The Princess

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  I step to his side. He pulls me in front of him, presses me against the glass. “What do you want to say to me?”

  “I’m with you. No matter what you say to me, I’m with you.”

  “No matter what I confess to you right now?”

  “No matter what you confess to me right now or ever. Real and unconditional. That’s what I want in my life. That’s what I want to be for you.”

  “Harper—”

  I wrap my arms around him and press myself close. “No matter what you tell me, I’m here with you. But I need you to trust me the way I’m trusting you. You left because you believed Isaac’s lies.”

  “I came back. We’ve talked about this.”

  “But you left, Eric, and just now at the door, you thought I knew what I don’t know yet, and you thought I was leaving you. That’s not trust in me and us, but I get it. No one in your life has earned that trust.” Not even his mother, I think. She left him, even if it was to save him.

  He cups my head. “I thought you were running.” There’s a hint of accusation in his tone that he can’t seem to bite back. He thought I was done. He thought we were done.

  “To you. The only place I’m running to is you.”

  “God, woman,” he murmurs, and then his mouth is covering mine, his tongue licking into my mouth, and he doesn’t taste tender. Not one little bit. He tastes like raw pain and desperation. He tastes like lust and danger, heartache and need. I sink deeper into the kiss, and this time, I’m the one tangling my fingers into his hair.

  He reaches for my hand, covering it with his, tearing his mouth from mine. “You’re sure you’re with me all the way, Harper? Because it’s all or nothing for us. We’ve proven that. We are that.”

  “All,” I whisper. “I choose all.”

  “Even if I killed my father?”

  I pull back and search his face, sorting through the shadows in his eyes. “You didn’t.”

  He narrows his gaze on me, a flicker of surprise in the depths of his stare. “How can you be sure?”

  “I’d know. I’d see it in your eyes. I’d taste it on your kiss. Is he dead?”

  “He wasn’t when I left him. He’s in the hospital and we have to go there.”

  “What happened?”

  “I took him coffee. Playing nice when I knew he wouldn’t expect that from me. We were in the living area of his suite, he took a sip, and that was it. He started choking.”

  “Did he have a heart attack?”

  “If he did, it was drug-induced.”

  “How can you be sure?” I press.

  “I had plenty of experience with poison in the SEALs. He was poisoned.”

  “By who?”

  “A hitman.”

  “What?” I blink and air lodges in my throat. “How do you know?”

  “There was video footage of a man at my father’s hotel door and—here. Walker saw him here.”

  I take this news like a punch in the gut and I double over and lower my head to Eric’s shoulder. “Hitman. We’re running from a hitman.”

  “No,” he says, cupping my face and tilting my gaze to his. “He’s the one who had better run because I’m coming for him and he’s going to tell me who hired him before I kill him.”

  “Are you sure it’s a hitman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it Isaac? Is he behind this?”

  His lips thin. “He warned me that we were stirring up trouble. So is it him trying to head off that trouble? Or is it the trouble he said we were stirring? Yet to be determined, but at this point, if my father survives, I’d expect him to be on our side and start talking.”

  “You took him coffee, Eric. The police are going to blame you.”

  “I’m willing to bet the drug won’t show up on any test. Not unless I’m being framed and that’s not likely. No one but you knew that I was going to my father’s hotel room.”

  “You saved his life by showing up.”

  “Yes. I did.” His lips thin. “I saved the real bastard of the family, but I considered letting him die.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I thought of the moment I would have to tell you that I could’ve saved him and let him die.”

  “Me?”

  “You, Harper. My father owes you, not me, his life. If it were up to me, he’d be rotting in hell right now.”

  A wave of nausea overcomes me and maybe it’s crazy, but I don’t feel relief. I feel like I just helped rescue the devil. I feel like whatever that man does from this point forward, it’s on me. If he hurts my mother, it’s on me. If he hurts Eric, it’s on me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Harper

  My mother.

  That’s where my immediate worry settles. I grab Eric’s jacket lapels. “My mother. Will the assassin go after my mother?”

  “You know I’ve got her covered. You know I know how important she is to you.”

  “I know you do,” I whisper, aware that he lost his mother, that he knows how much I fear losing mine. “But we’re talking about assassins here, Eric. They came at me. They got to your father.”

  “They won’t get to your mother.” He presses his hands onto the glass on either side of me. “You have my word.”

  “The minute she knows your father’s in the hospital, she’ll come here. She’ll come right to the assassin. Maybe that’s the plan. Does she know about your father yet? If she does—”

  “We won’t let your mother come here. And no, she doesn’t know yet. I talked to Savage on the way over here. Blake is controlling the flow of information, using their connections to law enforcement to help us. He’s talked to the police about the man he caught on film. They know about the safety concerns.”

  The implications of that kind of intervention washes away any relief I feel over how well Eric has thought through my mother’s protection, as the true magnitude of our scenario starts to play out in my mind. “Are we all targets? Is that what’s happening? Your father was distracting us while he tried to fix what couldn’t be fixed because the union or the mob, or whoever they’ve pissed off, was already too angry? They now want everyone who is a Kingston dead?”

