Page 108 of My Queendom for a Horse

Nope.

Sinfully handsome Russian prince, still standing there.

“About that.” I wince. “The thing is, I had a lot to drink last night, and—”

“Kris.”

I can’t meet his eyes. “I really didn’t mean whatever I said.”

“No?” His voice is so querulous, and I can’t help myself. I look up.

“No,” I say. “Not a word of it.”

He leans against the doorframe, his face both cocky and curious at the very same time. “What exactly are you imagining you might have said?”

I swallow. “I always say things like that when I’m drunk. I mean, I haven’t been drunk much—”

“You were drunk on Christmas Eve,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “Barely. I mean, too drunk to drive, but not really drunk. Not so much that I don’t recall what I said.”

“What do you usually say to men when you’re drunk?” He leans toward me a bit. It’s too much, too early.

I know how I look in the morning, and I can see how he looks, and they’re not a match. Adonis and a hedge witch do not fit. “The point is that, whatever I did say, it wasn’t true.”

“Even if you said you loved me?” I didn’t realize someone could swagger with their tone, but now I know, and it’s dangerous.

Also, I want to crawl behind the door and die. Did I really drunk call him and tell him I loved him? I’m a walking cliché. “Especially that.”

He bites his lip to keep from beaming. “I knew it.”

“Wait.” I’m so lost. “Knew what?”

“You barely said anything at all, other than warning me that you were worried you might die if you rode Five Times Fast in the Grand National instead of me.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s not that I really think I might die. It’s just that—”

“I looked it up.” All the mockery in his tone and expression is gone. He frowns. “Your mother passed away, after a fall in the Grand National.”

My nod’s tight.

“I’m so sorry. You never mentioned it before.”

I shrug.

“So I’m here.” He reaches for my hand.

I shy back, scooting away from him as fast as I can without losing sight of him. There’s no telling what he might do if I’m not watching. “I don’t need comforting. It happened a long time ago.”

He uses my retreat to advance through the door, shutting it behind him with an evil gleam in his eye. “But you’ve never raced in the Grand National before. I looked that up, too.”

“You managed to dig up a lot of information for someone who spent all night on a redeye flight.” The more I think about it, the more confused I get. “Wait, I called you really late.”

He smirks. “They have internet on airplanes, you know, and you’re kind of stuck on there with nothing else to do.”

“They had a flight from Russia in the middle of the night?” I cross my arms.

He shrugs.

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