Page 10 of Lily and the Billionaire Prince

“Tomorrow, then,” she said, smiling like the weight of the world wasn’t crashing onto her.

5

Henrik wasn’t sure what his parents would think if he withdrew the equivalent of fifteen thousand American dollars from his account, but they’d seen him do worse. He only hoped this wouldn’t reflect too badly on the new reputation he promised them.

But Lily was beautiful and intriguing, and he needed some way to come and go from this hotel without people flocking around him. A woman in a desperate situation would make that happen.

* * *

After givingher fur babies fresh food and water, Lily settled onto her bed across from Norman’s turtle cage and flipped through the paperwork in the bubble envelope she’d received that morning. Lily perused the fake ID she’d ordered from what looked like a legit site online. The driver’s license was identical to her actual one bearing her name though it had a different picture of her and bore the name Celeste Daring.

Celeste Daring was the moniker her dad had used when he would make up bedtime fairy tales about a warrior princess when he would tuck her in at night. Those stories, and her childhood persona as a bow-and-arrow-wielding warrior woman with fearless gusto against the treacherous mountain beasts in Dad’s stories, were one thing she’d never confided in Damon.

Lily hugged the ID to her chest and cradled all the different emotional implications using it would bring. If she used the name Celeste Daring, she hoped if her family ever wanted to find her once she took off to Florence, they could.

With Damon’s latest call, he’d demanded more than the last chunk of money she’d managed to save, but with the extra five grand from Prince Henrik, she could finally get away. She would talk to Ethan, see about saying a last goodbye to her parents—if they were willing to see her—and then she would disappear.

The prospect of fleeing to Italy frightened her, but she couldn’t keep living in heart-pounding anxiety the way she was now. Patrick Billingsworth’s agent had been explicit. Under no circumstances were the details of those emails to come to light, and she had agreed. She dressed, bracing herself for her second meeting with the prince. At least she could do so a little more comfortably today. Mr. Elir wouldn’t need her until later that afternoon. She would wear jeans and bring work clothes and change in her office on the tenth floor.

Sick inside, Lily returned to Henrik’s floor with a tray laden with today’s lunch special. She hadn’t been sure what the prince preferred to eat, so she’d had Stella order a steak with steamed vegetables. His door had a wedge in at its corner, keeping it propped open.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” she said, thinking of his joke about bowing. She wasn’t going there again. Instead, she placed the tray down beside a basket of fruit on the coffee table.

“Lily,” he greeted. “Thank you,” he said, indicated the food and snatching an apple from the basket she’d moved. Henrik slumped against the couch, not giving her the respect of even sitting up. He tossed the apple over his head and caught it again. “I’ve been here in America for three days now and my father only gave me thirty. You need to get me out of this hotel so I can meet the girl of my dreams.”

He spoke with such cynicism, she had a hard time believing him.

“Do you have someone in mind?” she asked, attempting to treat this exchange with as much professionalism as she could muster.

That got him. Henrik held the apple and straightened. “Why? You have someone you want to, how do you say, set me up with?” He laughed.

Her cheeks heated. Did he always joke about everything? “No, it just sounded like you had someone in particular to meet.”

“Not yet,” he said. “The only woman I know here is you.”

“I’m not available,” she said immediately.

He laughed harder. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not interested either.”

She clenched her hands at her sides, choosing not to respond. Instead, she remained, unsure how to bring up the mention of his part of the bargain. He saved her the trouble. Henrik tossed the apple back into the bowl on the coffee table and dove for a bag tucked away on the side of the couch.

“Why is it these backhand transactions always involve black duffle bags?” he said, rising to his feet. He was a handful of inches taller than she was, and close proximity and the whiff of his musky cologne didn’t lessen her awareness of his features.

He handed her the bag. Lily muscled down the shame rising inside of her.This won’t happen again,she told herself, taking it from him. This was the last item she needed to do what she needed to. She would pay off Damon. Pack her things. Disappear.

“You were able to get it all?” she asked.

“Yes,” Prince Henrik assured her. “If you’d like to count it, be my guest.”

“I—I’ll trust you have it all.” She unzipped the bag and sure enough, it was filled with stacks of hundred-dollar bills clustered together within. Her stomach gave an uneasy lurch.

“Good. Because I do. I’m a man of my word, Lily.”

His use of her name was so sincere the sound caught her off-guard. She found herself ensnared by his unusually sincere gray eyes.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Now.” He clapped his hands together. “This meal smells wonderful. I’d like meals at the usual times. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. But you’re to deliver them—no one else.”

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