by Tee, Marian
As soon as the prince stepped out, he became the center of a media circus. Civilian protesters saw in Reid Chalkias an opportunity to spread their hatred, alternately screaming obscenities at him and taunting him for his rumored ties with the Mafia.
The prince’s security did their best to keep everyone away, their stoic expressions mirroring their employer’s as they forcibly opened a path through the throng. But while they were able to secure his safety, they were unable to prevent the rowdy crowd from spitting at the prince and throwing anything and everything they could get their hands on—-
By the time the prince and Fredericka were finally ensconced inside his limousine, the redheaded attorney was shaking with rage. “This is exactly what they did to Vassi Grachyov two years ago,” she told him between clenched teeth. “I hate it when people act like they’re so damn blameless.”
The limousine started to move, and Fredericka said hotly, “Just tell me if you wish me to sue them.”
The prince shook his head. “I’d rather not waste my time on them, and besides, I’m used to such treatment.” He paused, and when he spoke again, quiet gratitude underlined the prince’s voice. “Thank you for agreeing to represent me as well, Attorney Spears.”
“I have to, Mr. Chalkias.” Fredericka’s tone was slightly discomfited. “When I asked permission from Ms. Cornwall to use the video as evidence, I never paused to think of what its impact would be on you or your relationship. I’m afraid...I didn’t really believe her when she told me you love her.”
“You weren’t the only one, attorney.” The prince’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
When the prince reached his home, he thanked the lawyer again and insisted on having his chauffeur drive her back to her office.
Igor was there to greet him by the front doors, and the older man asked, “Are you alright, sir?”
The prince nodded. “I’d appreciate a moment alone.”
“Understood, sir.” Igor had the entire staff disappear from view in moments, and soon the prince was and wasn’t alone.
Memories of Fawn surrounded him.
This was where he and Jason Christakos had spoken in front of Fawn, the prince thought.
He headed down the hallway.
This was where he had first spoken to Fawn after her interview, and she had done her best but failed to make herself smile at him.
He looked at the end of the hallway.
That was where Fawn had thought she was being haunted.
He stopped in front of his study.
And here—-
Here—-
Prince, please. Her cry echoed in his mind, every word whipping his heart.
For your sake, you must learn to forget me.
I can’t. The words repeated over and over, and his heart began to bleed.
Then that’s a pity...because I can forget you.
The prince’s gaze burned.
Oh God, Fawn.
Here was his last chance of saving her from all the fucking agony—-
Here was where he had abandoned her.
Jaw clenching, he forced himself to step inside the study.
And then he started to call.
Again and again.
And typed.
He typed nonstop.
Emails. Text messages. Chats on applications.
I love you.
Please believe me.
I love you.
Please believe me.
One day passed.
Two days.
But the prince didn’t stop trying to contact her. Only the knowledge that the TRO would send him back to jail kept him from visiting her. His fear had nothing to do at all with being behind bars but of not being there for Fawn again if she needed him.
The nights were the hardest, the darkness making it impossible for the prince to hold on to illusions of hope. In his mind, his heart, he knew that his time to reach her was running out. He wished it was paranoia but he knew it wasn’t, the same way the prince had known that last time his biological father had told him goodbye—-
He had known he would never see his father alive again.
Death was like that.
It only needed to meet you once to be a friend for life, never to be forgotten.
And on the fifth day after his release from jail, the prince learned he was right.
He had just forced himself to swallow a few bites of breakfast when he received a call from Derek Christopoulos.
“Reid, I have news.”
“Fawn?” He gripped his phone hard. “Is she alright?”
“You told me to let you know if anything comes up, and she’s just been admitted to Wyndham Hospital. She’ll be undergoing surgery—-”
The prince said abruptly, “I have to go.”
Stalking out of the house, he found Noah and Igor waiting for him outside, the limousine’s engine already running and on standby.
He stopped dead in his tracks. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“We heard your conversation, sir,” Igor said. “We’ll be coming with you.”
The prince said in a hard voice, “No.” What he planned was against the law in every sense, and he didn’t want any of his men involved.
“We can either ride with you or we’ll follow behind you.” Noah’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Either way, sir, we will stand by you.”
“She’s important to us, too, sir—-” Igor’s voice suddenly cracked, and it was the first time for the prince to see the other man look every year of his age.
The prince breathed hard. “You’re both fucking idiots,” he muttered jerkily. “What...happened was my fault.”
Noah shook his head, saying hoarsely, “When we got to her that day—-” The older man’s gaze started to blur as memories rushed in, and he remembered Fawn’s bleeding, disfigured face. God.
He had survived war more times than he wanted to remember, and yet why could none of those battles compare to the pain of knowing that he, too, had played a role in Fawn’s suffering?
