Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)(30)

“Don’t feel too sorry for me, princess.” I rolled my water glass between my fingers, wishing it contained something stronger. I didn’t drink alcohol, but sometimes I wished I did. “My mother was a bitch.”

Bridget’s eyes widened with shock. Not many people talked about their mother’s death, then turned around and called said mother a bitch in the same breath.

If anyone deserved the title, though, Deirdre Larsen did.

“But she was still my mother,” I continued. “The only relative I had left. I had no clue who my father was, and even if I did, it was clear he wanted nothing to do with me. So yeah, I was sad about her death, but I wasn’t devastated.”

Hell, I’d been relieved. It was sick and twisted, but living with my mother had been a nightmare. I’d considered running away multiple times before her overdose, but a misguided sense of loyalty held me back each time.

Deidre may have been an abusive, alcoholic junkie, but I was all she’d had in the world, and she was all I’d had. That counted for something, I supposed.

Bridget leaned forward and squeezed my hand. I tensed as an unexpected jolt of electricity rocketed up my arm, but I kept my face stoic.

“Your father has no idea what he’s missing out on.” Her voice rang with sincerity, and my chest tightened.

I stared down at the contrast of her soft, warm hand against my rough, calloused one.

Clean versus bloodstained. Innocence versus darkness.

Two worlds that were never meant to touch.

I yanked my hand away and stood abruptly. “I need to go over some paperwork,” I said.

It was a lie. I’d finished all the paperwork for a last-minute trip to Eldorra last night, and I felt bad about leaving Bridget alone right now, but I needed to get away from her and regroup.

“Okay.” She appeared startled by the sudden change in mood, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything else before I walked away and sank into the seat behind her so I didn’t have to face her.

My head was all over the place, my cock was hard again, and my professionalism had taken a twenty-story jump out the window.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, silently cursing myself, Christian, her old bodyguard for having a fucking baby and leaving his post, and everything and everyone who’d contributed to the mess I was in. Namely, lusting over someone I shouldn’t want and could never have.

I took this job thinking I had one objective, but now it was clear I had two.

The first was to protect Bridget.

The second was to resist her.





11





Bridget





Rhys and I didn’t talk again on the plane, but he’d taken my mind off my grandfather’s situation enough I crashed after he left. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and I was out like a light for most of the flight.

When we landed, though, all my nerves came rushing back, and it was all I could do not to snap at the driver to go faster as we sped through downtown toward the hospital. Every second we spent at a red light felt like a second I was losing with my grandfather.

What if I missed seeing him alive by a minute, or two, or three?

A wave of lightheadedness hit me, and I had to close my eyes and force myself to take deep breaths so I didn’t drown beneath my anxiety.

When we finally arrived at the hospital, we found Markus, my grandfather’s Private Secretary and right-hand man, waiting for us by the secret entrance they used for high-profile patients. I’d spotted the crush of reporters outside the main entrance from the car, and the sight made my anxiety triple.

“His Majesty is fine,” Markus said when he saw me. He looked more disheveled than usual, which in Markus’s world meant one of his hairs was out of place and there was a small, barely noticeable crease in his shirt. “He woke up just before I came down.”

“Oh, thank God.” I breathed a sigh of relief. If my grandfather was awake, things couldn’t be too bad. Right?

We took the elevator to my grandfather’s private suite, where I found Nikolai pacing the hall outside with a frown.

“He kicked me out,” he said by way of explanation. “He said I was hovering too much.”

I cracked a smile. “Typical.” If there was one thing Edvard von Ascheberg III hated, it was being fussed over.

“Yeah.” Nikolai let out a half-resigned, half-relieved laugh before he swept me into a hug. “It’s good to see you, Bridge.”

We didn’t see or talk to each other often. We lived different lives—Nikolai as crown prince in Eldorra, me as a princess trying her best to pretend she wasn’t one in the U.S.—but nothing bonded two people like a shared tragedy.

Then again, if that were true, we should be thick as thieves since our parents’ deaths. But things hadn’t quite worked out that way.

“It’s good to see you too.” I squeezed him tight before greeting his girlfriend. “Hi, Sabrina.”

“Hi.” She gave me a quick hug, her face warm with sympathy.

Sabrina was an American flight attendant Nikolai met during a flight to the U.S. They’d been dating for two years, and their relationship had generated a media firestorm when it first came to light. A prince dating a commoner? Tabloid heaven. Coverage had died down since then, partly because Nikolai and Sabrina kept their relationship under such tight wraps, but their pairing was still very much gossiped about in Athenberg society.