King of My Heart

Prologue

DARWYNN

My boyfriend was an insufferable drama queen, and I only now started wondering how I managed to deal with his crap for the past eight months. Well, it has been more than eight months, but before that, we weren’t in an actual relationship.

Julian had been a one-night-stand.

Then he turned into an occasional fuck. However that fucking happened.

And later on, I allowed him to spend my free time with me.

Ultimately, I let him call me his girlfriend, and we’ve been together ever since.

And while Julian was—mostly—a good guy, I just knew that I wanted to end it.

Sooner rather than later.

I watched him sit back on the couch as he muttered curses, crossing his arms over his chest as he shook his head. “What an arrogant fucking asshole,” he spat. “How rude was he toward that poor woman? She was just doing her job.”

I frowned at him. “Her job was to ask questions, not insult him on live TV,” I argued, pointing at the paused television in front of us. “She’s crossed the line. I would’ve reacted the same way.”

“Of course, you would’ve. You don’t see the bigger picture, and you don’t have your emotions under control.”

Raising a brow, I wondered if Julian had gone mad or if I had just skillfully ignored how cruel his words had been in the past. I often blocked him out. Most times, whatever Julian said was not of major importance. He did whine a lot.

I let the comment about my emotions slip. “Are you serious? What bigger picture? Your father has just been insulted on live television in front of millions of people.”

Julian looked at me with emotionless eyes.

It looked like he had no emotions at all.

“Since when do you care about him?”

“I don’t.”

Admittedly, I didn’t care much about anyone other than me the past couple of months. But that didn’t mean I was a heartless bitch who wouldn’t stand up for the people who were being wronged. “But he’s your father, and all he has done is explain himself because he wanted to be honest about everything that happened. The whole world has been lying about him, and you’re now sitting here, stabbing him in the back because, what, you’re still mad at him for not coming to that one Christmas dinner five years ago?”

He snorted and shook his head, muttering something under his breath.

“What was that?” I asked, tilting my head to the side to say I didn’t hear her.

“I said, my father is a selfish prick.”

“Uh-huh, you’ve been the perfect son, right?”

I crossed my arms, challenging him.

At first, I had no idea who Julian’s father was. Famous Hollywood legend, Caspian King. But after one month of knowing each other, Julian started to tell me about him. About his broken relationship with father, and how insanely rude that man was.

Those were all Julian’s words, and, of course, as his son, he had to be right.

But he wasn’t.

Julian had personal issues with Caspian. Apparently, he wasn’t a very present father, and never really cared about Julian, but I always knew there was a bigger picture to it all.

Only thing was, I never really cared to ask what the real reasons for his hatred toward his father was.

Caspian King was an actor, living a life far away from where I grew up. Sure, I’ve heard of him, saw a couple of movies, but other than that, I didn’t care.

“What’s going on?”

I rolled my eyes at the voice of Julian’s best friend, Toby.

Toby was…weird.

And not in a fun way.

Toby smoked too much weed, ate Taco Bell almost every day, and listened to bird sounds all day long. He had no job, no family, no goal in life.

And he lived here, with Julian, where I happened to often spend my nights.

“My girlfriend is becoming my father’s biggest fan.” He got up and threw the remote Toby’s way. “Rewind. Watch the interview, and you’ll agree with me that my father is a total dickhead.”

Toby looked lost.

What a surprise.

I sighed. “Caspian King did a live interview about the things that happened during the filming of his latest movie, and the interviewer was blatantly rude and disrespectful, so he lashed out. And Julian thinks he was the disrespectful one.”

“Is he okay?” Toby asked sincerely. Surprisingly.

“Are you seriously taking their side?” Julian asked, his eyes wild. “My father is a monster!”

Damn.

“Julian, slow down.” Toby held up his hands, with one still holding the remote. “I’m not taking anyone’s side. I just think interviewers can be intentionally cruel when they want to get a reaction out of a famous person.”

