Page 44 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

I texted back, I know. It’s okay. I was debating over a heart emoji.

But Johannes snatched the phone away from me.

“Hey,” I said, reaching for it.

He pulled it up out of my reach.

This time, I got it back from him. “Not cool, Johannes. Not even a little bit cool.”

He was hurt, and I could see that.

But I didn’t care. “You can’t take my phone and read my private conversations with him. That’s not your business.”

“Okay, but you’re my business, Nik, and I’m your business—”

“No,” I said. “No, it’s not like that. We’re not some monogamous couple who shackles each other down. You do not own me. We agreed to this at the very beginning, and you said you didn’t want to know about what went on with him and me. I agreed to that, and so I keep it to myself.”

“Well, maybe now I want to know,” he said with a shrug.

“Why?”

He didn’t say anything.

It was quiet for a long time.

Finally, I said, “I need you to promise me you won’t invade my privacy like that, okay?”

“Nik, come on.”

“Promise,” I said.

“I’ll promise if you can get me to even understand it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you see in him?” he said. “What does she see in him? He ignores her. He orders her around. He makes rules that she’s not allowed to see certain people. You say it’s some fate thing, okay. Maybe I can buy that. But why do you love him?”

“He saved me, Johannes.”

“Oh, whatever. He threw around his money, made some phone calls to law enforcement? I could have done that. I could have gotten those jackasses locked up—”

“But you didn’t,” I said, and that was shitty of me to say it like that. We’d hardly even been introduced at that point.

“I didn’t even know you,” he said. “You came here to seduce him, and that was what you did, and I barely even saw you—”

“I know,” I said, shaking my head. “That was a shit thing to say to you.”

“He’s an asshole,” said Johannes. “He doesn’t even have common decency, and he uses people, and his entitlement, it’s enormous. I would have gotten you free from those people. I would have done anything in my power for you, but I didn’t know you—”

“He’s just Dmitri,” I said.

He sighed.

“I can’t explain it,” I muttered.

Johannes collapsed into a chair, looking sulky. He gazed off into the distance. His phone beeped, but he didn’t make a move to look at it.

“It might be the omega texting you back,” I said.

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