Page 149 of My Dark Horse Prince

“She had everything handed to her, but you’ve had to work for every single scrap.”

“But—”

“No buts, I said. Don’t make me kiss you again.”

If this were any circumstance other than the current one. . .but Adriana’s missing, and I can’t keep him here. “I love you,” I say. “And I may not think I deserve you right now, and I may sometimes have trouble accepting you just as you are because of my past. But I know that if I weren’t valuable, you’d never love me back. So how about this? Now that I know you’re waiting for me to come back home, I won’t devalue myself anymore, because I trust your judgment.”

“It’s not enough,” he says. “But it’s a start.” He gathers me in close to his chest. “And I plan to spend the rest of my life writing the happily ever after.”

“Together,” I say.

“From now on, never apart.” He kisses me again, but this one is a definite goodbye.

At least for now.

28

Adriana

My entire life, I’ve been surrounded by women who don’t really think they deserve what they have. My mother was always thanking people for everything, profusely, ridiculously. She cleaned for people as her job, but did that mean she had to be their servant?

It always annoyed me.

Mirdza grew up just like her, a doormat who was always worried about the feelings of everyone else.

I went another direction.

My very first promise to myself was to never, ever let anyone take advantage of me. If all the world’s either victims or Vikings, then by golly, hand me a sword. In every instance in my life when I made a choice, I always chose myself.

The worst one of all was the day I walked home and rounded the corner and heard a lot of yelling coming from the apartment. His voice, like always, was so very loud. It was loud, and terrible, and it featured in every single one of my nightmares.

“Look at this,” I heard him say. “Your little girl finally came to play.”

I knew, in that moment, that Mirdza had finally snapped. She stood up and fought back against him for our mother’s sake. I was proud of her decision, and I knew that I should join her. We were twins, but I was the strong one. I was the one who always went in swinging.

But then I heard Martinš say, “And you even brought me a toy.”

It was an ugly thing to hear, coming from him. Nothing he thought of as a toy could be something good. And the thwack I heard, and the slither of someone falling on the ground afterward. The moans, and the horrible, terrible, gosh-awful meaty sounds of someone being beaten. . .I’d heard them all before.

I should have intervened. If our roles had been reversed, mousy little Mirdza would have come running to step in front of me.

But I ran away.

That night, on the night of the one beating that changed my twin sister’s life forever, I was there.

And I ran away.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve been running away from that night ever since. When she tries to help me, I can’t accept it. Not when I could have saved her and didn’t. When a man would try to date me, sometimes even a guy I sort of liked, I would always think, Adriana, do you deserve a great boyfriend? The answer was no, of course. To the world, I was a scrappy fighter, both confident and talented. Beautiful, even.

But deep down inside, I knew: I was a terrible coward when it really mattered. I failed the one person in my life who always did anything and everything she could do for me in every way.

So when she calls me and pretends I’m Kristiana, the friend who has really and truly saved her whenever she needed it, the friend who has always been there for her, the one person she could always trust to not ever let her down, when she calls me knowing she’ll die, because she wants to spare her friend’s life, I can’t do it.

I can’t stand by that cracked door and listen and do nothing again.

I may be a selfish, useless piece of trash. But I did learn that night that the only thing worse than taking a brutal beating is standing by and watching while someone else, someone you love, takes one. So instead of waiting half an hour, instead of not going for help, like she begged me to do, I paid every last dime I had to the first cab I could hail. Then I sprinted to the place that horrible man said I had to go.

And when the man in the ebony suit approached, all smooth movements and complete confidence, I didn’t struggle at all.

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