The Dirty Series 1(118)

“Home.”

“What?”

“Alec—Prince Alexander and I—.” When I say his name, my throat restricts painfully. “We’re not going to be continuing our relationship. I have to go. I have to get back to New York.” I try to keep my voice level, but it dips and wavers.

“Jessica, wait,” Claire says, a note of panic in her voice. She reaches out and catches me by the arm. “Wait. You can’t just leave.”

“I can, and I’m going to. You can’t stop me, Claire. I’m going to the airport.” In spite of myself, my eyes are filling with tears. How goddamn embarrassing.

Claire runs her hand up and down my arm in long comforting strokes. “I understand,” she says slowly. “But listen to me, Jessica. You want a flight back to New York, right?”

“Yes.”

“You could be waiting there for hours, maybe even until tomorrow, and there will be reporters…let me make the flight arrangements for you.”

“You don’t have to do this, Claire. Any minute, I’m sure the prince will call and say your time with me is over.”

Her eyes are filled with determination. “Let me help you.”

“Okay.” I’m too tired and drained to argue.

“Come back to your rooms.”

“They’re not my rooms anymore.”

“They’re still your rooms. When did the two of you make this…decision?”

Claire puts gentle pressure on my arm, guiding me back to the doors of the queen’s rooms.

“An hour ago?”

“All right. Wait here,” she says, steering me to the table next to the window seat. “Sit here while I have breakfast sent up.”

“Okay,” I say, as she takes the duffel bag from my hand and sets it gently on the floor by the table.

“I’ll be back soon,” she says kindly.

Claire flits from the room, her face already buried in her tablet, leaving me alone again, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, the ragged sound echoing the agony that courses through my body.

I have to leave here, but first…

I have to wait.





Chapter Thirty-Eight





Alec



You think you’ve changed, and then your old habits come rushing back to the fucking surface.

After Marcus died—Jesus, has it only been two weeks?—I fucking swore to myself that I was done with my raging anger, my bitter resentment, and these knee-jerk reactions that never get me anywhere.

With the exception of that one time.

There was only one time when anything positive resulted from expressing my anger, when I became so sick of the bullshit I was constantly facing at the hands of Marcus and my father, and that was when I escaped to New York.

Because I met Jessica.

And now, for her own goddamn good, I’ve destroyed all of it by telling her to leave.

I half expect her to come running after me.

To fight with me.

To fight for me.

To fight for us.

Even if it means she has to take drastic actions. Jessica has a fiery spirit. If she thought it was necessary, she’d go so far as to slap me across the face. I’m sure of it.

But she doesn’t come running after me.

Instead, I thunder through the third level of the palace, snapping at anyone who crosses my path. Phillip is only one of the many people who finds himself in that unfortunate position.

“Your highness,” he says to me when I burst into my rooms, half-dressed from last night and filled with fury at myself for what I’ve just done.

“Not now, Phillip,” I bellow, heading for the bathroom.

“But you have a meeting with—.”

“I said not now. Goddamn it, if you want to keep your job, you’ll find somewhere else to be until I tell you otherwise.”

By the time the last words escape my mouth, my voice has reached a ragged roar, and Phillip’s eyes are huge and round in alarm. He opens his mouth, thinks better of whatever he was going to say and closes it, before bobbing his head and making a dash for the door.

In the shower, the almost intolerable heat of the water does nothing to soothe me. It only further stokes the fire of my rage and heightens the shame of my sadness. I turn the water to cold and let it pummel me. I’m shivering almost instantly, but force myself to stand under the deluge.

The cold blast against my skin reminds me of a fishing trip I took with my father and Marcus years ago, before he was crowned king, before we moved into Sainthall Palace, and maybe even before my mother died.

We had just dropped anchor, far from shore, when my attention wandered just long enough that I failed to notice a rolling wave coming our way. I lost my balance when the wave hit our boat, and I plunged into the frigid water, the cold driving the air from my lungs. I’d already taken off the life jacket my father had insisted that both of us wear while we were underway. The water instantly soaked my clothes, their weight dragging me down.