by Reid, B. B.
Copyright © 2020 B.B. Reid
The Prince and the Pawn by B.B. Reid
All rights reserved.
Chief Editor: Rogena Mitchell-Jones of RMJ Manuscript Service LLC
Co-editor: Colleen Snibson of Colleen Snibson Editing
Cover Design by Amanda Simpson of Pixel Mischief Design
Interior Design/Formatting by Champagne Book Design
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author or publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use the material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, are coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Also By B.B. Reid
PART ONE
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
PART TWO
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also By B.B. Reid
Contact the Author
About B.B. Reid
I’m dedicating this book to true friends. Without them, our souls would perish.
Broken Love Series
Fear Me
Fear You
Fear Us
Breaking Love
Fearless
Stolen Duet
The Bandit
The Knight
When Rivals Play Series
The Peer and the Puppet
The Moth and the Flame
Evermore (novella)
The Punk and the Plaything
The Prince and the Pawn
THE COOL BREEZE FROM THE ocean slammed into my aching chest the moment I burst through the door. The wind carried with it the salt and water from the sea, blending in with my tears.
How could he?
There were murmurs and whispers and a few laughs as my former classmates looked on, and I could only guess what they were all thinking.
Had she actually believed him when he said he loved her?
Yes. I had.
I foolishly believed every word that passed through his lips from the moment he first pressed them against mine. How could someone who kissed so beautifully tell such ugly lies? I looked to the sky as if it had the answers. All I found was the full moon and its callous glow shining down on me like a spotlight. Here she is, it seemed to say, the fool who thought Vaughn Rees had a heart and wouldn’t break hers.
“Tyra!”
Hearing my name shouted over the music, I rushed down the wooden stairs. I never realized before now how many there were. The stilts the blue beach house sat on were fourteen feet high to protect from flooding. Somehow, despite my blurry vision, I managed not to fall. A broken neck was all I needed to match my broken heart. The moment my sandaled feet touched the sand, I looked around in desperation. The parking lot would be the first place my friends would check.
Not ready to face my devastation, I slipped into the shadows underneath the house. I couldn’t outrun them, so I’d hide until they gave up—if they gave up. I held my breath while my tears flowed freely. A moment later, the obscure figures of my friends darted past where I was hiding.
They’d witnessed everything.
Vaughn’s betrayal.
My humiliation.
And the bitch who’d stolen everything from me.
My cheeks heated in shame as I recalled how I had turned and ran in defeat. I should have stayed and killed them both. Hindsight really was twenty-twenty.
Swallowing the sob that threatened to spill, I leaned into one of the stilts, wrapping my arms around the beam. With my forehead resting against the cold, damp wood, I closed my eyes. It was the only thing keeping my knees from buckling.
Vaughn had warned me. A year ago and almost every day since, he told me that we could never be, but my arrogance hadn’t allowed me to believe him. That and the way his eyes defied the words his lips had spouted.
I’d chosen to listen to the teachings that a person’s actions spoke louder than words. So, naïvely, I clung to hope. And tonight, Vaughn had shown me the truth.
Seeing him with her, touching her, giving her what only should have belonged to me was more proof than anyone could deny. And the look in his eyes when he finally noticed me witnessing it all… I hugged the sturdy wood tighter when I felt pieces of my heart tumble into the rage building in my gut. As much as it burned, it was still just an ember. Only time would tell when the fire would finally roar. My stomach was twisted in a knot so tight I feared, any moment now, I’d break in half. It was inevitable, wasn’t it?
I was inhaling the salted air when behind me, I heard the soft crunch of sand. I froze, humiliated again that he’d caught me like this—pathetically weeping and irreparably shattered. I didn’t have to turn to know it was him. I hadn’t made a sound. The darkness underneath the house cloaked me entirely. Yet it still didn’t matter.
From the moment our gazes first connected, Vaughn and I became a siren’s song. We would always be drawn.
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
With my eyes still closed, I pictured him with his hands tucked inside his jeans, his cold gaze assessing and calculating. Like everyone else, I’d mistaken that look for boredom, but Vaughn was never as disinterested as he was careful. Months of allowing me to hold him close, and I had yet to find out why. I realized then that as much as Vaughn had let me in, I’d only ever had one foot in the door.
“But you’re not—” I squeezed my closed eyes tighter, hating the way my voice broke and how it barely carried over the sound of the waves crashing in the ocean or the music playing from the beach house above us. I still couldn’t find the courage to turn around. “You’re not sorry you did it?”
“No.”
“And when you said you loved me…are you sorry for that, too?”
