Page 78 of American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy 2)
“You don’t know what I’m protecting us against, Ash.”
“Can I know?”
God, above all things, Ash can’t know.
“No.”
“No what?”
Greer appears in the office, sweet and self-possessed, looking for all the world like she’s spent the morning reading T.H. White and not listening to strangers talk about her public cuckolding of Ash. I feel a spike of panic, and I look over to him, but he shakes his head as if to say don’t expect any help from me.
Belvedere pokes his head in through the door with an apology ready on his lips and Ash holds up a hand to forestall him. “It’s fine, Ryan,” he says. Belvedere disappears, looking relieved, and closes the door behind him as he does.
Greer settles onto Ash’s lap—only inches away from me perched on the coffee table—and reaches for my hand. “You told me to come find you if I felt strange after this morning,” she says quietly to Ash, pulling my hand into her lap. Despite everything, the brush of my knuckles against her thighs sends blood pumping to my groin. “Belvedere said it was only the two of you in here, so I thought…”
“You didn’t interrupt anything state related,” he assures her. “But Embry has something he needs to talk to us about.”
She turns those huge silver eyes on me, and I think of all the times I’ve already let her down. How she must have felt after Chicago, all those times I met her and Ash still smelling like whoever I’d just fucked. The moment I let my inner monster take her in Carpathia and let our twisted connection be captured on film.
Shame fills me, but no shame is enough to outweigh the fear of Abilene right now. So I just say it. The lie that will tear her apart and hopefully save us all.
“Your cousin and I started dating. I thought you should know.”
When I get to Number One Observatory Circle, I already know who’ll be waiting for me there. My security team radioed while I was in the car, and I gave them permission to let her through the gates, but it’s still jarring to see Abilene Corbenic perched on my veranda swing as I walk up the steps.
“Hello, loverboy,” she purrs teasingly—and convincingly—as she stands up to greet me. “How’d it go? What was her face like?”
I think of the way Greer’s shoulders had stiffened, her fast blinks as she let go of my hand. But I thought it was just the three of us now. Are Ash and I not enough for you?
“Fuck you,” I tell Abilene in a pleasant voice. I stick my house key in the lock and realize the door isn’t locked; I must have forgotten to lock it up last time I was here.
She follows me inside after I open the door. “But really—her face, Embry. Did she look angry? Hurt? Confused?”
You’re more than enough, but Abilene is special, Greer. I can’t help it.
You have to help it. My wedding night—you promised to cherish me—we all promised to try to make this work!
And then the lie that stung the most of all because it confirmed her worst fears about me. You know how I am, princess. I like to fuck lots of people. I don’t like to stay in one place too long, and Abilene is my new place.
She bit that plump lower lip, her composure struggling. Is it because I’m not as pretty as her? As fun? The words rushed out, like they were against her will, like she couldn’t bear to say them and yet they couldn’t bear not to be said.
And I couldn’t bear driving in the knife that deeply…but I knew it was what Abilene wanted. You have to admit, princess, she is very pretty.
“She was all three,” I tell Abilene, tossing my keys in a dish on the table and going for the bar in the living room. I’m pretty much out of everything except Macallan 12, but it’s my favorite, so I don’t mind. “Angry and hurt and confused. You got your wish. So you can leave now.”
Abilene settles herself in the best chair by the window. “I’d rather not. I want to hear more about Greer.”
I slam back a glass of the warm single malt, wipe my mouth and pour another. I am distantly cognizant that it’s not even three in the afternoon yet. “Why are you doing this? Greer hasn’t done shit to you.”
Something crackles in the air around Abilene. “Hasn’t she, though?” she asks in a low voice. “Because I very much think she has.”
Second glass of Macallan down the hatch, I pour a third and flop onto the sofa. “What did she do, Abilene? Get better grades than you? Get cast for a better part in the school play? Grandpa loved her better? And you’ve just been biding your time all these years?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says coldly.
“I figured that wasn’t it. She told me that she was unpopular in school, always in your shadow, that you were the one everyone liked.”
The air crackles even more, and Abilene’s eyes flash the kind of blue that makes me think of veins…or a corpse’s lips.
