• Another selection •

• 1 •

Chapter one

Today was the day. The day that 35 girls would arrive in the palace to steal the heart of the handsome prince. Just like a fairytail.
In my eyes it was nothing like a fairytail. Maybe prince Maxim was indeed very handsome, but he was a jerk. An arrogant handsome jerk.
I'm Amelia Windsor, daughter of Elindo and Silvia Windsor. I've lived in the palace my whole life, since I'm born here. My father is the head guard of the palace. And my mom was one of the queens maids. Two very important jobs I must say.

I loved living in the palace. You got to see things that nobody in his whole life would ever see. But there's one thing that I absolutely don't like about living here: Maxim. Since I can talk I have been fighting with Him. We just can't stand each other. I don't know why, we just don't like each other. Everytime we would run into eachother we would give stupid comments to the other.

But back to the selection..

All the girls names were announced two weeks ago at the report. When Prince Maxim picked the names, they made it look like the names were picked randomly but secretly they were all chosen by the king and his counselors. Its stupid, only girls with something special about them or with connections and stuff would be picked out. And to hide the fact that they chose them all they throw some girls from lower castes in there to make it 'random'.

That's one of the reasons why I despise the selection. Not everybody gets the chance to ever participate and I just hate the thought of 35 girls in the palace who are all behind someone I don't like at all.

Looking through the window I saw the first car with thick black windows arriving. I got up and ran to the door of my room and went to the enormous entrance hall where all the girls would arrive.
Hey, that I don't want them here doesn't mean I'm not curious about who they were and what they looked like.
My best friend Jocelyn was already watching the whole scene. She was the daughter of the palace chef and was also born here.
The two of us were best friends since forever, together with princess Calina, Maxims twin sister.

We were upstairs, but we could still see everything what was happening. The first girl that we saw was someone with long blond hair who stood tall and proud. This girl was clearly a two or three. The next one was a redhead but looked really shy.
For the next hour we observed and watched all the girls arriving while judging if the prince would like them or not.

Once they all arrived they were led away by the woman who would learn them all the stuff they need to know to become a queen, Monica. Monica always scared me. Everytime she would find Maxim and me fighting she would take me to my parents personally and tell them how bad my behavior was.
She will take care of it that all of them will learn how to be a proper queen. We don't want a dumb and unprepared someone to be the next queen. I hope he chooses someone decent.

Since there was nothing to look at anymore I went to walk around. Jocelyn needed to be somewhere else, so I was alone again. I decided to just wander around. I had nothing to do and I wasn't about to get bored and wait in my room until dinner finally came around.

I walked past the room where all the candidates were getting a makeover. A strong scent of parfume hit my nosestrills. Rolling my eyes when I heard all the giggles and all the complaints, I decided to just walk by it as fast as I could. They were already so annoying. And they are here for only an hour. Who knew how long this selection was gonna take. I wasn't even supposed to be here. As a child from an employee, there were places in the palace where you were forbidden to come. But because I was friends with one of the princesses, the king and queen knew who I was and had nothing against me coming here. Monica... that's a different story.

When I turned around the corner, I bumped into someone. I'm not one of those stupid girls in a story who think that it's a wall. I mean, you can feel the difference between a wall and a human. Stabilizing myself I took in what just happened. But before I could even look up, I already knew who I ran into. Just by the smell of his cologne. Maxim... I had to admit... He smelled fantastic.

"Watch where you're going Windsor." He said. That sentence only made me already so mad. I looked up at him and rolled my eyes.
"I was watching, you weren't. " He looked pissed.

"Remember who you're talking to, Windsor." Ohh I hate it when he uses his title against me.

"Oh come on, you know nobody is going to get mad when I speak against you. Your parents love me." I made a move to walk away.

"What about Monica." I froze in place. Is he seriously gonna threathen me with her? If Monica discovers how I talk to him, it isn't going to be my best day.

"Are you threatening me?"

He chuckled. "I wouldn't call it a threat, call it a warning. You wouldn't want Monica to know how you are disrespecting me, would you?" He looked me deep in the eyes.

"You are such a jerk." I rolled my eyes and away, but not without bumping his shoulder. While getting as far away from him as possible, I heard him laughing. Ohh he was enjoying this to much for my liking.

•

I don't understand how somebody could get me so mad. Normally I don't get mad very easily, but something about him just hit that spot. He made me so pissed. He could get me mad in only a second.

I needed someone to calm me down, so I went up the stairs to the fourth floor. Normally nobody can come here except the head maids, guards and people who are asked to come here. This floor was only meant for the royal family. But because Calina was my best friend it became normal that I came here on a daily basis. Nobody asked questions about that anymore.

When I stood in front of Calina's door I went inside without knocking. Also, something else that is absolutely not allowed. She was sitting behind her desk looking at some papers, leaning her face on her fist and looked up at me when I walked in.

I went straight for her bed, plopping myself face down, letting out a hard groan. I heard her chuckling and standing up from her desk. "What's wrong with you."

I turned around and sighed. "Your brother." She started laughing.
"Stop laughing, there is nothing funny about it." When she didn't stop laughing I rolled my eyes and threw a pillow at her. She dodged it with her fist and let out a chuckle.

"When are you're finally going to admit that you like him and that the frustrations that you feel are just sexual tension." I got up so fast that it felt like I got a whiplash.

"I don't like your brother, get that in your head. In fact, I even hate him. And about that sexual tension, he can't do that kind of things with me 1) because I'm not a part of the selection so I would do something VERY illegal and 2) you need to wait until you are married to eachother. Witch were not and also that would be very illegal. She smirked. "Sounds like you've been thinking about it."
I looked at her rediculously. "What are you thinking. Ofcourse I'm not thinking about that." I say while I roll my eyes.

"Oh come on, you don't hate him. You love it when he teases you and makes jokes about you."

"No not true. And now I'm going to walk away and pretend that we never had this conversation."

When I was at that door I heard her say something: "One day you are going to realize it Amelia." I ignored her and closed the door.

I don't like him... What is she thinking. She just lost her mind and can't think properly...

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