Royal Prick (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(63)

As you already know your mother is a raging bitch, and she’s the reason I had to leave. I couldn’t be in the same house with her anymore, not after finding out what she did. I promise I will come back for you, and I will do whatever I can to remove your mom’s evil claws that she has embedded in my father and you. I hope with me leaving she will leave you alone and allows you to make your own decisions.

I want you to know that if I knew what love was or how to love someone, I would choose to have that with you. I want to be a better person for you, and I hope you never doubt what an amazing person you are.

I’ll come back for you one day.



Never forget that.

Love,

Royal. Xxx



I wanted so badly to be angry with him for leaving so abruptly but I couldn’t be. Not after Mark told me what my mother did. She was the reason his life was so f*cked up. My mother was the cause of all of his pain, and I couldn’t blame him for wanting to leave because of her. I wanted to leave, and she was my own mother.

Instead of being angry, I cried because without him I felt lost. So utterly lost. I felt like a piece of me was ripped away, stolen from me. Royal had no idea of the impact he had upon me. Royal opened my eyes and allowed me to see I was perfect just the way I was. I might have changed, but it was because he helped me see it through, to see that I didn’t have to be what my mother demanded me to be.

I couldn’t muster up the energy or desire to get in and out of bed. I was suffering from a broken heart that I feared would never heal. Royal blew into my life like a raging storm, barreling down on me with hurricane force winds. He turned my entire life upside down, and then walked away because he felt like it was the right thing to do.

The fact that he could leave even when it wasn’t what he wanted to do, spoke volumes to the type of person that he was. He thought that he was no good and that he didn’t deserve me, but he just proved what a great and honorable person he was.

Staying here with my mother was killing me. She refused to speak with me unless it was to bitch about something I did, and she was apparently angry with me for the things that I did to her.

It was just like her to think I was to blame and I wronged her instead of the other was around. She would never take responsibility or acknowledge anything she ever did. She was f*cking perfect, inside her own mind.

Then came the moment when Royal left, and you should’ve seen the glee in her eyes. She was beyond thrilled once she discovered that Royal was going back home. She walked around here like she won something, like she asked him to leave and he just decided to listen to her. I tried to talk to Mark about what happened, why Royal left and what happened between him and Royal’s mother, but he refused to tell me anything. It was his and Royal’s business.

I stared at the bags that I packed a few days ago. They’ve been sitting next to my bedroom door for the last three long days. I haven’t touched them since I packed them because I wanted to make certain that this was really something that I wanted to do and not something I would regret.

My eyes roamed over the letter again, and then back over to my waiting bags. I had the flight booked and the plane would be leaving in two hours. I just needed Royal’s address and everything would be perfect.

Waiting until Mark left his office was harder than I thought it would be. I was eager to get out of here, and all I wanted to do was walk in there and make him tell me Royal’s address. But he wouldn’t and I couldn’t blow my cover and what I was doing just to get the info. As soon as he left the house, I slipped into the study. I didn’t know where to look exactly, but I was certain that he had to have some type of paperwork on his divorce in that office.

I sunk into his leather office chair, spinning around to face his file cabinet. I wiped my brow realizing that it was thankfully unlocked. Pulling open the cabinet, I sifted through file after file looking for the one I needed. Most of them were clients, their addresses, and contact numbers, shit that I didn’t care about, and most importantly shit that was useless to me. I sighed, about ready to give up on my search, I whirled around in the chair to face his desk. I scanned over the papers that were stacked and covering his desk.

One of them stuck out more than the others, forcing me to shove from the chair and scatter the papers to get to the one I needed. It looked like some sort of agreement between Mark and Royal. I read the page from top to bottom so fast that I missed Royal’s address that was plastered at the top of the page.

Anxiety filled my belly as I jotted the address down on one of the sticky notes from Mark’s desk. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of agreement they made and what it was for. It felt like every time I turned around secrets were being exposed, and new ones were being started every day.

I placed the papers back on Mark’s desk just as they were before I came in and started sifting through them. I knew if this plan was going to work, they couldn’t know where I was going. At least not until after I got there.

I was a full of nerves. I couldn’t believe that I was finally leaving and flying clear across the United States. What if Royal’s note was nothing but a lie? What if I got there and he was different, or he had someone else back home?

It had only been a week, but a week was a long time to be away from someone that you cared about; someone that you possibly loved. I needed to see Royal because we had to resolve whatever it was that was taking place between us. The distance and the unanswered questions were driving me mad.