“I love you too, Mama.”
On my way down the hall, I rounded a corner and my feet faltered, sending me crashing into a hard chest.
Sutton.
Even with his impeccable suit and picture-perfect face, he looked like I felt—like we were caught at the bottom of a cliff during an avalanche and had spent the last few days running for our lives. Tired. Beaten. Broken. I let my mind go blank for a moment to consider what might have happened to make him look that way.
He held me by the arms to keep me from falling backward and landing on my butt. Because that would have been the icing on the cake, right?
“Thank you,” I said once I regained my balance. Then I curtsied because heck if I knew proper protocol for barreling into the prince.
“You can stop doing that.”
“Why? Why do you accept respect from others… from strangers even, but refuse it from me?”
His brows pulled together as he narrowed his eyes. “And why do you insist on showing me respect then challenging me in the very same breath?”
Okay, he had a point.
“I don’t know. Maybe because the minute you open your mouth, I remember how little you deserve it?”
Sutton stepped forward, his presence sucking up all the air between us. His scent wrapped around me like silk on smooth skin, all clean, expensive, and sublime. He lifted his hand and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, his hand skimming the side of my face as he did. Heat crept into my fingertips, stopping to simmer in my belly then coursing its way all the way down to my toes.
“I don’t want to fight with you right now, Katie.”
I took a second to revel in his confession. There were so many layers to how it made me feel. I was tired—exhausted actually—and I didn’t have the energy to peel back each one, so I chose the one that caused the least amount of conflict.
“I don’t want to fight with you right now either.”
His gaze fell to my mouth, and for a second, I thought he might kiss me.
“So, what happens now? Are we like… friends?” I asked, emphasis on friends, because I had a feeling we were about two seconds away from diving head-first into a shallow pool.
He slid his hand around my neck, gripping me at the nape and holding me in place, then pressed his forehead against mine. Goosebumps pebbled across my flesh as his thumb traced a lazy circle on the sensitive skin on the back of my neck.
“Something like that,” he said.
We stayed that way, silent and staring, his breath on my face and my body at his mercy, as though both of us were trying to bend time to our will so that we could relish the one moment we felt something other than hatred.
Finally, Sutton pulled back just far enough to stand up straight. His hand fell from my neck then reached out for mine. “Come. There’s something I want to show you.”
There were a hundred reasons why this was a bad idea, whatever this was. A few civil moments didn’t undo years of history. I still wasn’t sure I could trust him, and as if he knew that, he tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded down the hall.
“It’s this way.”
I followed him down the hallway where I’d searched for him a few days ago. Some of the rooms looked familiar. Doors that were closed before were open today. All of it was magnificent.
We stopped in front of a massive arched doorway leading to an equally massive room. I followed Sutton inside.
“You have your library. I have this.” His face lit up. For the first time since meeting him, he looked almost childlike. Like a kid showing off a new toy.
Marble columns spanned floor to ceiling. The walls were a deep gray-blue, the way the sky looked right before a storm. This was his room. It made sense because that’s exactly what he was—that moment before the storm. A beautiful combination of fear and adrenaline. The kind of emotion that walked the line between wanting to take shelter and needing to stand and watch.
His eyes followed me as I walked to the grand piano on the other side of the room.
“Before my father sent me to boarding school in Europe, he gave me two choices: learn to play the piano or speak French.”
I nearly jumped because Sutton’s voice was right behind me. Not close enough to touch but close enough that I felt his presence over every inch of my body. I acknowledged him from the corner of my eye as he leaned one hip against the side of the piano.
Boarding school. It explained so much. My image of the cheerful little boy running through these halls disappeared like fog in the sunlight. No wonder he was disconnected. Most of his life was spent that way, detached from family, sheltered from the world. Everything about boarding school seemed lonely. The word even felt cold as it left his lips. I was suddenly thankful for my normal life, my normal education, and my normal friends. My parents were nowhere near perfect, but at least our family had dinner together at the same table every night of my childhood. Mama made sure of it. Even on the nights when Dad worked late, we waited. Dinner was sacred. Sutton had a lot of things, but he didn’t have that.
I turned to face him. His steel-blue eyes took my breath away. He was calm and content, none of the clenching jaw and narrowed eyes that I’d grown used to. He eyed the piano, trailing a finger across the shiny black instrument in reverence.
“So, which did you choose?” I asked him.
His tongue snaked out to wet his lips, sending a shiver across my flesh. “I chose both.” One corner of his mouth turned up in the beginning of a smile I was so desperate to finally see. “I wanted to know how to use my hands… and my mouth.”
Danger was a tightrope, and we were walking on it. A mile high without a safety net. Part of me wondered if this was all some elaborate trap, a way to get me to admit I’d sent the email or confirm his beliefs that I was like my dad, that I was a rebel against the Crown. But another part of me wondered how something that was a lie could feel so real.
I meant it when I said I didn’t want to fight with him. This twisted game of tug-of-war was beginning to wear me down. My mind was worn out from always wondering what was real and what was a lie, from not knowing the difference between who to trust and who to keep at arm’s length.
“Are you flirting with me, Your Highness?”
He trapped me in his intense gaze. “I don’t flirt.”
“I have the memory of an icing-coated finger that says otherwise.”
“You make me do a lot of things I’ve never done.” My attempt at being playful was met with his usual indifference. Still, something about his words made my stomach flip. He walked around me then slid onto the piano bench. “Like this.” He gently tapped the ivory once, twice, three soft times, as though he were just now remembering what it felt like. “I don’t play for people. Ever.” His admission sounded more like an accusation, like I held him here against his will.
I was about to leave, to tell him this was a mistake. But his fingers coaxed the black and white keys to life, weaving notes together like words in a story we both knew wouldn’t have a happy ending. “Close your eyes.” He let the keys weave more of the story. “Listen with your body. Feel how it starts off soft, peaceful, and rhythmic…” His voice was calmer now but confident enough to demand obedience. This was Sutton Thorne in his element, and he was beautiful.
My eyes fell closed and I leaned against the piano’s frame. Each time his fingers caressed the keys, I felt it tingle on my skin. Notes—rich, mellow, and dark—resonated from the strings and curled around me.