Page 154 of Vengeful Princess

The sound of banging on a door burrowed into my brain like an irritating worm. As my consciousness slowly came back online, I realized I wasn’t alone in bed. Landon lay on his stomach, mumbling incoherently.

For a moment, I struggled to make sense of why Landon was here. Then it all came back to me. Thea. Her tears. Landon’s arrival. And the sex.

Where was she?

I sat up abruptly, rubbing sleep from my eyes. Had she left us? Thea was flighty as hell, so leaving without saying goodbye was definitely in character. I was surprised to discover I cared about that. Then a small hand touched my arm and I realized she was still here, in bed.

I exhaled, releasing some tension, but before I could say a word, the outside door opened and a loud voice announced the police were here.

What was happening? Was it my father?

Reaching for a towel slung over a nearby chair, I dashed out of the bedroom.

“The fuck, dude?” Landon yelled, irritated his beauty sleep had been so rudely interrupted.

Thea appeared from the bedroom wearing a fluffy complimentary robe. She looked a lot calmer than I felt, her usual mask of indifference firmly in place.

This was where I needed to give her the cold shoulder. Make it clear last night was a one-off. But to the surprise of both of us, I strode over and grabbed her hand.

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle this.” Her eyes widened in surprise.

She was beautiful, even with purple shadows beneath her eyes and wild, untamed hair. I itched to take her back to bed, but now wasn’t the time.

“I hope you have a bloody good explanation for disturbing me and my friends,” I growled when I turned to face the three waiting officers and hotel manager.

“I’m so sorry, Mr Forsythe. These officers have a warrant to search the suite,” Mr. Green, the manager, explained. He refused to meet my eye, but I ignored him. He wasn’t the problem here.

“A warrant? For what reason?”

The officer in charge, a taciturn thug of a man with a shaved head and agive no shitsattitude, handed me the warrant. I scanned the contents and frowned. They were looking for drugs? That made no sense.

There were no drugs in here. Landon and I weren’t users, recreationally or otherwise. I’d learned my damn lesson long ago. The most any of us did was a bit of weed at parties, and that was only on campus where everyone smoked weed and nobody gave a damn.

“There must be some mistake,” I said in a calm voice, tacking on a smile to let them know I wasn’t offended at being so rudely awoken.

“No mistake, son.” The officer pushed past me, followed by his colleagues and the simpering manager.

“Your father is on his way,” Mr. Green said under his breath. Shit. Father had probably tried to call me and got no reply. But there wasn’t time to worry about that now.

Landon appeared wearing some pants. He went straight over to Thea and pulled her into his arms. “Are you OK?” he murmured, nuzzling her hair.

“I’m fine,” she replied robotically.

I saw one of the officers give her the once-over, his gaze lingering on her tanned legs.

“Get your filthy eyes off her,” I growled.

There was nothing respectful about this officer. He threw me a smirk and then turned to his superior, the thug with the shaved head, who was busy tossing the contents of the kitchen.

“I’ll make a start on the bedroom,” the creepy one said. I had visions of him picking up Thea’s discarded panties but forced myself not to react. The third officer stood close to us, watching our every movement.

We all sat on the sofa while the police went through my bags, pulled everything apart, and found nothing.

“We should bag the clothes,” the asshole officer said, wandering from the bedroom with Thea’s bra in his hand. I saw the way she cringed with embarrassment and anger overtook my common sense.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer about this,” I seethed. “There better be a damn good reason why you thought there were drugs in here, when clearly there are not.”

The officer in charge shrugged. “Just doing my job, sir,” he replied.

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