Page 4 of The Princess and the Fraud

I found myself looking over at the hall’s emergency exit once more, at the door inset into the brick walls, thinking about the stage beyond that door. Always perfectly within reach, but I always held myself back. “That’s part of the reason, I guess. I’ve put that part of me in the past.”

“It’s interesting that you say it’s in the past,” he murmured, “when you, yourself, called yourself a cellist on instinct.”

“And that, Mr. Stranger, is my metaphorical bridge.”

“To return to the cello, or…”

“To buy a house.”

“Ahouse.” Amusement danced across his features. “A metaphorical house?”

“A real one.” It was the true reason I’d put the cello down, but that was a backstory far too long, far too personal, to unload on him. At least, in its entirety. “It was my mother’s dream house. I’m working to afford it.”

“How much is it?”

I glanced at his Italian leather shoes. “You going to offer to buy it for me?”

“Should I?”

I couldn’t stop the grin that split across my face, and watching his own lips lift in return eased more weight from my chest. “You can’t,” I told him, hugging my legs. “It’d be cheating.”

“Someone is offering to buy you a house, and youdecline?” He gave his head a slow shake of disapproval. “Youshouldbe in bed. You’re clearly not thinking straight.”

“Those sorts of favors come back to bite you.” I narrowed my eyes. “Especiallywhen they’re made by handsome strangers.”

He arched a brow. “Handsome?”

My lips parted at the slip.

“I’m more of a fairy godmother than a genie,” he went on, giving up the line of teasing while sitting back in his seat. “No consequences for a wish.”

I didn’t quite believe him. Not when he was so effortlessly charming. Those kinds of people were even more dangerous.

The stranger’s gaze traced me slowly. “Let’s go back to your bridge.”

My bridge. Abandon everything and go back to the cello, or stay on the path I’d been on for the last five years. It sounded so simple—yet cruel, in more ways than one. It’d been a bridge I’d wavered on for a while, but tonight—it was the first time I truly considered jumping.

“Tonight, I’ve just been… wondering. What it’d be like if I jumped. The house, my job, my friends, my boyfriend—what would happen to it all? What would life be like?” The fire steamed me now. My chair was too close. “My friends, my boyfriend—they all knew about my mother’s anniversary, but no one said anything. And shouldn’t they be curious how my day went? If I was okay?”

I always reached out first, for everyone. If it’d been any normal day, I might not have noticed. Grant, Caroline, Annalise. Their faces flashed in my mind’s eye. Before Annalise moved to California two years ago, the four of us had been close. But Annalise moved, and Grant moved, and Caroline spent more time flying out to the west coast to spend time with them than she stayed in town. And I, who didn’t have a limitless credit card, was stuck in Connecticut working, waiting until everyone thought to come back.

Here. So deeply and wholly unhappy.

My voice was almost curious when I spoke again, soft and sad. “Before, I was able to keep going because I had a team behind me. But it feels like I’ve only just now turned around to find out that no one was really there.”

“Screw them.” The stranger’s expression was perfectly blank, tone matter of fact. I blinked in surprise. “If they can’t find five minutes in their day to reach out on the anniversary of your mother’s death, screw them. To hell with everyone who is making you feel this way.”

Him saying it like that, so simply, interjected a bit of clarity—as if I took a gasping breath after having my head forced underwater. “How do you know I’m not the bad guy in this situation?”

“Because I know what the bad guy looks like, and you don’t look like me.”

I arched a skeptical brow. “You’re a bad guy?”

“I’m not a good one.”

I waited, but only his silence stretched, not his elaboration. He didn’t look away from me, but the light in his eyes grew somewhat distant, as if, he no longersawme. My mother always told me, “Lovisa, if a guy tells you he’s no good, believe him” which, yeah. It didn’t stop the surge of intrigue from swelling within me, though. Maybe it was because the man before me looked nothing short of impressive—expensive shirt, designer pants, Italian leather shoes. Nothing about him screamedbad.

Or, maybe, in that moment, I didn’t care. Loneliness bit into my bones like teeth. Even if he was bad, I’d rather have him listening than no one at all.

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