5 Chapter 5

The queen and king arrived and had the prince handed over to the doctors. The worried look on their faces matched that on Lilia's face.

Lilia and Anslow were made to wait outside while the Queen and king followed the doctors to the room. Lilia paced around the corridor wondering about what the doctors were doing to the prince.

"Do you still love him?" the question popped up so suddenly. Lilia swallowed. Her back turned to the duke, she bit her lower lip in question.

<<Do I still love him?>> She inquired to herself.

She turned around to face the duke. Her eyes clear and without much emotions in them. "I am just worried for him," she uttered. "We were once friends before we were lovers. We have parted ways but I still consider him a friend," she added.

The lies came easy to her. A year of constant practice without herself realizing had made her a good liar. The worst part was that the lies were deeply rooted in her that she didn't know the difference between the lies she told and the truth she believed. They all were one and the same after so long.

"I see," he replied. "You never told me why the two of you broke up," he stated to her.

Lilia blinked. Her hands folded into a fist grabbed the hems of her dress, she didn't expect him to ask her about that day. It seemed fate was out to make her relive that moment. With the prince's return she thought about it more than necessary and now Anslow too was questioning her about it.

"The distance between us had grown apart with his travels, when he returned it was hard for us to connect as we usually did so we both decided it best to call it off," she answered as she had rehearsed in her mind.

Some of it was true just not all of it. It was true that when the prince returned. She couldn't connect to him, he had become someone that she couldn't recognise and that had happened when they were apart. All of which led to them breaking up.

"Did you try to fix it before you both parted ways?" Anslow asked with concern.

"Why do you ask this?" Lilia was confused by the sudden interrogation, she understood where he was coming from but she didn't like it. He was just curious about her relationship with the price, worried that it might ruin what they had now.

"I just need to know whether you exhausted all possibilities of being together before you ended your relationship," he spoke. "To avoid any unexpressed feelings popping up now," he said.

Lilia took steps and covered the distance between them. She hooked her arm around his, she held him and gave him a smile. She wanted to reassure him, he was her present and she had no intention of looking back to her past.

"I am yours," she uttered to him. The duke returned her smile. It was so comforting to hear her say that, it was the first time that she uttered something so intimate to him and it made his heart flutter.

She looked at him, his eyes, the gentle look in his eyes and tried to match his look but she couldn't. She couldn't get lost in his eyes as she did with the prince. Just one glance at the prince and she would lose herself but that was not so with the duke.

Her eyes were looking at him but her mind was worrying about the prince's health. He didn't look too good when they spoke, she worried that it was her words that pushed him to his condition.

"I love you Lilia," Anslow confessed.

Lilia replied with a smile. Her heart remained calm as it was, she could feel the difference but she hated to admit it. With just a mention of her name from the prince's lips. All of her would react but the duke confessed his love for her and not even her heart could afford to skip a beat.

His words touched no part of her. He was nothing compared to the prince, and it made her sad. She had to spend the rest of her life with him but she couldn't find a reason as to why that was a bad idea even when the facts screamed to her face.

"Thank you for loving me," she spoke.

<<I am sorry that I can yet say the words back to you>>

Her heavy heart was shattering with every moment that she didn't know about the prince's health. A slow held her hand and leaned his head back on the wall. He could forget the way that Lilia looked at the prince in the carriage.

The way that she cared for him and the look in her eyes. It was something that she had never done for him.

<<I wonder if the prince has seconds thoughts and wants her back>> he thought.