Page 55 of Stolen Princess

Rookie mistake. One I’ll learn from.

But hey, that’s one thing checked off my list, right? Kissed a guy: Done. On to the next part of this.

With my head high, I sling my bag over my shoulder and walk away. I don’t look back. I will myself not to listen for the moment when he leaves. And I sure as shit don’t allow my threatening tears to fall.

Instead I make my way up the sidewalk and down a path that leads toward an open green area filled with flowers, a bridge over a small lake, and a child’s play area filled with children. I take in the beautiful late summer day and the pretty town and the happy children and try not to think about the man who, unfortunately, turned out to be everything he told me he was. Or the fact that I’m officially on my own now.

18

FERRIN

Fuck! God-motherfucking-dammit! I slam the butt of my hand onto the steering wheel at least a dozen times. It’s not enough. I want to slam my fist through the glass to feel it break. To have it hurt.

I need to let her go. I need to put this car in drive and get the fuck away from her. I have the necklace. I don’t need anything else. Like to get killed. Because that’s what I’m playing with if I stay with her. Sven and Lars and this A woman are all coming after me.

Let her go!

So what if she’s hurt? She’ll get over it. I don’t need the tiara. I sure as shit don’t need the girl or the hassle.

I grip the steering wheel and drop the side of my face against my knuckles as I watch her walk away without so much as a backward glance. Her blonde hair kicks up in the wind, revealing hints of her small waist and perfect ass.

Teach me how to kiss.

Jesus. I’m sweating just thinking of her asking me that. She didn’t kiss like a virgin. She kissed like sin personified. Hot and wet and so goddamn sweet, as I knew she’d be.

Then the cop came, and it rattled me. How could it not?

I kissed her when I swore I wouldn’t touch her, and then the cop wasn’t taking my bullshit for an answer. All I could think about was that I fucked up. That kissing her was a mistake. That I was about to go to jail and everything I’ve fought through my entire life, all the things I’ve built for myself, were about to disappear because I got reckless and did the one thing I wanted but knew I shouldn’t.

If I handed him the ID I have linked to this car, and he ran it through any real database, it would come up as bogus. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest, and the sense of irony that I was finally going down, but not in the midst of a heist, but at the hands of my pretty girl, felt like the ultimate fuck you after the last few days.

So yeah, I reacted. I said things. I yelled. I was Ferrin and not Rhys, and I was that scared boy, lost and out of control and angry at everything. I would have cooled down. I was cooling. I didn’t want her to go. Even after all of that, I didn’t want her to go. I wanted the sea. I wanted the festival. I wanted more of her fucking kisses.

More of her. There. I admit it. I wanted more of her.

But it doesn’t matter.

She’s right. I have what I want. I pick up the necklace from the cupholder. It’s exquisite. It truly is. But the luster isn’t the same, and I can’t figure out why. I’m free. This is it. My ticket to retirement.

I look back out the window in time to see her turn a corner and disappear from sight. Alarm skitters over me, and my hand flies to the door handle, only to stop myself from chasing after her. She’s not my girl. There is no next level with this—other than getting killed. I can disappear and never look back.

“Fuck!” I yell and bang my fist. “Why do I fucking care? I shouldn’t fucking care!”

I press my foot on the brake, throw the shifter into drive, and peel out, my tires screeching, disturbing the perfect calm of the quaint suburb.

I turn on the music to full blast until my ears feel like they’re about to bleed. But no matter how fast I drive or how loud the music is, I can’t get that last view of her out of my head. Or the one before it, where she was hurt and trying to hide it. Or the way she tasted and sounded and how her skin smelled or how she gripped my hair and held onto me for dear life.

What if she is Princess Desta?

That’s all the more reason to let her go. The bounty on her is greater than anything around. Her mother will kill everyone in her path to keep that secret, and she already knows about me. Plus, there’s Sven and Lars. There’s no way I’m coming out of this alive.

But…

What if she doesn’t either? What if someone tries to hurt her again or her mother decides she’s done trying to keep her locked away or Sven and Lars find her?

“Fuck! I shouldn’t fucking care!”

I beat my fist on the wheel, yelling over the music.