Page 20 of Breathtaking

“Yes. But I’d appreciate it if you could keep that quiet, please.”

“Don’t tell anyone she’s here, or I swear to God, I’ll rip your arm from its socket and beat you to death with the bloody end,” Maddox threatens in disgustingly graphic detail.

“What the fuck is up with you banging princesses, brother?” Lucky asks, and Rome coughs and looks away while I tilt my head and study the youngest Beneventi, attempting to decipher his words.

“I’m sorry.” I step out of Maddox’s hold. “What?”

“Fuck,” Rome mutters, and Lucky’s smile grows.

“First the Elwyn princess and now you.” He shrugs like he didn’t just blindside me, and I have an overwhelming urge to wrap my hands around the collar of his shirt and shake him, size be damned. I’ve got adrenaline on my side because right now, I feel murderous. “I am the Elwyn princess.”

Rome shakes his head slowly, and bile fills my throat.

“Nah... the other one.”

The room spins as I close my eyes.

No.

This is not happening.

I have two girl cousins in Elwyn. The heir to the throne and?—

“Lennon—” Maddox reaches for me, but I sidestep him.

“Please tell me you didn’t,” I plead with quiet fury, but the answer is right there in front of me. It’s in his eyes. “My cousin?”

“Lennon—” He grabs my shoulder, but I shake him off before I realize I didn’tjustshake him off. My entire body is shaking with rage.

“You slept with my cousin?” I repeat, begging him to lie to me. “Oh my God. I’m going to be sick.”

“Principessa,” he murmurs as I walk past him, and the two clowns behind me suck in simultaneous breaths.

“Don’t,” I warn him. “Don’t call me that.”

The doorbell rings, and I take the chance to slip into the powder room and lock the door before I scream like a maniac in front of all three of them.

I stare at the reflection in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back at me.

There was no way this weekend was going to have a fairytale ending. But this...?

This is like a Brothers Grimm fairytale.

And I played my part, like a fool.

* * *

Present day

“And then what?” Atticus asks from next to me on the floor.

I think back to that day... to everything we said and everything we didn’t.

To the hurt in Maddox’s eyes and the heartbreak that had to be reflected in mine.

And I look at my brother, no longer lost in the memory. Just drained from it.

“I left. The doorbell was Maria. She’d agreed not to tell Dad because she knew she was hopping on a plane to get to me. Maddox may have saved me the night before, but Maria saved me that day. In twenty-four hours, I was saved more than I ever had been in twenty-five years.” I drop my head to my hands, more nauseated than I was finding out Maddox had slept with my cousin. “Who’s going to save me now, Atticus?”

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