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I had already informed my parents that I would be going out with one of my classmates and had gone through the whole interrogation process. Now the question was what to wear?

I threw open my closet and rummaged through it with a frown. I didn't have to time to get something new to wear with such short notice and I didn't want to buy something new just for Ashton either.

I didn't have that many dresses since I barely went out. I pulled out two cocktail dresses. The first was a royal blue cap sleeved beaded dress that came a little above my knee. The second one was a mid thigh, sleeveless, red beaded dress.

I tried on each one like a million times in front of the mirror while walking, twirling and sitting. In the end, I had to do eenie, meenie, miney, mo, to choose a dress and ended up going with the red one.

I paired it with short silver heels to match the beading and decided to curl my hair. That took up almost the entire evening and I was worried it wouldn't be done on time. I applied some light make up and squeezed my phone into my purse.

At 6:30 on the dot, the doorbell rang. I walked downstairs and my heart suddenly decided that it wanted to go a million miles per hour. My parents oohed and ahed when they saw me and showered me with compliments.

Ashton was standing beside my dad and his jaw dropped when I came downstairs. My dad shot him a death glare and he recovered his senses.

"Have fun!" my mom called as we left.

My dad was still shooting daggers at Ashton.

"You look beautiful," Ashton said as he opened the car door. A pink tinge streaked across my face.

"Like woah! You're actually hot," he said after he got in the driver's seat.

"Shut up and drive, Ashton," I said as coolly as I could.

Inside I was ecstatic. I guess this dress was worth it. I smiled to myself, but hurriedly tried to regain my composure. This was not a date, and this dress was wasted on Ashton. I nodded, agreeing with my thoughts.

"Thinking about me?" Ashton asked, throwing a smirk my way.

"Now tell me why I'd put myself through such torture?"

"You could be the masochistic type," he shrugged and I couldn't resist the urge to hit him with my bag.

"You're actually driving like a regular person today," I observed.

"It wouldn't be great if my date got sick before the actual date," he scoffed.

"Hey, this isn't a real date, you know," I blushed.

"It is now."

"You have a girlf-"

"A girlfriend?" he finished my sentence. "No, I don't."

I glared at him. "Yes, you do. We talked about her this morning. Does the name Nicole ring a bell?"

Ashton scoffed and glared at me. "We broke up."

"Lying's not cute, Ashton," I said drily.

"I lost again," he said through gritted teeth.

I looked over at him and a muscle clenched in his jaw. "I lost to him."

"You mean you and Nicole really broke up?" I asked in amazement.

I mean, their relationship probably wouldn't have lasted forever, but I didn't expect it to die within a few weeks.

Ashton sighed angrily and picked up the speed a little.

"I'm sorry," I said softly.

"What?" Ashton asked incredulously. "Why are you sorry about that? Everyone else is rejoicing that she's gone," he seethed.

"I'm not sad that you two broke up, but I am sorry that you were forced to break up with someone that you liked. It's unfair. You should at least get to make your own decision with this. It should at least be your choice."

Ashton chuckled darkly. "Choice? Decision? What the hell are those?"

"But everything was okay a few hours ago... what happened?"

Ashton exhaled deeply. "The king and I ended up getting into an argument about her. Long story short, if I didn't break up with her tonight, he would consider making Brooke the next ruler instead," he punched the steering wheel.

"He knows that I'm not going to let her go through all the crap he put me through. I had to do what he wanted."

"That makes me so angry," I said, looking over at Ashton.

"He should have left Brooke out of this," he growled. "How dare he use her to get what he wants."

I frowned at this. I didn't imagine that his father would go so far to get Ashton to do whatever he wanted. He was basically controlling him like a puppet and I could tell that Ashton hated it.

Ashton's hands were clenched so tightly on the steering wheel I could see the whites of his knuckles. I guess the flirtatious front he was putting up earlier was to conceal the anger that was bubbling up inside of him.

I reached over and placed my hands on his to loosen his grip on the steering wheel. Just touching him made my heart beat faster. I used my thumb to rub circles on the back of his hand. He sighed and his grip on the steering wheel slackened.

