Of Princes and Promises

by Sandhya Menon

  “No!” Jaya and DE chorused. The guys were still ignoring him or pretending that this wasn’t earth-shattering news he was sharing with them. It irritated him, it angered him—and, if he was being honest, it saddened him. This was what it had come to, after all their years of friendship. Well, let them pout. Whenever they were ready to see reason, he’d accept an apology.

  Rahul looked at DE’s and Jaya’s faces, both shocked and aghast. “Guys, let’s face it. I’m not rich. And Caterina’s used to dating rich guys. Guys like Alaric.”

  DE snorted. “Really, Alaric? You’re comparing yourself to that douchebag?”

  “Look at it this way,” Jaya put in. “Every rich boy she’s dated, she’s also ended things with.”

  Rahul considered this. It appealed to his logical side. “That’s true.…”

  “You have so much more to offer her than money,” Jaya continued, her hand entwined with Grey’s on the table. “You’re sweet, you’re nice, you’re a good listener. She probably said yes because she can see all those things, Rahul. Not because she mistook you for a millionaire.”

  That was true too. Rahul had never told Caterina he had money, and she knew what his parents did. She knew he had nothing, compared to her. And she’d still said yes, hadn’t she? Feeling a little better, Rahul took a gulp of his ice water. “Thanks, ladies.”

  “I know. You should take her to the Four Seasons,” DE said. “It’s expensive and you’ll probably spend your entire entertainment budget on it, but at least it’s something Caterina’ll appreciate.”

  “Bad financial decision.” Grey, who’d recently become independent from his father’s estate, shook his head, apparently moved enough by a suggestion he considered so awful to finally speak up in spite of his irritation at Rahul. “Take her somewhere that’s meaningful, but free. We’re surrounded by natural beauty. There are mountains and lakes and national forests—”

  “And hypothermia. It’s, like, twenty degrees this time of year,” DE countered. “She’ll freeze to death; even the Ice Queen has a limit. Okay, so forget the Four Seasons. Take her dancing at some club. The lights will be low and the music will be thumping and she’ll be too distracted by all that to think about how inexpensive it is.”

  “I don’t think Caterina’s really the nightclub type,” Rahul said. And neither was he.

  They were all quiet as the waitress came up and took their orders. He looked at Jaya and DE, stumped. “Why is dating so hard?”

  “Because maybe we’re all meant to be alone and dating is this farcical scheme concocted in the medieval ages by people who had too much time on their hands.” DE took a morose sip of her Coke. She was obviously having problems adapting to being single.

  Jaya and Grey looked at each other. “It’s not hard once you’re over that initial hump,” Jaya said finally. “You’re at the most difficult place right now, the place where you need to be your best self, to impress her with the dazzle of it all.”

  Rahul held his tongue. What he wanted to say was, My best self is not me at all. My best self is RC. And then he had an idea.

  “What you need is somewhere entertaining but unique,” Jaya continued, breaking into his thoughts. When he looked at her, she was smiling kindly at him. “It doesn’t have to be fancy; it just has to have personality. Somewhere she hasn’t been yet, but somewhere she’d love. And I have just the place.” She pulled out her phone and began tapping away at the screen.

  CATERINA

  For the first time ever, Caterina had butterflies in her stomach at the thought of seeing a boy. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, as she’d always imagined it being. It was, in fact, pretty nice. It signaled to her that things had changed, that she had something to look forward to. That she had hopes for this thing, whatever it was.

  She was on her way to her AP Psychology class, which she shared with Rahul. Smiling as she walked across the sunlit campus, past pine trees laden with snow and groups of students who stood out like flowers in their maroon uniforms against a landscape of white, Caterina shook her head, marveling at how things were changing. She’d never imagined that she’d have said yes to Rahul at the beginning of all this. She’d never have thought he’d fit into her world so seamlessly.

  Her phone rang in her pocket, and she pulled it out with a gloved hand to see her dad’s name on the screen. Sliding to answer, she held the phone up to her ear, frowning lightly. He never called her when she had class unless it was important. “Papa?”

