Standing outside her door, she took her time looking him up and down, and it took everything he had not to gather her up and carry her back to his oversize bed. By the time her heavy-lidded gaze had made its way back up to his face, his entire body was on fire. The woman was going to kill him.
“So what’s the movie?” she asked, her eyes hooded with lust.
“You have to wait and find out.” He laid his palm against the small of her back, relishing how she relaxed into his touch.
They walked in silence to the movie room in the basement, every unspoken word a current running between them. A large screen took up almost one entire wall, the Paramount Pictures logo in black and white paused on the screen. Facing it were small leather couches on risers. The staff had put a tub of popcorn as well as an array of candy and sodas on the table next to the c
enter front-row love seat.
“Wow.” She let out a low whistle. “This is heaven.”
“Glad you approve.”
“You have no idea.”
They sat in the designated love seat. There was more than enough room for both of them. He grabbed the remote and pushed the green button. The back of the seat tilted, and a footrest rose up from beneath them.
“I might never leave.”
“If I’d known a night at the movies was all it took to make you this pliable, I would have brought you here right away.”
“You’ll have to remember that tidbit for the next princess you kidnap.”
He hit the blue button, and the lights dimmed. “I’m hoping you’ll be my first and last princess kidnapping.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She set the popcorn tub between them and grabbed a handful. “Enough stalling—movie time.”
He tapped the red button and watched her from the corner of his eye as the credits rolled. The movie he’d picked was a gamble. If she took it the wrong way, he was fucked.
“Dom.” She half sighed his name. “Roman Holiday is my favorite.”
Only then did he relax back into the plush seat. Included in her dossier was an ever-growing spreadsheet of her Netflix movie history. Roman Holiday had more entries than any other. Still, he hadn’t picked the story of a runaway princess who has to decide between a regular life and her duty to the crown lightly. She still wasn’t totally on board with the Resistance’s plan. With any luck, Elle would make the same decision as the movie princess.
…
Throat burning and her bottom lip quaking, Elle held her breath as she watched the reporter walk alone down the marble hallway, his lonely steps echoing. The princess wasn’t going to come back and tell him she loved him, she couldn’t. He was a commoner, and she was a princess. She’d made her decision to do her duty and sit on her country’s throne. They’d never see each other again. And it was the right choice. She owed it to her country and her people to remain on the throne—like Elle’s father had, like she’d always known he would.
Before he’d been killed, she’d begged him to go somewhere safe, but he wouldn’t leave his home, his people. “We owe this country everything,” he’d said, wiping away her tears. “It is not our right, it is our duty, and it comes before everything, Eloise, everything.”
The memory settled in her stomach like a lead weight. Less than twenty-four hours later he’d been dead, but like the princess in the movie, he’d made the right choice to stay. He would have hated himself for the rest of his life if he hadn’t. Not just because it was his duty, but because it was the right thing to do. And her father had raised her to always do the right thing.
Inhaling a shaky breath, she filled her lungs until the stolen car key tucked into her bra poked hard into her breast. Two days ago, she’d sneaked the pilfered money and a change of clothes down to the garage, but had kept the Mercedes key fob on her at all times in case the opportunity arose to make a quick escape. In reality, that moment had come and gone several times since then. She’d never taken it…her breath whooshed out of her…and she never would. Running away from her duty wasn’t the right choice. Like father, like daughter, like movie princess who chose duty over freedom.
Elle couldn’t deny her country when it needed her. She’d never be able to honor her father’s memory if she did. The screen went black, and the lights came up.
“That was emotional blackmail.” She sniffled and swiped the back of her hand across her damp cheeks.
Dom didn’t even bother to look innocent. “What do you mean?”
“Like you just happened to pick that movie out of the eleventy billion movies out there?” She snagged the tub of popcorn and grabbed the last bits of salty, buttery goodness. There was no eating like emotional eating. If she had some Mike and Ikes she could really get the party started. “You’re about as subtle as a slobbering Labrador with a tennis ball.”
“Subtlety wouldn’t get my message through.” He curled his fingers around her chin and tugged so she faced him, a frisson of attraction dancing across her skin at his touch. “So are you going to return the keys to the Mercedes and the kitchen’s rainy-day money and follow through with your promise?”
Her stomach slid out her toes. “You knew.”
“Of course.” He dragged his thumb across her bottom lip with a roughness that added just enough friction to make her catch her breath.
“Were you going to try to stop me?” she asked as she twisted in the seat, brushing her knee across his as she turned to face him completely and opened her mouth so she could graze her teeth across the rough pad of his thumb still pressed to her lip.