“She was already delirious, and we had to rush her to the chopper for medical attention. We hooked her up, stopped the bleeding, and then, she saw me—-” Noah’s chest heaved. “She smiled, sir. Like she hadn’t just had her face carved up. And you know why? You know what your fawn said, sir?”
The prince turned ashen at the bleakness that darkened the older man’s gaze.
“She asked me to tell you it doesn’t hurt as much as it looks.”
Ah.
Tears fell on Noah’s weathered cheeks. “Your love made her strong. That’s the only thing you gotta remember. The only thing that’s important.”
And the prince realized that all this time he had thought he was alone in his suffering—-
The people around him had been suffering, too.
They were blaming themselves, too.
But most important of all—-
They loved Fawn, too.
He said unevenly, “Let’s do this then.”
Igor and Noah nodded.
“And if we don’t make it out alive—-”
The two nodded again.
In spite of everything, the prince was unable to prevent his lips from twitching. “That was a joke,” he said mildly.
His two most trusted men stared at him blankly.
But then Igor, who had been with him from the very start, said finally, “It must be the end of the world.”
The prince laughed hoarsely. “That’s what my mother says.”
He had made his first joke during his adoption hearing, he had made a joke when he had asked Fawn to be his lover, and now—-
He was hoping his joke, however fucking lame it was, would be a good omen as well.
Because he needed every bit of luck he could get.
On his way to the hospital, he made a call to his friend Silver March, relaying his favor in terse terms.
Silver called him back after five minutes, and the man said succinctly, “Slade Wyndham’s agr
eed to stonewall the procedure. He’ll have admin dump a ton of paperwork on them, but it can only buy you an extra thirty minutes.” Silver paused. “Needless to say, you’ll be paying for all damages incurred.”
“He can charge me any fucking amount he wants, as long as it stops Fawn from going under the knife.”
“Good luck,” Silver murmured.
“Thank you.”
Fifteen minutes passed, and every minute felt like an eternity of suffering.
When they made it to the hospital, the prince and his men took the service elevator, knowing that they would meet less resistance this way. The three of them made it past both the police officers and private security employed by Bennett’s parents without being seen, but when they finally reached the private hallway leading to the operating room, the prince knew that bloodshed was inevitable.
Grant Bennett saw him first, and the younger man stiffened, his face turning white in shock.
Seeing it, his parents and Fawn’s mother followed his gaze, and so did the two lone police officers stationed outside the doors of the operating room.
Everyone tensed.
A second later, and the prince and his men were up against the police officers in a fast draw battle—-
The prince had his gun out first, followed by his men while the middle-aged but inexperienced officers were still fumbling for their weapons.
The prince slowly moved forward.
Noah stayed back, guarding the doors to the hallway.
Igor followed behind the prince, his gun trained on the officers.
The prince turned to Fawn’s mother. “I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, but I have no choice.”
“Haven’t you hurt my daughter enough?” Dana’s voice shook with suppressed emotions.
“I’m sorry,” the prince said doggedly, but even so his grip on his gun remained steady, and the cold-blooded look in his green eyes didn’t ease, his gaze remaining on the police officers as he continued to make his way to the operating room.
When he reached the doors, he forced the police officers to move away.
“Igor?”
“I’ll kill the first one who moves,” his right-hand man said calmly.
It was enough for the prince.
The sight of the prince entering the operating room had the medical staff inside screaming, and the prince said in a hard voice, “Out.”
They ran past him, screaming.
An alarm sounded, and the prince knew he only had minutes left, even with Slade Wyndham making sure that his own security would be slow to respond.
Fawn was in the middle of the operating room, white-faced, back straight. She had sat up the moment he entered, brown eyes wide with terror. When their gazes met, a cry tore out of her.
It was as if having his eyes on her hurt, and the prince stilled for one moment—-
But then she raised her hands to cover her face, and an agonizing realization of the truth dawned on him.
Ah God.
She was ashamed of how she looked.
Pain crippled him, and his own shame almost made him feel he didn’t deserve to get an inch closer. But even so, he forced himself to move, telling himself that he owed this to her.
When his fingers circled her wrists, she asked brokenly, “Why are you here?”
“Because I can’t let you have this surgery.”
A muffled, teary laugh. “S-seriously? Are you insane?”
The sweet, innocent sound of her laughter made him suck in his breath, but even so he managed to say, “Yes.”
He felt her hands press closer to her face, almost as if she wanted another layer of flesh to keep everyone from really seeing her. “Why?”
“Because I’m selfish.”
“S-selfish?”
He nodded, knowing that she could see him through the slits of space between her fingers. “Because I’m selfish...and a coward.”
Silence.
And then she whispered, “Why?”
“Because...” His chest heaved as he inhaled. “It’s the only way to let you know that I can love you.”
When she stiffened, he knew she knew what he was planning—-
“N-no.” Her voice was an anguished stammer. “I’m n-not ready—-”
“I’m sorry,” he said rawly.