  “Caterina.” Another sign this was serious; he was calling her Caterina, not topolina. “Do you have a moment to talk?”

  “Yes, of course.” She kept walking, watching her boots sinking into the fresh dusting of snow on the sidewalk that had fallen after the groundskeepers had shoveled. The brisk air nipped at her nose and the tips of her ears.

  “I have seen quite a few articles about you and this boy RC popping up everywhere, and people have begun to ask about him. My private investigator did a cursory search, but was unable to find anything about the crown prince of Anandgarh.”

  Caterina laughed quietly to herself as she passed a group of bundled-up juniors, including Jaya’s sister, Isha, who waved at her. She waved back before answering, “That’s because he doesn’t exist.”

  Her dad didn’t sound amused. “Pardon?”

  Caterina glanced around her at the nearly empty surroundings before answering. The closest people were already at the humanities building, at least ten yards away. Caterina was running a little late. “RC doesn’t exist, Papa. He’s my friend Rahul, whom I gave a makeover and some social training classes to. He’s not the crown prince of anywhere. He’s just my… friend.” That wasn’t quite right, not anymore, but she didn’t have the words or inclination to explain to her dad exactly who Rahul was or what he’d grown to mean to her.

  “Caterina.” There was a crackling sound as her dad blew out a big breath. “That is completely unwise. Reporters are more than capable of cracking this wide open, and then you’ll—we’ll—be the subject of scandal.”

  Caterina felt a twinge of disappointment and irritation at his words. “We won’t be the subject of anything,” she said. “I’ve been careful. Somehow, whether through the magic of makeup or just simply magic”—here she laughed to show she was at least half joking—“Rahul looks absolutely nothing like himself when he dresses up. And if they can’t find anything on RC, well, it’ll just add to the mystery.” A few snowflakes landed on her eyelashes, and she blinked them away as she walked on.

  “I disagree. Eventually they’re going to want to know what’s going on. And more than that, Caterina, why would you do this when there are so many more eligible boys at your school?”

  “Like who?” She narrowed her eyes, feeling the sparks at the edges of her words. “Alaric? The Konig boy who treated me so well?”

  Her dad made a sound of exasperation. “Well, then choose someone else! What about Vanya Petrovic? You’ve always been friendly with him!”

  Caterina’s hand tightened around her phone as she got closer to the humanities building, with its grand pillars and inscribed Latin saying—In Knowledge, Power—above the wide oak double doors. The final bell would ring in another minute or two. “I don’t want to go out with Vanya. I want to take Rahul.”

  “The LaValle name is on the line, Caterina.” Her father’s voice was dangerously low but still controlled. “This is not about some schoolgirl crush. This is about knowing your station and respecting it.”

  Caterina stomped up the stairs. What he was saying, without saying it, was that Rahul wasn’t good enough for her. For them. The precious LaValles with their custom Bugattis that they purchased out of spite. “I have to go,” she said, yanking on one of the double doors to pull it open.

  “Think about what I said. I trust you’ll make the right decision for our family.” And then her father was gone.

  She stood still for a moment in the hallway, staring down at her phone’s blank screen. Disappointment and an
ger crashed together in her head, twin beats of the same song. Why couldn’t her father see what she saw—how happy she was in each one of those photographs, how she smiled with abandon when her arm was entwined with Rahul’s, as she’d never done with Alaric?

  * * *

  In her AP Psychology class, looking behind her across the rows of students, Caterina caught Rahul’s eye. Seeing the warmth in his brown eyes, his gentle smile, thawed her. Her shoulders, still rigid from her call with her father a few moments ago, relaxed. Her dad could say whatever he wanted. There was no way in hell Caterina was going out with anyone else besides Rahul—RC.

  She smiled, wiggling her fingers at him, and he promptly dropped his pen. Giggling to herself, she turned back around.

