Ellie. Calm down. We’ve made this decision years ago. You know that. It’s good for our countries. An alliance between us will help us all. We need this, Ellie. We were on our way to meet you to introduce you to your suitor when we heard of your… your escapade.”

  “But I don’t want to meet him.” I know I sound like a petulant child, but I need to defer this meeting. “I need to speak to Jake. Please. I’ll do it. I’ll marry whoever, I just want to speak to Jake for one last time.”

  Dad shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Ellie. We need to go. Your suitor is waiting in the car outside. This is the price of being royalty. We need to leave now.” He takes my arm and pulls me toward the door.

  I try to break free of my dad’s grip, but he just tightens his hold. “Ellie, stop it. This is happening whether you want it or not.”

  Looking up, I see that everyone in the airport is watching me making a scene. I stop struggling. I look at it from my parents’ perspective. I have brought big shame on my family and my country. It will take a long time for them to recoup the respect they want.

  I slacken and move alongside my father, not fighting him anymore.

  When we get outside, there’s a limo waiting. Before he opens the door, Dad turns to me. “Ellie, please don’t embarrass us more than you already have. I understand you want to marry for love and not out of obligation. I get that. But this is our tradition and we made this match for you a long time ago.” He smiles and kisses my cheek. With his mouth near my ear, he whispers, “I love you, baby girl.” He hasn’t called me that in a long time and I can feel the tears. He straightens up. “Now get in the car and meet your future husband.”

  He opens the door and, with my mouth open, I climb in the back. Closing my mouth, I straighten my top before looking up, and when I do, I see the bluest eyes I have ever seen. The eyes of the boy that I’ve been falling in love with.

  “Jake? I… I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” I fling myself across the seat into his arms.

  He hugs me and kisses me on my cheek near my ear. When I pull away to look at him, I see his parents and mine smiling at us.

  “Well, it looks like you two have met before,” my dad says. “You two are betrothed to be married on your eighteenth birthday, Ellie.” He looks at both of us as the penny drops.

  “Imagine our surprise when we were on the way out here to introduce you two and we find pictures of the two of you on every TV news station and radio in the country. It seems you found each other without us having to intervene.” Dad smiles. “I love you, Ellie, and I hope you’ll be happy.”

  I sit next to Jake in the limo, holding his hand as we are driven to a private estate not far from the airport. The two families have hired the house for us to get to know each other so that they can announce our engagement. When we climb out of the limo, Jake asks, “Can I have some time alone with Ellie, please?”

  My dad nods his head and he walks into the house with Mum and Jake’s parents.

  “I can’t believe it, Jake. I thought they were going to marry me off to some old guy.”

  “I know. It’s freaking amazing. I want you to know though, that I wanted to run away with you. I wanted to spend time with you and get to know you better. We had a connection and I would have walked away from everything to be with you. This just makes everything so much easier, but it doesn’t change the way I feel about you, Ellie. You’ve consumed my every waking thought since I stepped off that bus and looked up at you in your room. I’ll never be able to smell strawberries again without thinking about you. I’ve been slowly falling in love with you and nothing would make me happier that spending the rest of my life with you. Ellie, will you marry me?”

  I stand there with my mouth wide open again. Then I cry as I fall into his arms and hug him tight, screaming yes at the same time. I know we were destined to be brought together by our families, but fate stepped in and allowed us to fall in love with each other.

  For once, being royal worked out for the best for both of us.

  EPILOGUE - ELLIE

  Today is my eighteenth birthday and my wedding day.

  Today, I’m going to marry the love of my life. The man I was destined to be with.

  Life has been interesting over the last two years. Jake and I stayed in Alaska, but the security surrounding the schools had to be ramped up once our true identities were found out. It didn’t help that we were splashed all over the media when we tried to run away. Not our best decision considering our parents had already chosen for us to be wed.

  We were awarded some luxuries once we ‘came out’ and we spent a lot of our spare time together. We won the Olympiad two years running and we both graduated with honours. It was something we both wanted to do before we settled into married life, which would include lots of travel and public appearances.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to everyone who believed in me. Setting off on this Young Adult adventure was hard, but it has been so rewarding. I love everyone I work with and especially all my readers.

  Also by KM Pyne

  Ruby Knight Chronicles

  #MEET - getBook.at/MEET

  #YOLO - getBook.at/YOLO

  #IDK - getbook.at/IDK

  Coming S
oon

  Bad Prince

  Mermaid Kisses & Starfish Wishes

  STALK KM PYNE

  KM Pyne loves reading and writing. When she was at school she hated English Literature and gave up the class. She hated writing précis of books that they were reading, which is ironic seeing as she started reading books to review them.

  She has two teenage children and writing these books was a way of explaining how the modern world works without sitting them down and embarrassing them with the safety and security talks.

  Since then she has written three books in the Ruby Knight Chronicles with another two in the pipeline for this year (2019). She has also written a mermaid story (well a merman really) which will be coming out later this year - 2019.

  Thank you for believing in KM Pyne.