Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(36)

“Don’t you want to help yourself at all?”

“There’s no helping me, princess. It’s cute you think I’m redeemable, but I’m a lost cause. So it doesn’t really matter if you tell them my name.” He waved out at the water. “Or about this place.”

He ceased smiling. He simply stared out at the water, and despite the day’s growing warmth, she shivered. It really was pointless trying to reach someone who had nothing to lose.

She propped her chin on her knees. “I wish you would stop calling me princess.”

“Isn’t that what you are? Closest thing to royalty we got in this country.”

She snorted. That would seem true, except for the fact that the media has dubbed her “Graceless Reeves.” She was no princess, to be sure.

“I’m not . . .” Her voice faded. Maybe he hadn’t heard about her in prison—or seen any footage of her fumbling awkwardness. None of the Saturday Night Live skits. For a moment, that perked her up, but then he filled in the gap of silence.

“You’re the closest thing to a princess I’ve ever met.”

“And what’s your definition?” she asked, still feeling that prickle of annoyance and knowing she wasn’t going to like the rest of what he had to say.

“Pampered, spoiled . . . you probably have servants—”

Of course he would think that. “I don’t have servants. This isn’t the eighteenth century. I have . . . employees . . .” Her voice faded under his sharp scrutiny.

“Yeah? And what is it you do, ‘princess,’ to have these ‘employees’? Besides being your father’s daughter?”

She stared at him, hating how, in that moment, he suddenly made her feel guilty for being born into a life of privilege. Her life wasn’t all roses, but this man who had only ever experienced the harshness of the world and led a life of crime would never understand that. “I was a student,” she began, hating how lame she sounded, trying to give her life value and purpose. She shouldn’t feel compelled to make this argument to him, but she was doing just that.

“Was?” he cut in. “But not anymore? So what is it you do, then, to have these serv—oh, sorry, ‘employees’? And your nice clothes? Do you work to earn the clothes on your back? I bet that nice blouse of yours cost more than most people make in a week.”

Her blood simmered. He did not know her. He didn’t know anything about her at all. Who was he to judge her? God only knew all the awful things he had done in his life.

He continued, “You haven’t got a clue. And that, ‘princess,’ is why I call you princess. You don’t know what it’s like to have to work your fingers to the bone for something, to take orders, to have absolutely no freedom, no say over when you get to come and go. Where and when you eat, when you can take a piss.”

She snorted. Was he for real? It was like he was describing her life to the letter. She snapped. “You suck.”

He blinked. “What?”

“You heard me. You suck!” She shook her head. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to have my every move monitored . . . my every word planned out for me? Those clothes I wear that you seem so interested in? I don’t even get to pick them out.” She grabbed a hunk of her hair. “I don’t even get to say how I want my hair cut. I don’t know the last time I styled it any way I wanted.” She flattened a hand over her chest. “Maybe we have more in common than you think, huh?”

He stared at her, his cat-gold stare inscrutable. “Maybe,” he finally allowed, his eyes skimming her where she sat on the bank, warming her. She felt a sudden uneasiness under that appraisal. Was she really holding herself up to him and finding similarities? Did she want him to see them as alike? It was dangerous ground.

Grace inhaled a shaky breath, suddenly determined to insert a little distance between them. “Except that you had a choice. Right?” She nodded once, jumping from one cliff to another, this one dangerous in a different way, maybe even more precarious, but she couldn’t help herself. “You got yourself put behind bars. No one did that but you.”

A ripple of something passed over his face and his eyes sparked green-gold. Even across the distance, she could see his scarred knuckles turn white as his hand tightened around the fishing rod. “Oh, and you don’t have a choice then, princess?” He laughed harshly. “I call bullshit. You’re in control of your fate. You don’t like being a princess, then don’t be.”

He made her want to scream. She never remembered a time when her father wasn’t an important man. A senator. Governor. Vice president, and finally, president. She’d been in the spotlight all her life. Short of getting herself legally emancipated (yeah, fat chance), she never had much of a choice in anything. “Go to hell,” she got out before she could reconsider the wisdom of insulting him.

He chuckled. “How do you work in politics with that temper?”

She inhaled, battling the temper he accused her of having. Which was crazy because she never lost her temper. He was the only one that made her feel like stomping her foot.

“First of all, I don’t work in politics.” Even though it often felt like she did. Okay, it felt like that all of the time. “Secondly, I don’t normally talk like that . . . I don’t act like that. It’s you making me crazy.” She picked up a smooth rock near her shoe and tossed it into the water. “You bring it out of me.”