A Princess in Theory (Reluctant Royals #1)(57)

“You knew,” she said quietly, but the words carried.

“No! Yes. I suspected.” Portia’s shoulder hunched guiltily.

“You suspected and you brought me here to humiliate me?” Ledi asked.

“What are you talking about?” Portia’s voice rose in a panic. “He’s the one who lied! He should be the one humiliated.”

“Tell that to everyone watching,” Ledi growled, then walked around her friend and through the now-buzzing crowd. Thabiso felt as if his feet were glued to the ground, as if he were in a silent film watching the leading lady make her escape, but then the noise of the crowd filled his ears and his legs began to move, carrying him through the slim paths between tables toward the door Ledi had just marched through.

He was about to break into a full-out run when a wheelchair pushed back and blocked his path. The short-haired woman seated in it gave him a smug look as she pushed a button on her chair.

“Oracle, text Kelly. Kelly pick up a friend named Ledi in front of the Waldorf, right now, and take her wherever she wants to go,” she said, then released the button and smiled at Thabiso. “You’ll have to go around. I hope she’s long gone when you get down there.”

Thabiso didn’t know who the woman was or why she was blocking his route to the one thing that was important to him, but he scrambled around the table. The spaces between the seats was tight, and he pushed his way past shocked guests who were starting to stand in their seats and demand to know what was happening.

He reached the elevator bank just as the door was closing and shoved his hand into the slim opening, hoping the sensors weren’t faulty but deciding it was a risk worth taking. The doors stopped and reversed their course, opening to reveal Ledi, pressed against the back of the elevator car. Her expression was one of terror—was she afraid of him?—and she was shaking her head.

“Let me explain,” he said.

“What are you going to explain first? The crazy emails? How you showed up at my job? How you ended up in the apartment across the hall from me? How you lied to me about everything? Everything!”

She shut her eyes and her nostrils flared; she was fighting against pain, and he was the cause of it. Thabiso wanted to pull her into his arms, but that would assuage his hurt, not hers.

“Listen, Naledi—”

“Don’t,” she said, the croak in her voice a shock to him. “Please. Just . . . don’t. Nothing you say can make this right.”

Tears began slipping down her cheeks, and Thabiso knew then that it was over. He could admit that he didn’t know everything about her after so short a period, but he knew she valued her pride and resilience. He had hurt her, and worse, he’d witnessed those tears break free against her will. That may just have been worse than causing them. He released the elevator door, flinching at the ding that announced the door was closing. Naledi’s eyes opened just before the doors slid together, the pain in them driving home just how ridiculous and selfish he had been.

He leaned his forehead against the cool metal framing the elevator doors.

“Sire?”

“I’ll be back inside in a moment, Kotsi,” he said. It didn’t matter where he was, really. He felt an odd numbness, but he was a prince. Feelings would wait. “I know I have obligations to uphold.”

“I was going to suggest we leave, actually,” she said. “Heartbreak and scandal are sufficient reason for the guest of honor to leave an event, customarily. But perhaps we should wait a moment.”

She was giving Naledi time to make her escape; however nice she was being to him, she’d warned him that he’d hurt the woman from the beginning, and Likotsi was always right.

“Okay,” he said. “Do you think the bodega sells Macallan?”

“No, but this is New York,” she said. “You can get anything you want.”

“Almost anything,” Thabiso corrected. Likotsi nodded grimly.

He could hear people milling about and voices coming toward the elevator bank. “Let’s take the stairs, shall we?”

Forty-seven flights of stairs later, Thabiso had almost convinced himself things were better this way.





Chapter 21


Lediiiiii!”

Ledi knew her bad luck streak would continue as soon as she saw Brian’s head poke out of his office the next afternoon. She’d wanted to build a pillow fort and hide away from the world, but grad school didn’t allow for recovery from life’s minor tragedies. Or comedies. Perhaps she was experiencing a bit of both. So she’d operated on autopilot that morning, feeding the Grams, and then sneaking out of her apartment and pretending her heart didn’t hurt when she saw the door to 7 N. She had barely slept thinking that he might show up across the hall at any time, then reminded herself that his little game of slumming it with the commoners had been found out so he’d probably relocated to classier digs. Maybe with his new fiancée.

Deep breaths. You don’t care. He’s just another case study for Fuckboy Monthly.

The necklace he’d given her shifted under her shirt. If she was stronger, she would have thrown it at him as the elevator doors closed, a dramatic form of closure. But she couldn’t. The scent brought her comfort, and it was the most perfect gift she’d ever gotten, even if it had come from a scumbag.