Page 74 of How to Date a Prince

“I don’t want you to go yet.”

He swallows. “I hear you won’t be coming back to the show. I’m just fucking glad you’re alive, Auggie. We all are. It was bad.”

“It doesn’t feel great,” I admit. Everything is still slightly blurry. I’m exhausted. “Are the horses alright?”

“Yes.”

There’s some relief now, knowing Thomas and the horses are okay.

“They’re taking me home. I won’t be able to see you anymore.” My eyes are damp. “Nobody can know.”

Thomas searches my gaze seriously, holding my hand tight. “Do you want to go home?”

“Do I have any choice?” I whisper through my tears.

“You could come stay with me for a few days,” he tries. “Before I go back to the show. We’ve taken a break after the accident. They’re having a safety review. Probably the insurers want to shut everything down. I mean, I understand why.”

I swallow hard, trembling as I continue to try to hold his gaze through the blur.

“Tell me what you want,” Thomas says.

“I want to stay with you till you have to leave.” My voice is unsteady before it breaks.

“You have my word that I’ll do everything in my power to make that happen. What you want matters, Auggie. Not only what everyone else wants of you. Even me.”

We’re quiet for a long moment. I try to stop crying. I feel so raw. I wish I could believe him.

I hold his hand tight as we hear voices in the hall.

“Who looks after you, anyway?” he asks softly. “When you’re not well?”

“The staff.” I close my eyes then, too difficult to keep my eyes open any longer despite the dim of the room. The ache in my head is too much. “There’s no one else.”

“You saved my life,” he whispers, hoarse. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

And then he’s gone.

* * *

“You cannot go and stay with Thomas Golden. God’s sake, Augustus.” Exasperated, my father paces the hospital room. “You can stay at Clarence House if you don’t wish to return to the palace.”

“What if I go stay by myself somewhere else?”

“Where?” he challenges. “Why?”

“I don’t know. A hotel.”

“You’re not to be by yourself. Not with a concussion. Impossible.”

“So you’re saying I can stay with Thomas, then.”

“Auggie. Why on earth would you want to stay with that man, of all people? Have you forgotten he led a recent protest agitating for the downfall of the kingdom?”

I gaze at my father while I’m supported by a sea of pillows. “Because we went through hell together. And he’s my friend. Besides, you’re not around anyway. What difference does it make to you where I am? You ignore me, then sent me away to the show like it was boarding school all over again.”

His face flushes. His mouth opens.

Which is how I end up soon after at Thomas’ suite again at the Golden Hotel, high above London on the forty-fourth floor.

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