  “All right, guys,” Ms. Rivard said from the front of the class, reading a sheet of paper at the same time. Teachers were always multitasking experts, Caterina had noticed. “Your big test is next week, so it’s going to be a review period today. Get together in groups of two and study chapters two and three, please. I’ll let you pick your partner, since you’re all adults or nearly adults now and will choose wisely, I presume.” She looked over the top of the paper at all of them, as if checking to see if anyone disagreed. “Okay, get to it.”

  Caterina stood and was immediately swarmed by four different people. She smiled. “Thank you for asking,” she said to all of them, “but I… need to visit the restroom. Why don’t you partner with each other?”

  The four wandered away, grouping off among themselves, and the moment they’d left, she saw Rahul standing by his table, looking right at her. Trying to contain her smile, Caterina walked to him and cocked her head as all around them, people moved their desks together and began riffling through the psychology textbook. “Why, Mr. Chopra, I couldn’t help but notice you’re partner-less.”

  He dipped his head. “Ms. LaValle, it is a travesty. I couldn’t find one person who wanted to be my partner.” Looking up at her, he added, “You, meanwhile, seemed to have your pick of the litter.”

  Caterina waved a hand in the air. “Oh, I didn’t see anyone who caught my eye. Until now.”

  Rahul beamed. “You want to work with me?”

  She was a little surprised that he even had to ask. She’d agreed to go out with him, hadn’t she? Maybe if he’d been privy to her phone call with her dad, he’d understand better. But of course, she wouldn’t share that with him. It wasn’t even worth repeating.

  In answer to Rahul’s question, Caterina dragged a nearby desk over to his and sat down. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, looking up at him innocently. “We’ve got a test next week.”

  Laughing a little, Rahul sat in his desk next to her. They reached for his textbook at the same time, their fingers grazing. Caterina’s heart skipped a beat at the unexpected contact.

  “You take it,” she murmured, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, suddenly unable to meet his eye.

  “No, go ahead,” Rahul said, his voice deep. She could feel his gaze on her, warm and heavy. “Hey.”

  She looked at him finally, her cheeks heating at the intensity of emotion on his face. He was looking at her like she was a woodland nymph who’d stepped out of the forest and into his life.

  “I’m really excited about our date this weekend.” His voice was shaky, and she knew it had taken all his courage to say that out loud. “I’m going to make sure you have a good time.”

  She smiled, at the sheer goodness of him. “I know you will, Rahul.” Reaching over, she placed her hand on his, feeling the warmth from his skin seep into hers. Neither of them pulled away this time. “I really can’t wait.”

  RAHUL

  How was this his life? How was any of this real? He was sitting in a classroom surrounded by students immersed in their work, and somehow, he was having a grand romance. And it really said something about his feelings for Caterina that sitting in AP Psych during a review period qualified as a “grand romance.”

  He glanced around at everyone, really quickly. No one had noticed the seismic shift that had just occurred, even though every bone, every nerve ending, every blood vessel in Rahul’s body, was alerting him to the fact that something truly life-changing was happening. Looking back at Caterina, he put his free hand on top of hers. “Me too. You can’t know how long I’ve waited for this.” Was it totally uncool to say that to her? Probably. Would Leo ever say anything like that? Not in a quadrillion years. But it had felt wrong not to say it when she was putting herself out there like that. Rahul knew it wasn’t in her nature to emote. To be honest, it wasn’t in his, either. He supposed they were both changing for each other, and the thought was wonderful and unbelievable all at once.

  “Really?” Caterina’s voice was just a whisper. Ms. Rivard was saying something about multiple-choice questions, but neither of them seemed to care.

  “Really,” Rahul replied, thinking, God, I could sink into her eyes and never come out. Forget the hallucination I had during Ms. Rivard’s ten-minute eye contact experiment. This would be serious mind-breaking shit.

  “Caterina and Rahul!” Ms. Rivard called from the front of the room, and they both immediately pulled their hands away from each other, Rahul feeling completely bereft. “Are you guys working on what you’re supposed to be working on?”

