Cracked Kingdom (The Royals #5)(21)

I turn back to Davey. “Who was doing the talking?” I demand.

“Mostly Felicity.”

“Who’s this Kyle kid?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t hang with us.”

“Why was Felicity here?”

“I don’t know,” Davey cries, throwing her hands up as if to fend off my barrage of questions.

Pash half rises from his seat. “Come on, man. Ease off. Davey’s being as helpful as possible.”

“I am.” Davey pouts.

Pash scurries over to throw a comforting arm around his girlfriend of ten days. “Are you done?” he asks me in a frosty tone.

I drag a hand down my face. The amount of damage that this kid Kyle and Felicity could’ve done to Hartley makes me sick to my stomach, but yelling at Pash and his delicate girlfriend won’t result in anything but my friend being pissed at me.

“Yeah, I’m done. Call me if you hear anything.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Pash slides back into his chair. “Do you need another bubble tea, baby?” he coos. “Or maybe I should buy you that bracelet from Chanel. That’d make you feel better, right?”

I stalk out of the bakery before I ram my foot through one of the glass display cases in frustration. Pausing on the sidewalk, I consider my options. There’s only one that appeals to me. I know I won’t be welcome at her house, but I have to see if she’s okay.

My foot is off the curb when I hear someone stutter my name.

“E-Easton?”

I spin around. “Hartley?” I search the front of the store for her, not seeing her. Maybe I’m hearing things. Maybe I’ve spent so many hours thinking about her that my mind is gone. Soon I’ll be talking to a pretend Hartley, shutting my eyes and—

“Over here.”

My gaze drops to a figure crouched on the curb about twenty feet away. The figure rises and morphs into Hartley Wright.

“What happened?” I ask, crossing the space between us in about two seconds. I grab her shoulders, drag her into the light, and inspect her from head to foot. “You okay?”

She looks beautiful in the lamplight, her long black hair a silky curtain framing her face. She’s covered up in one of her trademark oversized hoodies and her legs are sexily displayed in her dark skinny jeans. Her gray eyes look almost black as she stares solemnly back at me.

“I think so.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I was waiting for the bus.” She points to the sign above her head.

“It doesn’t come this late. The bus service stops at like ten.” I only know this because Dad arranged for a stop to be placed here back when Ella used to be an employee. Despite having a car of her own, she prefers being driven around even if it means riding with thirty other strangers.

“Oh.” She rubs her arms and shivers. “They didn’t tell me that.”

I swing my coat off and around her shoulders. I’m guessing they refers to Kyle and Felicity. “What were you doing with those two?”

She gazes at me with troubled eyes for a second before shifting her gaze to the dimly lit parking lot and the darkened pavement. “They were telling me things,” she admits finally. Despite my coat, she shudders again.

Fear curdles in my stomach. What the hell could they have said? Actually, it’s the breadth of lies they could’ve told her that scares the shit of me, starting with the one where she’s Kyle Hudson’s girlfriend. Is that sick fuck trying to con her into bed with him? Bile coats crawls up my esophagus.

“Like what?” I croak.

“Things…” She licks her lips. “Bad things.”

“About you? There’s nothing bad about you. They don’t even know you.”

“No. About you,” she says quietly.

I rear back. This I don’t expect. I know Felicity hates me. She hates me because one drunken night I promised her I’d pretend to be her boyfriend so she could be in some photo shoot. When I sobered up, I told her that the promise was void, and apologized. Then I took Hartley to the pier and she kissed me for the first time.

Felicity decided that we were mortal enemies, got Hartley suspended for cheating, and told me that she was only getting started.

“Look, whatever she told you was a big fucking lie.”

“She said you slept with the girlfriends of your two older brothers.”

My protest dies in the acid pooling at the back of my throat. “They were ex-girlfriends.”

Except for Savannah. She and my oldest brother Gideon had a love-hate relationship for years. During one of their breakups, I convinced her that we could console each other—with our clothes off.

Guilt seeps into my gut.

A faint look of disgust flickers across Hart’s face. Shit. Of all the things about me she’s going to remember, this is it.

“That was before you,” I argue.

Her jaw tightens. “Kyle said you slept with his girlfriend while they were dating.”

“I don’t even know who Kyle is,” I grind out. Is this how Scrooge felt when all his sins were being thrown in his face by the Ghost of Christmas Past? At what point do I get a break?

“He said you’d say that. Because he’s not rich enough or popular enough for you to notice him, but he had a pretty girlfriend and one night at a party at Jordan Carrington’s house, you had sex with his girlfriend in the pool while Kyle watched.”