It took a long time for him to answer, long enough for hope to creep its way back in and long enough for Vaughn to crush it with a single word. “Yes.”
“Why should I believe you?” I asked anyway. It was weird, wasn’t it? Odd that I could argue his point after catching him with his pants down and his dick inside�
�I dug my fingernails into the wood, ignoring the pain. It was more than weird. It was pathetic.
Vaughn sighed, and my guess was because I wouldn’t take the hint he was waving around on a sign the size of a billboard with flashing lights so bright they blinded. Maybe I was still too head over heels to see it. He might not have meant it when he said he loved me, but I had. Love didn’t just fade the moment the other pushed the big red “abort” button. Instead, you’re left standing alone in the place that had once been your Eden and was now your own personal hell.
“I’m bored, Tyra. I don’t know how else to put it.”
“So, you put it inside of that bitch instead?” My voice had become granite, and if I weren’t clinging to this fucking beam as if it were a life raft, I would have patted myself on the back. I felt him closing in—felt his warmth, the strength of his muscles, and even the rhythm of his heart as if he’d taken me in his arms and made it all better.
If only he would.
I pressed my fists against the wood.
“Look at me,” he demanded as if he had the right.
I shook my head, denying him. I was afraid that if I did look at him, I’d see that his heart was no longer mine. A moment later, I felt his hands on my shoulders, gently turning me to face him.
“I made a mistake,” he said once he’d captured my gaze.
I knew he wasn’t talking about tonight. Just as my heart, on its last desperate stitch, begin to splinter, I felt the telling tap of his finger on my shoulder. It was subtle, like a phantom touch, only it was very much real. Immediately, I started to melt into the comfort of his strong arms. The demand to know why he was doing this was poised on my lips when I felt the bite of his fingers keeping me at bay.
His rejection rippled through me, and I no longer cared about his reasons. I closed my eyes, hating him, and wondering how many times I’d have to disgrace myself. How many before I accepted that this was real?
Vaughn and I were over.
But then…how could something that never truly started end?
While Vaughn had been sure to remind me that we weren’t exclusive, he’d often forgotten that fact himself. Once he’d sunk his teeth into me, it became a full-time job scaring off the guys at our school, and when he wasn’t savagely defending his territory, he was attending to my every need. There’d been no time or desire for anyone else.
Until now.
Pushing him away, I forced my spine to straighten. “It took you a year to figure that out?”
Callously, he shrugged, and I realized the glow that usually shone from his green eyes was gone. The wind ruffled his light-brown hair as the ache to run my fingers through it—as I had many times before—was greater than the pain in my chest.
“I was looking for something different, and until now, you provided that.”
“You mean up until I let you—” I choked on the words caught in my throat. God, why had I given him so much? I’d waited a year, and still, it wasn’t enough. Swallowing past the lump, I tried again. “Until I let you fuck me.”
His eyes quickly narrowed. “Let’s not forget,” he said slowly and with a touch of cruelty, “you begged me not to stop.”
“I thought maybe—” I stopped, wondering if it was wise to admit just how stupid I’d been. Vaughn’s eyebrow perked, daring me to continue. “I thought maybe you’d change your mind.” Summer’s end had been rapidly approaching, and I’d never been more desperate. I believed in the idea of soulmates, and from the moment Vaughn first kissed me, I knew he was mine. That kiss was the reason I stopped fighting his pursuit at the start of my senior year.
Vaughn obviously didn’t feel the same, judging by the way his body stiffened and nostrils flared at my confession. “You mean you thought you could manipulate my feelings with sex?” If possible, his tone became even colder than before. “While you were a phenomenal fuck, Bradley, no pussy is that good.”
I looked away, unable to meet his gaze, my tone despondent when I spoke. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“Finally, something we can agree on,” he immediately spat. “No, it doesn’t matter now.”
I never realized before how much power Vaughn had over me. For a moment, we listened to the waves crash. For a moment, I wanted to walk into the sea and let them drown me.
“Just tell me one thing,” I urged as a lone tear slipped down my cheek. I vowed that it would be the last I shed over him. Vaughn said nothing while he waited. “Of all the girls you could have screwed, why did it have to be her?”
One month ago
“DON’T GO.”
Despite my shift starting in ten minutes, I pressed myself harder into Vaughn’s lap. I could feel his hard dick through his gray sweatpants, and it was begging me to throw caution to the wind. It would be ten times harder to walk away from Vaughn right now than it would be to walk away from the job I’ve had since I was fifteen.
“Stay with me,” he continued to plead between kisses.
