Madeline chucked a grape at me from the other side of the massive kitchen island. “Ew.”
I caught it, then popped it into my mouth. “I mean, what else do you expect from a bunch of buttholes?” I added.
An older woman laughed as she walked by, nudging my hip with hers. “Careful, Katie. Someone might hear you,” she teased.
I shot her a wink because I didn’t care if they did.
“I’m kidding.” I curled my lip and thought about it for a second. “Kind of. I mean, I’m sure they poop. But they’re just people. Normal, human, and flawed. Nothing special.”
Madeline got that faraway look in her eyes the way she did every time she was about to trail off into some Cinderella fantasy. “Even Prince Sutton?”
I coated my spatula with more icing. “Especially Prince Sutton.”
“Why don’t you like him?”
“I never said I didn’t like him.”
Someone dropped something metal on the marble tile floor. The clatter and clank made me flinch, like God Himself recognized my lie and called me out on it.
“Sorry,” a male voice called out from somewhere I couldn’t see.
Madeline waved a hand over her head, letting whoever he was know it was fine. “You never said you did…”
I heaved a sigh then took another swipe at the icing. “I don’t even know him.” I glanced at the ceiling. Not a lie.
“Exactly! Your mother is practically BFFs with the queen, and you’ve never even met the prince. Am I the only one who sees how weird that is?”
I didn’t want to meet Sutton Thorne. I’d managed to avoid him this long. I could make it a little while longer to my twenty-fifth birthday. Six more months, and I’d be an ocean away from him, from this castle, and his whole miserable family.
“My mother works for the queen. They aren’t friends.” At least that was the lie I kept telling myself. The truth was that Mama had embraced her new role in the castle as if she’d been born and bred to play it. “And you’re just thinking with your vagina again.”
She threw another grape. This one hit me in the chest. “Am not.”
I frosted another cupcake, rolling my eyes as I sprinkled the top. “Are too. And so what if I like him or don’t like him? What difference would it make?” It wouldn’t bring my father back either way. I scooped another finger full of icing.
She opened her mouth then quickly snapped it shut. Everyone in the kitchen stopped what they were doing. The background chatter faded as Madeline stared over my shoulder at the doorway behind me.
“Would you like me to answer that?” The voice was strong and smooth, the kind of voice that made simple words seem polished and refined. My head turned, my eyes following Madeline’s, and my heart slammed in my chest the second I spotted the prince. He smirked when our eyes met.
He stood in the doorway, one shoulder casually pressed against the wood frame with his legs crossed at the ankle, hands tucked into the pockets of his black suit pants. I’d seen enough pictures of him to know exactly who he was. They were hung throughout the castle, printed in every magazine, and plastered all over the internet. But there weren’t enough pictures in the world to prepare me for this moment. Sutton Thorne wasn’t something you saw. He was something you experienced. As I drank him in, every six-foot-something-inch of him, I forgot for a second how much I really hated him.
His chiseled jaw was covered in a smattering of hair. It was just enough to make it look like he’d missed his morning shave but not so much as to appear unkempt—a skillful blend of defiance and concession. His eyes glittered the brightest blend of blue and green, as clear as the Mediterranean Sea. And his golden-brown hair fell perfectly into place. His mere presence screamed absolute power and disciplined wealth.
And fierce unpredictability.
Sutton pulled his hands from his pockets and began walking toward me. My heart thundered as my body shifted into fight or flight mode. I was sure he heard it. Everyone in the kitchen probably heard it.
I curtsied, knowing it was the proper thing to do but hating myself for being compelled to do it for him.
He took another step. My body was hyperaware of how close he was. “Tell me why.” It wasn’t a curiosity. It was a command. Royal, regal, and entitled—just like the man giving it.
“Why, what?”
He narrowed his eyes into a glare.
I cleared my throat. “Sorry. Tell you why, what, Your Highness?” I said.
Sutton prowled forward, stopping inches in front of me. His eyes locked me in place. Instinct told me to run, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. “Why you don’t like me.”
I wanted to defend myself, to yell at him for listening to a conversation that wasn’t meant for him. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t fair that he got to keep his father while I had to lose mine.
Instead, I swallowed my pride and told him a half-truth. “I don’t even know you.”
His eyes left mine to trail down my body. His jaw clenched as though he were contemplating something. A sudden sense of self-consciousness shot down my spine in ice-cold waves, followed by heated anger for caring what he might think.
“Maybe not yet,” he said. His gaze lifted, resting on my lips for a beat before meeting my eyes again. “But you will.”
Without warning, he reached out, his fingers clasping around my wrist and biting into my skin. So much for personal space. Then he lifted my hand to his mouth, drawing my index finger inside. His tongue swirled around my fingertip, slowly and carefully sampling the icing I’d forgotten was there. A deep groan rumbled in his throat as his eyes held me in place, like a flowery vine latching onto an unsuspecting stone.
I stood here, letting it happen and practically feeling my brain cells die, one at a time. Until one of them, the rebel of the bunch, decided to fight back.
I yanked my hand away. “Sorry, Your Highness. But that doesn’t belong to you.”
He watched as I made a spectacle of wiping my wet finger down the front of his designer suit. One corner of his mouth curled up into a wicked grin. “It’s my castle. Everything belongs to me.”
Two
You could’ve heard a pin drop on the custom granite counter. I didn’t dare look around me, but I felt everyone’s eyes and heard their silent judgment. I’d been around the castle staff long enough to know that every girl with ovaries wanted a shot at the prince. Yet here he was, molesting my finger in front of all of them. They could have his attention. I wanted nothing to do with it.
“What the Five Finger Death Punch was that?” I asked Madeline after Prince Sutton left the kitchen.
She laughed at my words. I didn’t swear. Not since I got caught saying damn when I was seven years old and ended up sucking on a bar of soap with tears in my eyes and Mama reminding me that ladies don’t curse. So, I didn’t. Not really. Not unless I was angry, and I rarely got angry. I was distant. Heartbroken. Quiet most of the time. But not angry.
“That was a prince marking his territory.”
“Who does that?”
She shrugged and continued arranging rolled roast beef around wedges of brie. The kitchen came back to life as the rest of the workers carried on with their tasks without saying a word to me.