Her voice became hysterical. “NO! I said no—-”
His fingers tightened around her wrists.
“Please.”
And then he was slowly but firmly pulling her hands away, and she started to cry when she realized there was nothing she could do.
“PLEASE—-”
Inch by inch, he saw her carved-up face—-
“How many times will you make me beg—-” Her voice cracked.
And it was the most painfully beautiful thing he had ever seen.
His eyes burned with hers.
His heart bled with her.
And his soul wept with her.
“Fawn.” His own voice broke, and the prince’s voice turned into a strained whisper. “Fawn. Fawn. Fawn – I love you.”
Her tears fell faster, making her scars glisten with vicious vividness.
“I have loved you from the very start.”
She shook her head at him, silent in her despair, and his voice became desperate. “Meredith Grayson was wrong. I was wrong.”
But still she cried, and still her eyes told him hope no longer existed in her.
His fingers tightened around her wrists. It was almost as if he could feel her slipping away from him, and the thought made him say in a low, driven tone, “I was lying to myself the whole time. The entire time I kept pushing you away, I kept telling myself that it was for your sake, when all along...it was for my sake. I was pushing you away because you reached the part of me that not even the people who died for me—-” He sucked his breath. “My parents. Georgie. I owed my life to them, Fawn. My life. But Dio, angel, what I feel for them is nothing compared to how I feel for you.”
He brought her hands to his chest, letting her feel the frantic beat of his heart.
“I love you. I have always loved you. And I will always love you.”
The prince’s words made Fawn shudder.
“I love you, Fawn.”
“I love you, angel.”
And she could no longer stop weeping.
Her head fell.
“How?” she asked brokenly. “H-how can I believe you when I—-”
The prince started to tip her chin up.
“No!” Panic seized her, and Fawn tried to pull away, but the prince was too strong, and soon he had forced her to look at him again, her face completely exposed.
A sob escaped her. “Stop looking at me!”
“I can’t.” The prince’s voice was harsh. “Because I’ve never seen anything more beautiful—-”
“L-liar.”
The prince started to lower his head.
Oh God.
She cried out, trying to lean back, to shove him away, to keep him from reaching her—-
His lips touched the scar on her forehead.
She screamed.
His lips moved to the scar below her right eye.
“Nooooo—-”
And still he kissed her, every damn scar, and she screamed until she had no voice left.
When his lips finally left hers, she could only look at him, her eyes filled with self-revulsion, and his heart splintered at the sight of it.
“Oh God, Fawn—-”
“I’m ugly.” Her hands crept up to her face, and the tears started to spill again as she felt the mass of flesh under her fingers. “I’m ugly!” She wanted to tear the flesh from her own face, wanted everything to be new again. “I can’t stand this—-”
“I love you.” The prince caught her hands before her nails could dig into her own skin, forcing them down. “I love you.” His voice was fierce, his words a promise that the prince’s emerald green eyes willed her to believe. “I love you.”
; Releasing her hands, he cupped her face.
“I love you.”
And then he was kissing her.
“Always, angel,” he whispered against her trembling lips. “Always.”
Their tears mingled.
Her pain was his pain.
And slowly, her arms went around his neck.
Dio.
He kissed her harder, his arms nearly crushing her in his embrace.
She never said the words back, but it was enough.
All he had wanted was a chance to love her again.
Epilogue
One year later
Fawn and the prince had just taken their seats on one of the tables in the café’s alfresco area when a mom with two young children paused in front of them, browsing the café’s menu on display.
Today was Family Day, a special school holiday that the university’s vice chairman Derek Christopoulos had established in order to encourage deeper bonds between students and their families. Among other things, the holiday allowed parents to explore the entire university while also doubling as a school fair, with student groups competing with each other to have the most profitable activity booth.
When Fawn noticed the little girl staring at her, she smiled, and the little girl said loudly, “Mommy, look.” Her mother glanced down at her, and the little girl pointed at the scar on Fawn’s forehead. “She looks like Harry Potter.”
Her older brother, who looked about ten, snorted. “No, dummy.” He pointed to the scar on Fawn’s cheek. “She looks more like Samurai X—-”
Turning red in mortification, the mother sent Fawn a look of apology before hurriedly dragging them away, whispering furiously to her children.
Fawn grimaced, and as soon as the family was out of earshot, the sound of the prince’s low, dark laugh filled the air. “You do look like both.”
She made a face. “You’re evil.” But the soft tender light in her brown eyes belied her words. It hadn’t been easy at all, she mused, to get to this point.
The first few months they had been together, she had barely been able to sleep, and there was rarely a night that she hadn’t woken up screaming, crying, her body bathed in cold sweat, her mind trapped in memories of her ordeal.
But always, the prince had been there, wiping her tears, and he would whisper to her over and over that he loved her until she would finally succumb to an exhausted sleep.