Chapter 2:

"I'm not going Colleen, and that is that!".

Nathan protested, looking through some documents that he had to approve.

"Nathan, I don't think you understand, you don't have a choice".

Colleen stared at her brother. She was older, making her wiser, in her opinion, something that caused multiple debates in the Grant household. The Grants were royalty, literally. Colleen's father was King Archibald and her mother, Queen Mary. Her father changed the rules so that no matter whether his first born child was a boy or a girl, they would become first in line. So when Colleen was born, she was plunged into a life that she could never have imagined. Her life was documented and everyone, knew almost everything about her as heir. So when Nathan came five years later, little Colleen was happy for the attention to shift to her little brother. Since there was ever only two of them, the heir and the spare, Nathan and Colleen relied on each other.

Their parents' marriage was arranged. A political marriage, to keep a war from happening or something like that. After having an heir and a spare, they moved into separate apartments in the palace. When Colleen was younger she always though that their reason for marriage was ridiculous but as she got older she saw it as a necessity, and it worked. However, Colleen promised herself she would marry for love and for love only. So when she met Dylan, and he brought her out to lovely picnics and dinners, she felt free, as though she could act like herself and not be a princess, first in line for the throne but just Colleen Grant. So she married him, but after seven years and no children, their marriage had fallen apart and he revealed himself to be a terrible man and husband. So just like her parents, they lived separately. Colleen kept hoping that one day he would change, and she desperately wanted a child that she could love as her own, so that's why she allowed him to keep coming back, even after his flimsy apologies.

Nathan however was the complete opposite of Colleen, he was shy and had trouble with public speaking. He preferred to work behind the scenes, not wanting the public praise and recognition. Which is why he was avoiding this ball, the last thing he wanted was every lady in Britain to be praising him with no end, hoping that he might take an interest or dance with them. After seeing his sister's failed marriage, Nathan was really considering just staying a bachelor for the rest of his life. Alas, this was impossible as his father would just arrange a marriage for him. So he decided to go to the ball in the end, determined to meet an intelligent young women, with a sense of humor who could hold a conversation other than talking about his many, many remarkable achievements, beauty wasn't important, but that doesn't mean he was just going to ignore it all together, but he valued women higher than just their appearance.

All of this came with a condition, after dressing in a tuxedo, suitable for a ball and heading downstairs, he told himself that he would never fall in love with this women. He refused be fooled like his sister was. He kept telling himself as he entered the ballroom,

He will never fall in love.

AN: We'll see how that goes for him!