It was his fault for insisting he drive me to work when I had my own car and then being bold enough to do it without a shirt. During the entire fifteen-minute drive, I kept stealing peeks at his bare chest, ripped arms, and that crazy six-pack of his until he caught me ogling and pulled the car over. We ended up making out on the side of the forest-lined road for twenty minutes.
“I can’t,” I whined even though I really wanted to stay. I recognized the look in his eyes. Vaughn wanted to play, and I was more than eager to be his mate. In the blink of an eye, we’d gone from strangers to friends to something we weren’t allowed to put a label on. Still, it was a long way from him being a god among men—one that I had secretly pined for from a safe distance.
With a sigh, I returned to the quilted leather passenger seat of the Aventador. The car was worth over four-hundred grand, and I wondered about the man brave enough to buy his teenage son a Lamborghini. With pursed lips, I realized the only thing the star quarterback loved more than football was this car, so there was little chance of anything happening to it. Deciding not to go down that road, I turned to face the green-eyed boy who kept my stomach in knots. Although—after raking my gaze over his broad shoulders—I realized using the term boy to describe Vaughn was a straight-up felony.
“I need to save as much money as I can,” I reasoned when Vaughn gripped the steering wheel in frustration. “I don’t know how long it will be before I find something in Cambridge.”
I’d gotten accepted into Harvard, my life-long dream, yet, somehow, I couldn’t muster the excitement that was expected. All I could think about was the distance it would put between Vaughn and me—however much. Everyone knew he’d gotten offers to play at several schools, but he’d been tight-lipped for some reason about the one he’d chosen.
Vaughn said nothing as he started the engine and steered the foreign car back onto the road. Just like a spoiled prince used to getting everything he wanted, Vaughn was pissed. I could feel the sweat we’d worked up drying as my skin suddenly cooled. How much longer could he go without? Overnight, Vaughn had gone from having a little too much sex to none at all. He’d been patient, but I wondered if he was reaching the end of his rope.
Five minutes later, we were pulling into the parking lot of the coffee shop where I worked, and he still hadn’t said a word. Rather than continue this guessing game, I took a deep breath, knowing the risk I was taking. He’d always shut down whenever the subject came up.
“Speaking of school,” I started and almost lost my nerve when I felt his gaze. How was it possible that, after nine and a half months, he could still send the butterflies in my stomach soaring? “Have you decided who you’re going to play for?”
Vaughn didn’t immediately look away. In fact, he stared at me long and hard until I began to squirm in his passenger seat and not for any of the usual reasons. When he finally, mercifully looked away, I could see the muscle in his cheek ticking.
And just as I was about to give up and flee his car, he surprised me with a curt b
ut quiet “Yes.” Dread pooled in my gut because he didn’t seem happy about it, which left only one possible reason.
“How far away is it?”
“Far.”
The ringing in my ears could only have been caused by the deafening sound of my heart dropping to my feet.
“Oh.”
The silence that fell over the car made it feel as if we were the last two people on earth. Vaughn would be hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away. How long before the feelings he wouldn’t admit to having faded?
“Is that why you kept it a secret?”
Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the seat. “Yes,” he answered easily, though his voice sounded strained.
My gaze dropped to his lap, where his right hand rested, in time to see his finger tap his thigh. It hadn’t taken me long at all to learn his tells.
He’s lying.
But about what? The distance or the reason he’d kept it a secret in the first place?
Checking my watch, I realized my shift had already started. Before Vaughn, I’d never been late or missed a day of work. Now I was skating on thin ice and one tardy away from being fired. What else was I risking for a boy who kept secrets and lied about the reasons?
“I have to go.”
I quickly lifted open the scissor door, and my irritation skyrocketed when I realized I wouldn’t be able to slam it behind me.
This day just keeps getting worse.
I felt Vaughn’s gaze tracking me as I stormed inside, but I didn’t dare look back. Macchicino, the owner’s indulgent amalgamation of macchiato and cappuccino, was yet another over-priced pretentious coffee shop. Thanks to all the tables and booths doubling as comfortable workspaces, Macchicino stole a lot of business from Starbucks down the street. The only things not painted either black or gray were the lightbulbs, and that included the fake plants and the exposed beams in the ceiling. It made the millennials who frequented feel posh while the boomers thought of themselves as hip.
I made eye contact with Terry, who pointedly checked the clock on the wall before giving me a dirty look and disappearing in the back. Thankfully, his office, an old desk pushed against the wall near the supply shelves, was where he spent most of his shift. I was only four minutes late, but with my recent track record, I might as well have been forty. Relieved to see that we weren’t too busy, I quickly waved to my coworkers before ducking inside the bathroom. Even though I was late, I needed a minute to clear my head, or else I’d be no good to anyone.