For the first time since that fateful night, Ella and the Prince stood face to face with no one to overhear or interrupt. He looked away, his cheeks red as if baked by the hot fury in her eyes. “I distinctly remember leaving with both my shoes,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “My father insists I marry, and you… I asked my fairy godmother to find me a woman who could be both friend and lover, yet not sicken me with romantic affection. She gave me the glass slipper.”
The tension eased from Ella. “Maybe there’s hope for us.”
Francis James Franklin (Alina Meridon) 
Nice. That fairy godmother is a conniving matchmaker. I love the line: “his cheeks red as if baked by the hot fury in her eyes.” Great writing.
🙂
Who says ‘true love’ is a necessary ingredient for a happily ever after…
Looks like non-love match. But what’s so bad about romance?
Nothing. I’m a romantic at heart. But the assumptions that everyone experiences romantic attraction and that a relationship without romance is inferior are problematic.
Cinderella, more than any other tale, is archetypal of Western elevation of romance to an ideal, popping up in Pretty Woman and Fifty Shades of Grey and a million other places. Love at first sight between a wealthy male and a poor, innocent, kind-hearted girl…
If we can reinterpret classic fairytales with LGBTQ characters, why not also with aromantic characters? A happily ever after based on an intimate friendship?
Good point. Always interesting to see things from a new perspective.
If I seem obsessed with aromanticism, it’s because when I see aromantic people struggling to comprehend what romantic love is, it’s suddenly very clear that love and attraction take many forms and romantic love is… selfish? disruptive? illogical? wonderful?