  “That was my first thought,” Eric agrees, pushing off the glass to settle his hands on his hips, under his jacket, “but the mob wants to get paid. They don’t get paid if we’re all dead.”

  “But the hitman was watching us,” I remind him.

  “Watching is the operative word. He could have been making sure that he knew where we were to make his move.”

  “To kill us,” I counter.

  “To ensure I didn’t get in the way again.”

  “But you did.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “There’s no hitlist with the Kingston names on it?” I ask hopefully. “Are you sure?”

  “No,” he answers, an honest answer I appreciate despite how much it sucks. “But,” he adds, “I think there are other more likely possibilities. Like my father was going to share information either Isaac or the mob didn’t want shared. Or Isaac needed a fall guy, and since you and I blew his plan to use us, he went after our father.”

  I gape. “His own father? You think he’d kill his own father?”

  He holds out his arm and presses my hand to the bubbled-up marks on his skin. The scars created by the boiling water Isaac poured over him in a fit of jealousy, and just the idea of a man doing that to his brother has me shivering. “He’s fucked up,” I whisper.

  “Yes,” Eric murmurs. “He’s fucked up. As is this entire family. You know that.”

  “Too well.” It’s a truth that stabs me in the heart. I looked the other way too long. I let myself become a target. I can’t let my mother become one, too. No matter what that means. No matter how I have to fight back. “What’s next?” I ask, anger replacing fear and defeat. “I’m back to, how do we fight back? Because I’m sick and tired of this family turning my life upsid
e down. They took my father’s company. They took my mother, by brainwashing her to their side. They took years of my life and they tried to end my life. Now they want you, too? No. They don’t get to take anything more.”

  Eric’s hands come down on my face. “No. They don’t get to take anything more. We’re going to fight. We’re going to win.”

  “How?” I repeat. “What’s next?”

  “We wait and see what Isaac does next.”

  “And if he does nothing?”

  His hands settle on his hips. “A son who does nothing while his father is dying—that is something, not nothing.”

  His phone buzzes with a text and he snakes his phone from his pocket, glancing at the message and cursing. “Grayson’s at the hospital.” He shoves his phone back into his pocket. “He’s trying to make himself a damn target for the press, the police, and anyone who wants to burn me.”

  “Isn’t the Walker team watching over him?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the point. He’s making their job harder.”

  “He loves you the way Isaac was supposed to love you, Eric. Of course, he’s there. Of course, he doesn’t care about being a target. Just like I don’t care about anything right now but protecting you and my mother.”

  “Grayson has an empire to protect and everyone inside that empire that depends on it for their livelihood.” He punches in an autodial on his phone and in what can’t be more than one ring, he says, “Blake, keep the press away from Grayson.” He listens a moment. “No. Not here. I’ll come there.” He pauses. “Yes. Fuck. I’ll bring her.” He disconnects. “They called Isaac. Walker still has eyes on him and we need to go to the hospital.”

  “What was that about bringing me? Blake wants you to bring me with you?”

  “Yes. I don’t want you in the middle of that mess at the hospital, but he’s right. I need you there.”

  He needs me there. This statement would warm me if something didn’t feel off. I open my mouth to press him on that matter when my cellphone rings in my pocket and I remove it to glance down. “Gigi.” I look at Eric. “Gigi’s calling me.”

  “Let it go to voicemail. We need to leave.”

  I nod and shove the phone back inside my pocket. Eric snags my hand and we’re at the door in a blink. He yanks it open with Savage and Smith on the other side. “No news,” Savage says. “On anything, including your father’s condition.”

  “What about Denver? Anything there?”

  “Nothing,” Savage says. “All is quiet.”

  “Then let’s get to the hospital,” Eric says.

  “What about calling Isaac?” I ask. “What do we know about his reaction?”

  “Nothing,” Eric says, pulling the door shut and locking up. “I’ll call him when we’re on the road.”

  A minute later at most, we’re moving down the hallway with Savage and Smith front and back. We don’t take the elevator either. We head down the stairs and none of us speak during the walk to the lower level, where we exit the building. We exit a side door of the building that I didn’t even know existed and there’s an SUV waiting on us there.

  Eric and I slide into the backseat of the vehicle and Savage climbs behind the wheel with Smith in the passenger seat. We have two men protecting us, despite Eric’s skill. I definitely don’t feel like anyone is dismissing the threat of the hitman, as Eric seemed to upstairs. What don’t I know right now? Because there’s something I don’t know.

  I turn to Eric. “Why did Blake want you to bring me to the hospital?”

  “The police have questions for both of us and I’d rather them ask there than at my apartment. Once they’re here, they’ll start taking liberties.”

  “Hasn’t Blake shown them the footage of the assassin?”

  “Yes,” he confirms, “but that doesn’t erase guilt. It simply offers, for all they know, that he was working with me or us.”

  Us.

  Oh God.

  Nerves erupt in my stomach and my hand settles on my belly. “We’re suspects.” It’s not a question.

  “Yes. We’re suspects.”

  “But you don’t inherit anything from the Kingstons.”

  “I have no idea what’s in the will.”

