Page 45 of Corrupt Princess

“Some guy I’ve been hooking up with for a few months. He’s…”

“Boring?” Jodie offers.

“Boring but a great fuck. He’s easy. And he—”

“Wants to marry you and have his little boring babies with you.”

“Seriously?” I hiss at my best friend.

She shrugs innocently. “You know it’s true. He’s totally smitten with you.”

“So smitten he was too busy getting distracted by a hooker Friday night to come and rescue me?”

“Bri, you can’t expect him to suddenly be the exact kind of man you’ve always told him you don’t want just because you got cornered by Nico.”

“I…”

“You know he’s about as faithful to you as you are to him. He probably—and mostly correctly—assumed that you’d hooked up. Hell, for all we know, he could have seen Nico before you did.”

“No chance. He would never have let me leave if he did.”

“Well, whatever happened, he bought my lie about you being sick and leaving easily enough.”

“Probably because he knows it’s bull. He might be dull as duck shit, but he’s not stupid,” I mutter.

“Shouldn’t you just end it?” Calli asks innocently.

“You think I haven’t tried? He’s persistent as fuck.” When we… well, fuck, and I’m reminded of his better bits. “Maybe I should just leave. Start over somewhere new and leave all these irritating men behind me.”

“You’re joking, right?” Jodie snaps.

“Maybe. Seems like it would be a good solution.”

“No it wouldn’t,” Calli states before Jodie gets a chance. “And anyway, I’m pretty sure my brother would follow you to the end of the Earth.”

“No he wouldn’t,” I scoff, refusing to believe her words are true.

“Did you not see his face up there when we left? I’ve only seen that much hurt on it once before, and that isn’t a night I ever want to repeat.”

A heavy silence falls around us, I’m sure all our memories go straight back to that night. The rubble, the scent of death and destruction.

I squeeze my eyes closed as I remember watching Nico drop to his knees beside his father and bow his head as reality slammed into him and disbelief and grief gripped him in a tight hold.

It was agonising to watch. Something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

“This is going to eat him alive, Bri. Hurting you… it’s going to fuck him up even worse than he already is.”

“It’s his own fault.”

“No,” she says sadly. “It’s mine.”

“Why? What did you do?” Jodie asks in disbelief.

Calli shakes her head as the blacked-out car we’re sitting in pulls into the underground garage of the guys’ building.

“It’s what I haven’t done,” she confesses before the engine cuts out and the door is opened for us.

I make sure to get a good look at the four suited men who are standing around the garage, ensuring our safety, as a sense of foreboding washes through me.

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