Page 60 of The Wanted Prince

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d never hurt you, Laura.”

I stared at him, speechless, frozen in place.

“You know that’s true, right? You know I’d never hurt you?”

I made a low croaking sound and tried to swallow. My mouth had gone dry, my throat pencil-tight. My pulse thrummed in my ears, but I wasn’t scared. I was choking on anger, on pure, scalding rage.

“You have hurt me.” I coughed. My voice was all raspy. “You’ve hurt Alessandro, and you knew we were friends. You were friends, too, since we were kids. Why would you, why would you… Is this some weird macho thing? He looked at your sister, so you’ve got to?—”

“No!”

“Then why? I don’t get it. What did he do to you?”

“Nothing,” said Hugo. “It was never about him.”

“But you did frame him.” I swayed, feeling sick. “You framed him, then you had the gall to come after me for trying to help him.”

“I’m sorry. I had no choice.”

I laughed. “No choice? You had no choice but to steal from the palace? To frame Alessandro? You couldn’t, like, not do that?”

Hugo shook his head. He grabbed for a chair. He dragged it to him and half-collapsed into it, and sat with his hands buried in his thick hair. “You don’t understand,” he said.

“Oh, yeah? So make me.”

“It was for the articles. The leaks to the press. The division in the palace, it had to go public. But no one would print it just by itself. I needed something to hang it on, some massive scandal.”

I smacked his arm. “Why?”

Hugo flinched. “Because if I didn’t… I had to, was all.”

“No, that was not all.” I smacked him again, then rubbed where I’d slapped. “Come on, Hugo. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“They stole the throne from us.” His tone was dull, flat. “We’ve been planning a coup, me and, uh…” He took his phone from me and powered it off. “It wasn’t just me. It’s the New Labor Party. There’s a faction who’d like to see Father in power. That would put the whole State Department on New Labor’s side, and the throne, and the Treasury. All the palace still handles.”

“The Treasury.” My heart sank. “So you picked Alessandro.”

“If we could show the Treasury was poorly run, if the prince was incompetent?—”

“It wasn’t. He isn’t.”

“I know that, but?—”

“You did all this for power?” I sat down, myself, sick with disgust. “All this for a throne you might never inherit? I exist too, or did you forget? Or were you going to frame me like you did Alessandro?”

“No! No, I’d never. I don’t want the throne.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. I was getting a headache. “This doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why steal the throne, if not to inherit?”

Hugo stared at the floor. He picked at his cuff. I reached out and grabbed his hands and held them still.

“It’s over,” I said. “I know what you did. I’m not going to keep quiet, so you might as well tell me.”

Hugo let out a long, shuddering breath. “Money,” he said, and his voice cracked.

“Money?” I laughed. “You’ve got to be joking. You have this whole mansion, your stake in the business?—”

“The business is gone.” Hugo’s chest hitched. He clenched his fist and thumped himself on the forehead, then he clenched his other fist and did it again. “I’d have paid it all back. All I needed was time.”

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