Page 64 of The Wicked Prince

She should sign it. It’s what she’d wanted from the beginning. Her men alive, pardoned, free. An annulled marriage. Her freedom.

So why couldn’t she sign it?

John didn’t love her. Not the way he claimed to. It was just a game. Just trying to make her love him so he could have her fully the way he’d always wanted. He didn’t care about her. It had all just been a manipulation.

Hadn’t it?

John was a coward. The only way he knew how to love something was to possess it. But he would never fight for it. He’d told her himself. He wasn’t capable of fighting. Not even for the things that mattered.

She couldn’t love a coward.

He couldn’t fight for himself, much less someone else. His entire life he just let everyone lie and spread rumors about him and spin him into something he wasn’t. He wasn’t what everyone believed him to be. He was worse. Because he wasn’t, and he wouldn’t fight it. If he couldn’t stand up for himself, how could he fight for anything?

That was how she knew he didn’t love her, not truly.

Because if he did—

“What have you buffoons done with my wife?”

Robin whipped around to face the front of the tent.

John.

Chapter26

The second John spotted those cursed Merry Men, he flung himself off his horse, leaving it for Guy to take care of as he stormed up to them. He could see Richard heading in their direction as well, but he couldn’t let himself focus on that.

John had been furious since the second he left Robin’s room, and he hadn’t stopped the entire way to the desert. He couldn’t stop. If he was angry, he wasn’t afraid. And he was not going to let his fear stop him this time.

“What have you buffoons done with my wife?” John barked. Will and Alan practically jumped out of their skin with horrified expressions, while the giant crossed his arms and was unperturbed.

Richard’s wide eyes had vanished as he reached Robin’s men at the same time as John, and now he was smirking. Of course he was.

“We saved her from your schemes!” Will spoke up.

“She’s signing the annulment right now!” Alan said.

John’s heart crashed to the ground. He was too late.

John turned to Richard and snapped, “Tell me these blithering idiots are lying!”

“When I told you to take care of the Robin Hood problem, I didn’t meanmarrythe outlaw.” Richard rolled his eyes. “Although, I suppose I should have expected a creative solution from you. You never just do anything normally. But I cannot also in good conscience approve of a marriage you forced the girl into. The fact that she’s here at all shows she does not want to be married to you.”

John had spent the last few weeks ignoring that fact.

“John?”

He forgot all about the men he wanted to throttle in front of him at the sound of her voice.

He pushed past them and toward Richard’s tent as he saw Robin for the first time in weeks.

She stood, holding the flap of the tent up as she gaped at him. John could drown in those blue eyes.

But before he could make it any farther, hands were on his sleeves and he was being jerked back. The words he had been summoning for Robin were wiped away as he saw Richard out of the corner of his eye, his hands crushing John’s shoulder as Robin’s men darted around him and toward her, putting themselves between them.

John moved to shove Richard away. No one was going to stop him from speaking to his wife—although she might not be his wife anymore. He was still going to say his piece.

But Richard was a brick, and he said, “It’s wonderful to see you, little brother. It’s beentoolong. I believe we have a lot to discuss.” John opened his mouth again, but like always Richard talked over him and called out to Robin’s men, “The four of you can wait in there. This might be a while.”

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