  “You might inherit?”

  “It would be just like my father to pit me and Isaac against each other, even from the grave.”

  I swallow hard. I now know why I’m a suspect. “My inheritance. The Kingstons might have borrowed it, but if your father dies, it reverts back to me immediately.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Harper

  No sooner do I announce the bombshell about my inheritance than Eric is pulling me around to face him, the leather of the SUV cradling us. His voice low but firm. “Don’t turn yourself into a viable suspect or the police will as well. Think about all the people that benefit from my father’s death. Isaac. Your mother. Me, perhaps. Who knows who else.”

  “But I’m the one he took from. Why are you not worried about this?”

  “Because it’s not that much money, Harper.”

  “It’s millions. It’s a lot of money. It’s motive. You can’t trust me this much. You have to be worried about this.”

  “You asked for my trust. You have it.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes. You do.”

  “Thank you.” I cup his face. “Thank you, because this, out of all we’ve faced, is scaring me.”

  “Motives are everywhere, Harper. I blame him for my mother’s death. For all we know he promised to disinherit Isaac after that warehouse incident. They could’ve fought and my father threw around that threat all the time when I lived with him.”

  “To you?”

  “To Isaac. He told him he’d give it all to me, a good dozen times that I remember. Don’t volunteer information and answer with as little as possible. And remember, I offered you a job and a paycheck to rival and exceed what you have now. I offered to make sure you didn’t need that trust fund.”

  Realization hits me. “I can’t even go back to Kingston. I don’t even want to go back.” I press my hand to my face and try to catch my breath before looking up at Eric again. “I wish I could talk to my mother and have her really listen.” My eyes go wide. “Oh God. My mother. If Isaac knows about your father, she must, too.”

  “Yes. You need to call her.” He releases me and faces forward. “Savage. We need—”

  “To make sure Harper’s mother stays locked down?” He glances over his shoulder. “We’ve already talked to Adam about that.”

  “She’s not going to agree,” I say. “I know her. She’s not going to listen.”

  “We have a plan,” Savage assures us. “Blake’s brother, Royce, is calling her as an FBI consultant, which he is, and telling her that she’s on lockdown. Adam will show up as one of Royce’s employees, which he is, to protect her.”

  Eric arches a brow my direction. “What do you think? Will it work?”

  I nod. “I think it might.” I grab my new mini Chanel purse Mia bought me, which I don’t even remember bringing with me but clearly, at some point, I did. I even stuck my phone in it. I grab it and stare at the missed calls. “She called,” I say. “I didn’t hear it ring.” I punch the voicemail and play it on speaker: Your father. I need to talk to you about your father. I grind my teeth at her calling him my father again and Eric’s hands close down on my leg, understanding in the touch, as my mother adds: Why is he there with you? He’s in the hospital. He’s—call me. The FBI won’t let me leave. Call me now! Oh God. They’re calling again. I have to go. Just—call me. This is Eric’s fault. Somehow it’s his fault and you’re sleeping with him!

  The line goes dead and Savage whispers. “That was some heavy shit.” Smith elbows him and Savage growls. “Keep your fucking hands to yourself.”

  “They’re calling again?” I ask, eyeing Eric. “Who are they?” I punch in the call back button for my mother.

  �
�Probably Royce,” Savage replies.

  “He’s right,” Eric says. “It’s likely Royce.”

  “Royce is not a they,” I say. “I guess she means the FBI.” The line rings and rings and goes to voicemail. “She’s not answering,” I say, feeling panicked now. “Why is she not answering?” I redial.

  “I’m calling Adam,” Smith says. “He’s got eyes on her.”

  “Don’t panic,” Savage adds. “She’s safe. We have her.”

  I get voicemail again and look at Eric. “I’m freaking out here.”

  “Easy, princess,” he says, his hands coming down on my shoulders. “She’s safe. I’m sure she’s safe.”

  Please let him be right. “Please be right.” I look toward the front of the truck. “Smith?!”

  “No answer,” he says. “Adam must be talking to her. I’ll call one of the other men on the ground there.”

  “And just to complicate this intense moment,” Savage interjects, “we’re not only at the hospital, we have uniforms at the side door that already spotted us. And for the record, yes, our fuckhead team should have warned us.”

  “You’re not making me feel good about my mother and your team,” I say, punching in her number again.

  “I have Adam on text,” Smith announces, looking back at us. “He’s standing with your mother now. She’s fighting with him, but he’s got her under control.”

  I breathe out and sink back into the leather seat. “Oh thank God.”

  “We’re about to be in the hot seat with the cops,” Savage warns. “Stay where you’re at. We’ll come around and get you.”

  “Don’t volunteer information,” Eric instructs.

  “Yes. Okay.” He studies me a moment as if weighing my reply and state of mind which is shit right now, before he seems to accept that fact and reaches for the door. I inhale, preparing myself for whatever hell follows, wishing this was just over, but Eric takes my hand and his hand holding mine, his presence, is everything. I’m not alone for the first time in a very long time. Eric has somehow become so much to me in such a short period of time, only really it’s not so short. We’ve been there, in each other’s lives, for six years.