#Chapter 7 The Choice

His face was close to mine, and I felt his breath on my neck. It sent a shiver running down my spine. The reporters, kept at bay on the sidewalk, were snapping away with their cameras and talking loudly into microphones. I turned away and reached for the front door, but he kept pace with me and slipped his arm around my waist. It felt like it belonged there. His hands fit themselves around my curves so naturally. I guess because… he knew them. His arms were so strong. Every muscle along the whole length of them bulged. He smelled like pine and sandalwood, like he’d just stepped out of the forest. I remembered this smell from the morning after our night together in the cave. But no. I had to stop letting my thoughts drip down into that memory. Every time, it made me feel like I was melting. Every time I thought about the feeling of his hot, rough hands all over every inch of my body. The way he’d fucked me. Shameless and giving and desperate and wild. His incredible strength. The way he’d thrown me around like I was weightless. Just then one of his attendants appeared beside us and saved me from myself, snapping me out of the daydream. The man handed me a golden business card with only two lines on it. Nolan’s name, and a phone number. I looked up and saw the two men pacing away together, leaving me standing there alone without a word of goodbye. # Tina had kept a dinner plate warm for me in the oven. She brought it out and let me eat for just a minute before Evan and Peter joined us and I had to start explaining everything. The events of the past week had all happened so fast. I told my family everything, summing it up as briefly as I could. Evan, who’d changed into sweatpants and a big gray football sweatshirt, paced around the kitchen chewing on a big chunk of beef jerky. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. Tina and Peter sat across from me at the kitchen table. Of course, Evan had already told his parents what happened at the ball. I told them all about the weekend, when Nolan and I first met. Then about how I’d refused the prince’s proposal. I added that though I’d refused him, he didn’t really seem to be about to give up. He appeared to be very persistent. “You can’t do this, Yena.” Evan was the first to speak. He was standing in a corner of the kitchen now, leaning on the counter and fidgeting his leg compulsively. His jaw was set in a hard line. “This guy showed you who he was the first time you met him,” he said. “You want to marry someone who treats women like that? Who treated YOU like that?” Tina sighed. “Evan’s not wrong, sweetie. I know he’s a prince, but he doesn’t sound like a good man.” She came around and gave me a hug. It felt nice, after everything I’d just been through. “You have a family here that loves you,” she said. “I know we’re not related by blood… but this is your home. You belong here with us.” Looking into her eyes, I knew she was right. It felt so wonderful to be back here, with a warm meal in my stomach, and people telling me they cared about me. So why was I even thinking about leaving this all behind? Yes — I told Nolan I would not marry him. But I’d also been running my fingers over the sharp edges of his gold business card in my pocket while I sat and talked with my family. Thinking about what I might say if I called him. But running off with the prince wasn’t just about moving out of Tina’s house. It meant not coming home for dinner, not even every once in a while. It meant living far away and having a bunch of strangers telling me what to do every day. It meant every single part of my life would change. This life would be over. I hugged Tina and tried not to cry, but I couldn’t help it. She really had been a mother to me for many years. Maybe she actually took care of me a little too well. After all, I was eighteen now. I was a proper adult, but I still woke up to the smell of pancakes and bacon every morning. And let her serve me cookies hot from the oven every night. “Our family will stick together,” Tina said. “Evan and I came up with a plan.” She told me her idea. She wanted Evan to take me to the human world. If Nolan tried to track me down, surely he would not follow me there. And since Nolan was under pressure to marry soon, if we waited a few months, he’d find another Luna, and then we could safely return home. It didn’t seem like a great plan to me, for many reasons. But I was tired of arguing with everyone. I told her we should talk more about it in the morning. Finally Peter spoke. He’d been completely silent all night. I guess I should have noticed that was strange, but honestly, at that point I was just trying to stay awake. Trying to get through this mess of a day and figure out how to steal away for a moment of peace alone. “I’m sorry,” he started. “But there’s something I need to tell all of you.” He cleared his throat. We all looked at him and waited. His hands were trembling a little. I thought about how distracted he’d been lately. And now he was sitting there with a tormented expression on his face, looking like he was ready to reveal some terrible secret. # I slept like a log, but only for a few hours. The house was active all night. I woke in the morning to voices, phones ringing, and footsteps stomping up and down the stairs. Peter had told us everything. His company had mishandled some money. They took on more debt than they could repay and got so far underwater, they were all facing criminal charges if they couldn’t make their creditors whole soon. His attorney had called him after the incident at the Full Moon Ball, to warn him that they knew his daughter had been selected to marry the prince. And they were threatening, now, to have Peter and his partners arrested as early as the next day, if Peter didn’t take his new riches and repay the entire company’s debt immediately. Tina had been furious. She yelled at Peter, cried, then yelled at him some more, before sending me and Evan upstairs. I don’t know what happened after that; I took my exit without question and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow. I went downstairs in the early morning, too strung out to sleep in, with all the events of the past twenty-four hours swirling in my mind. I found Evan and Tina talking in the kitchen drinking coffee. The room felt heavy. Then Peter walked in from the living room, hanging up a call. He looked at me, then nervously over to Tina. She turned her back to us and began to fix me a cup of coffee in my favorite mug. “Yena,” Peter said, “I need to ask for your help.” I sat down. I already knew where we were going, but I let him choke it out. “Do you think… you could ask the prince if he will help us?” He rubbed his hands together, trying to stop them from shaking. #