Page 32 of Broken Crown

The man with the scar is waiting for her.

Her own personal Freddy Krueger.

Despite the risk, I toe off my shoes, then shrug out of my jacket and t-shirt, draping them over the reading chair in the corner.My pants and socks join them before I skirt around to the opposite side of the bed and slide under the covers beside her.

When I wrap her in my arms and pull her body against mine, my front to her back, she sighs, melting into me.I pepper kisses along her shoulder blades, refusing to act on my growing arousal.Instead, I just hold her, offering her some sort of comfort in a world I sense she’s questioning more and more with every passing day.

Just like I am.

I didn’t want to believe Hayes Barlow.Wanted to forget everything he told me, write him off as a desperate man with a history of lying and manipulation trying to clear his name.

That went up in flames the second Esme mentioned seeing a man with a scar in her dreams.

Then seeing that same man at the theater tonight.

The practical side of me says I shouldn’t put much stock into it.They’re only dreams.Not a single other person in that theater tonight claimed to have seen a man with a scar along his right jawline, a distinguishing feature someone was bound to notice.

I try to tell myself it’s because he’s not real.

I don’twanthim to be real.

But as I watch Esme struggle and writhe through another night terror, this one far worse than any I’ve seen before, I know I need to do something to help set her mind at ease.Need to do something to stop these dreams from tormenting her.Need to get her the answers she’s desperate for.

Need to get myself the answersI’mdesperate for, too.

ChapterTwelve

Esme

“Pardon the interruption, ma’am.”My butler steps into my den the following afternoon, the sun cascading through the mahogany-framed windows.I snap my head in his direction, an expectant brow raised.

I’ve spent all day lounging on the couch, something I don’t do much of these days.

What else am I supposed to do now that all my public appearances for the rest of the weekend have been canceled?

My father’s orders.

He thinks I’m overtired and that’s why I conjured up this man with a scar.Hell, he probably thinks that’s the reason I started having these dreams in the first place.

But I know he’s real.And I plan on proving it.

That’s why I’ve spent the last several hours with my sketch pad, attempting to draw the face of the man who torments me.After seeing him nightly for the past month, it shouldn’t be this difficult.

But I’m struggling to get it just right.To capture the wildness in his eyes.The pure malevolence in his expression.The fear the sight of him evokes in me.

“Master Jameson Gates is here to see you.I can send him away if you’re not up to having visitors.”

A few weeks ago, I would have been suspicious if Jameson dropped by unexpectedly.

But we turned a corner last night.He seemed so vulnerable.So…lost.

Much like I feel right now.

While I appreciate the risk Creed took by staying with me last night, he never told me he believed me.It meant a lot that he stood up to his father and suggested the guards sweep the premises, but I noticed the uncertainty in his expression.The only person who looked at me with anything remotely close to understanding was Jameson Gates.

Right now, that’s what I need.

“Of course.You may let him in.”

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