You'll Never Know

"I'm going to ask you something, and I'll use small words so you can understand it properly. You're going to have to act jealous," Sophia told Nicholas.

Nicholas acted flabbergasted.

"How difficult, seeing as you're not that much of a treat."

He got a painful nudge in the ribs as a reply.

_

Sophia remembered the time she'd told Nicholas to act jealous, and here he was, actually seeming jealous over a mere conversation she had with another man that was in no way shape or form interested in her.

"For a moment there, you almost struck me as jealous over my conversation with him," she said mischievously.

"Jealous?"

"Of course not," he said unconvincingly.

Sophia narrowed her eyes but didn't tease him more about it otherwise.

Nicholas decided to take initiative and ask.

"What happened between the both of you?" Nicholas asked, referring to the not so subtle bruise on Count Leonard's face.

He'd cleaned up relatively nicely for a man that had just been injured.

Sophia watched as Leo approached Louis.

The tension between the two men were obvious.

Louis' eyes were narrowed and he looked as if he were trying to suppress his feelings he had for Leonard.

He asked the count, "What are you doing here, Leonard?"

"Unless you're here to apologize or the closest you can come up with to an apology, you're going to have to leave, Leonard," Louis said, sounding almost identical to his sister.

He was trying his best not to make a scene, for Julia's sake, and although it was tempting to scream and shout, he'd learnt to use his inner voice.

He was slightly wary of Leonard but decided to let it slide. They were both in a public setting, surrounded by royals and foreign dignitaries from around the globe. The only danger in the entirety of the palace was the place dubbed Emilia's evil lair.

Leonard bit his lip coyly.

Louis subconsciously gulped.

"I'm here to apologize since I thought an apology through text or letter wasn't fitting," Leonard started off with.

Louis scoffed. It was ironic, seeing as Leo had broken up their relationship via text.

But, instead of pointing out his ironicness, he noticed a bruise on Leo's face. It didn't take much to realize he'd gotten it recently.

Whilst thinking of who might've been responsible for such a bruise, he realized Leonard hadn't entered the ballroom with that same bruise.

'Sophia,' a voice in his head whispered.

He had to hand it to his sister, she could be extremely protective of him, and in all fairness, Leonard did deserve it. Besides, this wasn't unexpected from Sophia. If anything, this seemed rather subdued for her, behavior-wise.

He shot Sophia a look, noticing she'd been eyeing him and Leonard the entire time they were talking. She averted his gaze, whipping her head to the side, knowing he had realized it was her responsible for the huge scar on Leonard's face.

Louis returned his gaze on Leonard. He didn't manage to hear Leonard's pitch with him being distracted, so he asked him, "Mind repeating everything you just said?"

Leonard looked at him before summarizing his entire pitch. He looked insulted Louis hadn't been listening, not that he had the right to be. Heck, if Louis had things his way, Leonard wouldn't have been allowed near him in the first place. All Louis saw when he saw Leonard were the darkest memories of his past.

"I just wanted to say that, I'm sorry, for everything I did to you during our relationship. I was a horrible boyfriend and I mean it when I say I had no intentions of hurting you, nor do I do now," he told Louis.

Louis' gaze on him softened. He'd just noticed how differently Leonard looked from before, in a good way.

"I'm listening," Louis said receptively.

Noticing Louis' change of tone, Leonard decided to use it to his best.

"I regretted breaking things off, what we had… it was… special," he said, placing a hand on Louis' chest.

Louis had the bright idea to back up. This wasn't how he'd wanted things to go.

Sophia watched the both of them, getting ready to intervene.

"Don't," Nicholas warned.

"And who are you to tell me what to do?" She demanded.

Nicholas had the urge to shrink back since he knew he wasn't to play a part in this, but he did anyway.

"How do you believe Julia's to react once you go over to your brother and his ex and make a scene?" He said, being the voice of reason in this situation. He wasn't usually this way, but he knew what he'd said was the factual truth. Julia would've had a field day had Sophia went over and made a scene of things. Sophia punching Leonard was already enough as it was.

"Don't you think hurting him was more than enough to settle things?" He asked.

Sophia took a moment to process what he said before she slumped down her chair.

"I suppose you're right," she agreed. Louis would handle things, she need not stick her nose into things nosily.

With Sophia visibly in a melancholy mood, she asked Nicholas, "How would you find a change of scenery?"

Nicholas blinked in astonishment.

"As long as it isn't a dungeon, a shopping center or a cemetery," he said in an attempt to cheer her up.

Sophia laughed, his attempts proving successful.

"What do you take me for, some type of shopaholic psychopath?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.

Nicholas was inclined to disagree.

"No," he said, his answer sounding more comparable to a question than it was an answer.

Sophia scoffed before she playfully whispered something into his ear.

"I'm going to ask Julia for permission to leave before we do it, so you stay here, sit still and look pretty," she whispered, playing her part of the ruse perfectly.

"When you mean sit still look pretty, I don't suppose you mean its literal meaning rather than the phrase itself, do you?" Nicholas asked.

Sophia smirked, "You'll never know," before she left to speak to Julia.