Page 134 of Shameless Royalty

I spent months thinking about him, months replaying every word, every look, every fucking touch like a sick addiction I couldn’t shake. And the whole time, I thought I knew him. But I didn’t know this.

I barely register the girls still talking, still whispering about how they knew the Crowns would come back eventually, how Connor looked even hotter than before, how he’s probably already got girls lining up for a chance to be in his bed.

My jaw clenches.

Fuck this.

I spin on my heel, pushing through the crowd, my thoughts a fucking hurricane.

I don’t stop moving until I reach the edge of campus, where the trees thicken, where the voices fade, where I can breathe without feeling like my entire fucking world is tilting.

I lean back against a tree, my hands trembling slightly as I drag them through my hair.

Connor Cunningham. The heir to an empire that reaches further than I ever could have imagined.

And yet…

And yet.

He still looked at me like I held all the power over him. Like I was the one who could destroy him. The realization is unsettling.

I exhale slowly, pressing my fingers to my temples, trying to make sense of this. Trying to process, but the only thing my mind keeps circling back to is the way his face looked when I walked away.

Like I had already done the worst thing imaginable to him. Like leaving was the one wound he didn’t know how to recover from.

I let out a shaky breath, my heart pounding too fast.

If he thinks he can just show up and slide back into my life, he’s wrong. I don’t care how much power he has. I don’t care that people flinch at his name, that professors bend over backward for him, that the entire fucking school treats him and his friends like they’re untouchable.

I left for a reason and I won’t be pulled back in.

Well, fuck… at least I’ll try.

Chapter 53

Connor

Ican’tgettheimage of Malachi walking away from me out of my head. Not just walking—choosing to.

I’ve replayed it over and over again, every fucking second burned into my brain like a scar I’ll never get rid of. The way his jaw tightened, the way his grip on his books went white-knuckled, the way his shoulders squared like he was bracing for impact before he threw his words at me like knives.

But it wasn’t the words that gutted me.

It was his eyes.

Because they weren’t cold. They weren’t empty. They weren’t the eyes of someone who had moved the fuck on, who had cut me out of their life without a second thought.

They were burning just like mine, and I can see it even clearer now that he’s no longer wearing his glasses.

He still feels this, I know he does… and fuck, I don’t deserve that.

I lean back against my dorm wall, dragging a hand down my face, trying to quiet the pounding in my skull. My stomach is still tight, my chest still a mess of tension I can’t shake, but underneath all of it—beneath the anger, the frustration, the raw fucking pain—is something worse.

Regret.

Because I left him locked in a fucking room with nothing but the promise that I’d come back. And when I did come back, I came back too late. Now he’s here, and he’s… I shake my head. Better.

He’s… better. Not just physically, though that part nearly fucking wrecked me too. He looks good, healthier and stronger, too, like he’s been looking after himself and eating well.

---