Brutal Prince Bonus Scene (Brutal Birthright, #1.5)(71)

“I’m not eating that,” Aida laughs. “I’m getting chocolate soufflé.”





The next afternoon, I’m supposed to go see my new office at City Hall. I swing by the house to see if Aida wants to come along with me. To my surprise, she’s already dressed and getting into Nessa’s Jeep.

“Where are you going?” I ask her.

“I’ve got some errands to run,” she says vaguely.

“What kind of errands?”

“All kinds,” she says, climbing into the car and closing the door.

She’s wearing a little crop top and cut-off shorts, with her hair pulled up in a ponytail and heart-shaped sunglasses on top of her head. By Aida’s standards, this is fairly dressed up. My curiosity is inflamed.

I lean against the windowsill, annoyed that she’s not coming with me. I wanted to show her all of City Hall, and maybe go for a late lunch together.

“Can’t it wait?” I ask her.

“No,” she says regretfully. “Actually, I’ve got to get going . . .”

I step back, letting her start the engine.

“What’s the hurry?” I say.

“No hurry. See you tonight!” she calls, putting the car in reverse.

Aida is fucking maddening when she won’t answer my questions.

I can’t help thinking that she looks way too cute just to be running to the post office or whatever the fuck. And what kind of errands could she possibly have that are time-sensitive?

And who messaged her last night?

Could it be Oliver Castle?

Could she be going to meet with him right now?

I’m burning with jealousy.

I know I should just talk to her when she comes home tonight, but I don’t want to wait until then.

I wish I’d remembered to steal her phone. I figured out her passcode by watching over her shoulder while she entered it—it’s 1799, not hard to remember. But in the craziness of our encounter with Zajac and the election right after, I forgot to look through it.

I should have done it last night while she was sleeping.

Now it’s fucking eating me alive.

I grab my own phone out of my pocket and call Jack. He picks up immediately.

“What’s up, boss?” he says.

“Where are you right now?”

“Ravenswood.”

“Is there a GPS tracker on Nessa’s Jeep?”

“Yeah. Your dad’s got them on all the vehicles.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“Good. I want you to follow it. Aida’s running errands—I want you to see what she’s doing, where she goes.”

“You got it,” Jack says.

He doesn’t ask why, but I’m sure he can guess.

“Keep me posted. Tell me everything she does. And don’t lose track of her.”

“Understood.”

I hang up the phone.

I don’t feel great about siccing Jack on Aida—especially knowing how she feels about him. But I have to know what she’s doing. I have to know, once and for all, if Aida’s heart belongs to someone else, or if it might be available. Maybe even for me.

I still have to go to City Hall, so I take my father instead. He’s already talking about how we’ll parlay this into a mayoral campaign in a couple of years. Plus, all the ways we can use the Aldermanship to enrich ourselves in the meantime.

I can barely pay attention to any of it. My hand keeps sneaking back into my pocket, clenching my phone so I can pick it up the moment Jack calls.

After about forty minutes, he texts me to say:

She’s somewhere around Jackson Park. I see the car, but I haven’t found her yet. Looking in the shops and cafes.





I’m strung tighter than a wire.

What’s in Jackson Park? Who is she meeting? I know she’s meeting someone, I can feel it.

My father puts his hand on my shoulder, startling me.

“You don’t look pleased,” he says. “What’s wrong, you don’t like the office?”

“No.” I shake my head. “It’s great.”

“What is it, then?”

I hesitate. My relationship with my father is based off of work. All our conversations center around the family business. Problems we need to fix, deals we need to make, ways we can expand. We don’t talk about personal things. Emotions. Feelings.

Still, I need advice.

“I think I might have made a mistake with Aida,” I tell him.

He peers at me through his glasses, thrown off balance. That’s not what he expected me to say.

“What do you mean?”

“I was cold and demanding. Cruel, even. Now it might be too late to start over . . .”

My father crosses his arms, leaning against the desk. He probably doesn’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to talk about it, either. But it’s eating me alive.

“She didn’t seem to be holding a grudge last night,” he says.

I sigh, looking out the window at the high rises opposite.

Aida always rolls with the punches. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t hurt. And that doesn’t mean it will be easy to win her over. She’s a tough nut. What will it take to truly crack her open, to find that vulnerable core inside?