  A few students craned their necks to see the two of them in the corner.

  “Yes,” Rahul answered in as normal a voice as he could muster.

  “Thought so,” Ms. Rivard replied, but her raised eyebrow said otherwise.

  Caterina caught Rahul’s eye over the textbook and laughed a little, shaking her head. His heart bloomed with a thousand feelings. This date was going to be the most epic thing ever.

  CHAPTER 16

  CATERINA

  It had been a week since the snowstorm and the cabin, a week since Rahul had asked her out. And now here she was, walking toward the green in the icy darkness of a winter evening. Rahul had asked her to meet him there, at the grand wooden gazebo in the center. As she drew closer, Caterina smiled at Rahul’s silhouette inside the gazebo, which was lit with twinkling lights wrapped around its thick beams.

  “Hi,” he said from the shadows. “You look beautiful.”

  Caterina looked down at herself as she ascended the curved steps. She was dressed in her blue coat, under which she was wearing a black sheath dress and tights. She’d wanted to keep things simple for their first date. “Thank you. And you look…” She drew closer, able to fully see him now, bathed in the glow of the twinkle lights. There was a pause as her brain adjusted to the reality of what she was seeing versus her expectation. “Like RC.”

  It wasn’t Rahul before her; it was RC. His hair was styled carefully, his brown eyes just slightly dulled behind the contacts he wore. He looked stunning in a greige sweater she’d picked out for him a couple of weeks ago, in a very catalog-model way. For some reason she couldn’t explain, Caterina felt a disappointed lump come to her throat.

  He smiled at her in that suave, confident way RC did, not a hint of apprehension or doubt anywhere on his features. “I do, indeed. I thought I’d give our date that special touch.”

  Caterina gave him a half-hearted smile in return and took a breath, trying for a bright tone and not quite succeeding. “So. Where are we going tonight?”

  He held out an arm, and after just the slightest hesitation, she put her hand on it. “Somewhere magical,” he said, his voice just a breath in her ear.

  RC

  For the first time in a while, RC felt comfortable in his skin. In the reflection of the car window, he saw that his thick black hair hung just so, his jaw looked chiseled, and his posture was better than it ever was when he was Rahul. He looked like someone who belonged in a car like this, someone who was meant to be chauffeured around.

  RC glanced at Caterina as the car service he’d arranged with the front office sped along the glittering streets. Was she having a good time? Was she impressed that he’d put so much effort into be
ing RC? Was she excited to see where he was taking her?

  It was hard to tell with Caterina, that was the thing. She was just so used to being poised and put together, to keeping herself walled off from the rest of the world so that it didn’t hurt her. As if sensing his gaze on her face, she turned to him and smiled lightly.

  “Everything okay?” RC asked in as offhand a way as he could manage.

  “Fine,” Caterina answered, but her smile didn’t broaden.

  It was the PR smile she used for everyone else, he realized with a sinking feeling, not the secret Caterina smile only he knew. Why was she acting like this?

  CATERINA

  By the time the car had deposited them outside what looked like a very glamorous old Victorian house, Caterina had decided she couldn’t do it. Not like this. If she was going to be out on a date, the first real date she’d had since Alaric, it was going to be with someone she really wanted to be with.

  She turned to RC outside, on the broad porch of the house, which was decorated with twinkling lights and large potted evergreens. “I want you to do something for me. Please.”

  He studied her expression and then nodded. “Okay. What?”

  “I want you to wash all of this off.” She gestured to his hair, his makeup. “And I want you to just be Rahul on this date. Will you do that for me?”

  Shock and alarm passed over RC’s carefully applied face. “What? Why?”

  Sighing, Caterina took his hand. It was warm, much warmer than her own. “When I said yes to the date… I was saying yes to Rahul,” she explained gently. “Not RC. RC is for events and galas and… other people. I want Rahul. Okay?”

  RC looked down at himself and then back up at her, confused. “But RC’s so much better at this. At everything.”