The Controversial Princess (The Smoke & Mirrors Duology #1)(120)
I nod, wondering how on earth it came to this. Me, on the run, and Josh in a damn helicopter trying to find me. It’s crazy, yet it’s happening.
“Adeline, did you hear me?”
“Yes, I heard you.” My phone bleeps and I quickly glance at my screen to see an incoming call from Damon. “Damon is trying to call me.”
“Will he be tracking you?”
I look up at my rearview mirror, to the never-ending length of road stretching out behind me. “Undoubtedly.”
“Just keep driving. Not too fast. Just make it to that field in one piece, okay?”
My smile is poorly timed, but I can’t help it. “Are you regretting this yet?”
“Never. I’ve already told you. I’m prepared to lose everything I have, except you. Now get your royal ass to that field.” He hangs up, and I drop my phone into my lap, returning both hands to the wheel. I ignore the calls from Damon, keeping my attention on the road. My main objective, the most important objective, is making it to Josh safely.
THERE ARE DOZENS OF FIELDS. My mind is so messed up, I can’t even make the simple decision of which one to put myself in. I pull up to some large wooden gates and jump out of the Land Rover, jogging up the lane a bit and pulling the heavy bolt across. They slowly swing open with little help from me. I turn and run back toward the car, but my pace slows when I hear a familiar, distant sound. Spinning around, I search the sky, the noise growing by the second. He’s here. I need to get myself to the middle of the field. Urgency springs into my muscles as I turn … and freeze.
Damon reaches inside my Land Rover and shuts off the engine, pulling the keys from the ignition. “Adeline, what on earth?”
My steps back up, my attention split between the sky and Damon. “Don’t try to stop me, Damon. Please, you know I can’t do what they’re demanding.”
Damon looks past me, his head tilted back, lines spanning his forehead. I follow his line of sight, seeing a chopper appear over the trees in the distance.
“I have to go,” I tell him, reversing my steps.
Damon shakes his head, despair wracking him. He seems to take a timeout, thinking. And he eventually sighs. “Who the hell’s going to keep me busy if I don’t have you?”
Relief allows me to smile at him. “Thank you, Damon. For everything.”
“Just go,” he orders, straight and short, his eyes back in the sky.
But I don’t. Instead, I run to him, throwing my arms around his big shoulders and cuddling him with all the love and appreciation I feel for him. And he returns it. There are no words. None are needed. Gently breaking away from me, he steps back and nods.
I take his silent order and go, running as fast as my legs will carry me to the center of the field, my arms flailing in the air crazily. The helicopter gradually lowers, hovering, the blades of the grass flapping crazily around me. My phone vibrates in my hand.
“Move back, we’re coming down,” Josh shouts when I answer.
I back away, my arm held over my head to stop the brutal whip of my hair across my face from the wind, my clothes clinging to my front. The moment the chopper’s feet come to rest on the ground, the door is open and Josh is out, running toward me. The sight of him renders me paralyzed, so many emotions holding me where I am. It’s all too much, my relief savage in its intensity. A sob rips through me. The only energy left in me lets me lift my arms when he crashes into me. The moment our bodies reunite, my heart explodes, as do my eyes. I grapple at his back, clinging to him with all my strength. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you,” I cry into his neck, unable to pull myself together.
“I do, baby. Trust me.” I’m hushed, kissed, stroked, squeezed, my hair whipping around my head, our clothes flapping, the sound of the helicopter deafening. But I hear him as clear as if we were standing in silence. Reluctantly breaking away from him, I let him feel my face, kiss me over every inch of it. “These past few weeks have been hell. You’re not leaving my sight ever again.” His palms graze down my cheeks, over my shoulders and down my arms, until he has hold of my hands, his fingers linking with mine, reinforcing his words. “Ever.” He looks past me, and I turn to follow his sight, finding Damon has approached behind us.
My head of security raises his phone. “You should go.”
He’s warning me. “Thank you.”
Damon shrugs. “I was thinking of taking early retirement, anyway.”
I’m being tugged toward the helicopter, but I keep my eyes on my beloved bodyguard until the final second, my many years with Damon playing through my mind. His presence, his comfort. I’m going to miss him so much. And then he smiles, as if knowing what I’m thinking. Maybe because he’s thinking it, too.
Damon slowly raises his hand as I’m forced to turn and climb aboard. Josh places some ear defenders over my head and secures me in the belt before seeing to himself and taking my hand. He looks at me and smiles, small but expressive, as we slowly rise from the ground and soar toward my heaven.
I’D HOPED WHEREVER WE WERE going we would have some space so we could catch up on lost time. It wasn’t to be. The second we landed at a small airfield on the outskirts of London, we were swarmed by Josh’s PR team and protection, and hustled into the back of a car parked a few meters from the chopper. Flurries of rushed, panicked words blended into nothing, and it was obvious each one of his team, mostly Americans, didn’t have the foggiest idea how to greet me. All of them curtsied. It was embarrassing, but Josh seemed to find it amusing, as well as Bates and his men. I let them talk tactics on the journey back into London, though I hardly heard a word, most of my time spent cuddled into Josh’s side, wondering how it had come to this. Technically, I’m on the run. I’m on the run from my family, and it’s only a matter of time before the media catch wind of my whereabouts.