I kept doing this until we arrived at the restaurant. It was a large restaurant that was decorated tastefully and elegantly. The receptionist welcomed us warmly and then asked for our names.

"Did your mom really make reservations at a Michelin 3 star restaurant?" I gawked.

"Where else would we go?" he asked in genuine confusion.

I shook my head. They were extremely rich after all.

Ashton and I ordered the courses and talked and laughed through the whole dinner. I got to know more about him and surprisingly it wasn't awkward at all. We steered clear of all topics related to Nicole and his father, and I was genuinely able to relax and enjoy myself.

"You really did that?" I asked in amazement. "Wow, so you've always been this much of a trouble maker," I laughed as Ashton nodded proudly.

He was telling me about some of the wildest parties he threw. It was crazy to think that he managed to get away with half of the stuff he did.

"I can't believe you only came to one of my parties," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"My friends really wanted me to go," I shrugged. "Your party wasn't my style anyways."

"I dare you to say that again."

"Plus, you ended up scaring the living daylights out of me."

He didn't argue this, and scoffed. "What were you doing upstairs with Kevin to begin with?" he asked with a slight pout.

"I needed to use the bathroom," I defended.

"And you needed him to go with you?"

"He followed me there so I wouldn't have to deal with creepy guys like you."

"I wasn't creepy," he argued.

"Yeah, says the person who stepped out of the shadows to harass me. And you made Kevin leave. Do you have any idea how scared I was?"

"Most girls in your position would have been happy," he took a sip of his wine. "Ungrateful."

"Well, when you cornered me up there, how grateful could I get? You were shouting and acting weird," I grimaced.

"That's only because I had to find out why you had her bracelet. I wanted to confirm if my betrothed really turned out to be this boring nerd. And then I ended up finding out that you're my soulmate."

"Hey, I'm not a boring nerd," I retorted. "I'm a fun one."

He let out a laugh at that. "Your timing was just off," he mused. "The king was constantly on my back about finding you, and I was happily disobeying him and then you had to show up. I really did wish you would just get lost."

"Ouch," I said, feigning heartbreak.

"And then at Callie's party?" I questioned.

"Didn't I save you there?" he grinned. "Did you fall for me?"

"Not a chance," I scoffed. "I'm talking about before that when I was with Kevin. Was it really necessary to threaten me? I also wished that you would just leave me alone."

"That's different. I got jeal-" Ashton paused.

"Jealous?" I asked.

"As if I would get jealous," he stated matter-of-factly.

A smirk formed on my lips. "You were about to say jealous."

His face went red and he absorbed himself in finishing his wine.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, Elizabeth," he groaned.

"Ha!" I giggled. "Who would have thought that Ashton could get jelly," I said in a mocking baby voice.

"Are you drunk?" he scoffed.

"On non-alcoholic wine. Nope."

"Little kid," he taunted.

"Old man," I clapped back

"If you behave, I'll let you have a sip of this," he grinned, swirling the wine in his glass.

"What kind of influence are you?" I laughed.

"You have to do at least one bad thing in your life," he said, rolling his eyes.

"I am badness incarnate. I'm the definition of bad," I bragged.

"Uh huh," he said dubiously. "You're pretty bad for someone who just had their first kiss."

I blushed. He did not just bring that up. I groaned and covered my face. "Will you ever let me live that down?" I whined and he laughed.

"You taste nice."

I gaped at him in speechless shock.

"Check, please," he grinned before I could respond.

I scoffed at him and took out my card.

"What are you doing?" he asked, eyeing my card.

"I'm payi-" my voice left as he showed me the check.

There were so many zeroes, my head hurt. How could food be this expensive? Did I just eat imported gold or something?

"Even so," I protested weakly. "I can still pay a part of it."

"Nope. My parents suggested this anyways. I'll pay."

I was surprised he even had enough money on one card to cover the meals and the tip.

"How rich are you?" I gawked. "Or am I just poor?"

He chuckled. "Come on, let's take a walk," he said, taking my hand and leading me outside. "There's a garden around here."

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