Page 4 of Crowned for His Son

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she ventured briskly.

Prince Azar’s square jaw, a source of infinite fascination in and of itself, with the chin cleft that was a disgraceful personal weakness for her, grew even more eye-catching as it clenched.

He didn’t need to pinch the bridge of his nose in a display of fraying patience. She got that loud and clear as his hands dropped, and he sauntered closer.

Eden would have backed away if her spine hadn’t snapped straight with the welcome reminder that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

During her frantic internet searches once she’d woken from her coma and discovered she was pregnant, most likely with Nick Balas’s baby, she’d come across pictures of this man. But even without the revelation that Crown Prince Azar was friends with Nick, whose car she’d been in that awful night, she knew what kind of man she was dealing with.

Ruthless. Conceited. Silver-spooned. With unfair good looks to match—and, in this one’s case, the breathtaking title of Crown Prince to go with them. And a mile-wide attitude that screamed that the whole world owed them adoration and worship.

Men like her father, who threw their power and privilege around just for the sake of seducing unsuspecting women, whose hearts and lives they shattered irreparably before walking away.

Her mother was one such woman, Eden the product of that kind of careless treatment. The reason her mother had lived in misery her whole life, pining for a man who’d treated her deplorably while lauding his power over her. The reason Eden actively detested men like the one standing before her.

‘This isn’t a costume party, and it isn’t Halloween, so what is it? A prank or a dare?’

His regal head turned, probing the corners and drapes in the room before arching a masculine brow at her.

‘Are your friends recording us right now, ready to jump out with their phone cameras? FYI, I will sue them all for every last cent if they dare to do such a thing. Or is it just something to giggle over later on your own?’

Despite his easy stance, thick layers of tension laced his words. Enough to make her spine of steel sway a little. But the surprising side effect of what she’d been through these last three years was the discovery that she could bend a long way, but she would never break.

The reminder tipped up her chin. ‘Should I not be asking you that? It’s your birthday party after all. So what is it?’ She echoed his question back at him. ‘Play a joke on the help? See whose life you can toy with by getting them fired?’

She blurted the words into her swelling panic. Dear God, if she got fired, paying her rent this month would be near impossible. She was already on the last few hundred in her savings. This double shift was the miracle she’d prayed for.

‘I would’ve thought that would be more the speed of privileged frat boys—not grown crown princes who should know better.’

Dear God, Eden, shut up!

Sadly, the unfairness of it all was choosing tonight of all nights to spill out. Months of keeping it together, of working her fingers to the bone, of lying awake at night praying for that essential gap in her memory to return so wouldn’t feel so…so lost, had eroded the last of her civility.

She wanted to punch and pummel and scream her frustration.

‘Excuse me?’

His words sizzled like ice on a hot griddle as regal fury blazed at her.

‘You had your people manhandle me in here—’

‘They didn’t touch a single hair on your head,’ he interrupted, with blade-sharp precision.

‘They didn’t need to. You waved your hand and they went into intimidation mode. Is that what gets you off? Standing back and watching others dance to your tune?’

‘From where I’m standing there’s very little dancing and a whole load of sass going on,’ he grated. ‘Not to mention a stupid attempt to cling to whatever lies you’re spinning.’

‘What the—?’ Eden took a breath and uncurled fists that had bunched without her conscious knowledge. ‘Look, I know you’re a big deal in royalty, with legions of acolytes on social media and around the world. And I’m sorry if your royal ego is affronted. But the truth is we’ve never met. I’m here on a waitressing gig.’

She waved her hand at the door, every bone in her body straining to sprint for it. But she knew those muscle-bound bodyguards would be waiting—that all it would take for them to restrain her would be another flick of his hand.

‘Maggie, my boss—the woman your people hired to cater your party—is out there, supervising the wait staff. She called me three hours ago and asked me to fill in for a sick colleague. If you don’t believe me, ask her.’

His gaze flicked to the door. Eden almost expected Maggie to materialise out of his sheer willpower alone. A moment later he pinned her again under those ferocious quicksilver eyes she swore could see beneath her skin.

‘You truly want me to believe you think you’ve never met me?’ he breathed in rumbling disbelief.

For the first time, Eden’s certainty fractured. She was reminded of those moments when shards of memory attempted to pierce the otherwise impenetrable fog shrouding those lost months three years ago.

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