Well…that had to be the smartest thing to ever come out of Toby’s mouth.

“I don’t care what the interviewer’s intentions were. I care about the way my father reacted. Do you have any idea how bad I look now?”

I raised a brow. “Sorry?”

Stepping closer to him, I pointed at the TV again. “Who the fuck cares about you? You haven’t spoken to your father in years . You never wanted anything to do with him or his career. Nobody even remembers he has a son. God, Julian, you’re such a—”

“All right, we need to step back here and take a deep breath.” Toby’s crooked smile told me how uncomfortable he was. And, to be fair, I had raised my voice a bit too much just now.

There was really no reason for me to get so mad.

I threw my hands into the air and turned away. “Fine.”

“He chose to push me away,” Julian stated.

I stopped to look back at him again.

I didn’t know how true that was, not knowing Caspian and his intentions. But I knew Julian’s side of the story, and he had never once talked nicely about his father. Didn’t matter if Caspian was the one pushing him away. Something about Julian’s side of the story just didn’t add up.

Caspian started acting at seven years old and was in hundreds of movies since then, and the older he got, the more famous he became.

Julian’s mother was always there for him, raising him by herself, but even she once said something nasty about Caspian. She was angry at him for leaving, but leaving could’ve meant many things. They never clarified the reason why Caspian left, and I couldn’t imagine that he left simply because he wanted to only be famous.

Caspian didn’t strike me as a man who would leave behind his family.

Then again…I didn’t know him personally, and anything could’ve been the case.

In my eyes, they just needed to catch up and talk. Face to face. Clear things up.

But I had no say in this.

It was their family’s problem, not mine.

My family was great. Very functional and fun.

But ever since I moved out, I didn’t see them very often. Only on special occasions. Still, I texted or called my parents almost every day.

And while my personal life was somewhat steady, there was one thing I still struggled with.

My job and my future.

I was twenty-one, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had finished college a year early, and ever since, I had been working at a bank’s front desk. It wasn’t my dream job, though it paid well enough to keep me motivated to get up every morning, but I’ve had enough of that job now, too.

And, I’ve had enough of Burlington, Vermont.

And of Julian.

I tensed at the very truthful words I hadn’t dared to say out loud.

I closed my eyes tightly and took a deep breath before looking back at Julian. “I think I need a break from you.”

Julian furrowed his brows. “What are you saying, babe?”

“I’m saying, I’m leaving.”

“That sounds awesome. Where do you plan on going?” Toby asked, still not fully understanding what was going on.

“I have no fucking clue,” I sighed, shrugging. “Canada, maybe. I just have to leave.”

“Canada is a beautiful country. I have a book about it if you want to read through it. It might help you decide where you want to go.”

“I can just google it. But, thanks, Toby.” I gave him a tight smile before shooting another glance at Julian.

“Did you hear what I said?” I asked, waiting for his eyes to meet mine.

But they never did. “Yeah, whatever.”

My jaw clenched. “Julian.”

“What? You’ve already said it all. Broke my heart in front of my best friend.”

I rolled my eyes.

Drama queen.

“Oh, come on, Jule. We both know this wasn’t really something…serious.”

“To you maybe it wasn’t. It was everything to me.”

“Liar.”

He finally looked at me, raising a brow at me. Then he rolled his eyes and muttered, “Yeah, fine, whatever. It’s over.”

“Woah, hey.” Toby’s eyes widened. “You’re breaking up? Just like that? You two love each other!”

“No, we don’t,” Julian and I said in unity.

Toby looked between us, remote still in hand, with no intention of rewinding the interview. “Damn, shit…so uh…” He looked at me with a raised brow. “So, you’re single now?”

I let out a heavy sigh and turned away to get to Julian’s bedroom. “I’m going to do some research for my trip,” I announced before closing the door behind me.

I needed to get away from here.

From Julian and Toby.

I needed to breathe fresh air.

Needed to see new things, new people.

And, most of all, I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.