The prince crossed his arms over his chest. It was that or risk really strangling her. He said quietly, “Are you finished now?”
Her chin went up another notch. “Yes.”
“Then it’s my turn.”
He reached her in a few strides, and she was only able to gasp before he had her back in his arms, her body once again pressed excruciatingly close against his.
“First of all,” he said tightly, “if you say I made you feel gross again, I will kiss you and I won’t stop until your lips can only remember to moan my name.”
Fawn gasped, unable to believe what she was hearing, but even worse, unable to believe that her stupid, confused body was again reacting grossly to his words.
“Secondly, what you’re feeling isn’t gross.” He didn’t say anything else, only looked down between their bodies. Unable to help it, she followed his gaze, and that was when she saw it. Felt it.
Her breasts had started to swell again, almost as if it was under a spell that made it obey the prince’s command.
Fawn couldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t stop staring at the way her breasts kept swelling over the neckline of her blouse, to the point that it almost seemed exquisitely lurid.
Oh my God, what was happening?
“Do you understand now?” the prince gritted out.
She whispered, “No.”
His laughter was a cruelly beautiful sound, and so was his tone as he bent to whisper into her ear, “It’s desire, parthena mou.”
She jerked.
“You want me, and you can try denying it, but your body knows the truth.”
“No.”
The prince shook his head, purring, “Again with the lies.”
He pulled back, and suddenly she was free. Fawn hastily moved away from him again, but this time the prince didn’t come after her. Instead, he said quietly, “We both know I can seduce you to be my lover, parthena mou.”
Jerk.
God, he was a jerk.
But the jerk wasn’t lying, and Fawn furiously blinked back her tears. Oh God, how could she face Grant now?
When Fawn’s light brown eyes met his, the prince clenched his fists at the despair in her gaze.
He had always thought himself heartless, but seeing the girl in front of him struggle with her guilt, the prince came to realize that he was not as emotionally immune as he wished he could be.
He had planned to seduce the girl so he would have a chance to fuck her out of his system.
But when she was looking at him like that—-
You lucky son of a bitch, Grant Bennett.
“You don’t need to worry,” he heard himself say.
Wariness crossed her face, but even so, the despair didn’t completely fade.
“I can seduce you, but I won’t.”
“W-why not?”
His lips twisted. “Temporary insanity probably.”
“O-oh?”
“If you think I’m still going to try seducing you, you’ll feel you have no choice but to leave this job. If you do leave, you’re unlikely to find something that pays as well as this job does, which would force you to either quit college or swallow your pride and borrow money from your fiancé, which is even more distasteful.”
The last words had her swallowing back a nervous laugh. “B-borrowing money from Grant is more distasteful than me quitting college?”
“Everything about Grant Bennett,” the prince said succinctly, “is distasteful.”
She almost choked, but even so she could feel her tension easing, and even she knew the prince was saying such words also so she could relax. Without looking up, she mumbled, “Thank you for liking me. I think it’s weird that you do—-”
The prince stared stonily at the girl mumbling in front of him. Weird, was he?
“But I also think you’re being so awfully sweet to promise not to seduce me—-”
His teeth began to gnash. In the prince’s vocabulary, ‘awfully sweet’ was synonymous to being a weak ass.
“I mean, it’s so crazy that you can want me so much even when I don’t—-” She stopped speaking, realizing too late she had ended up babbling her thoughts out loud.
Slowly, she raised her gaze to the prince, and the sight of his extremely nice smile had her paling. The prince scowling at her was normal. But the prince smiling at her?
Nope.
She began walking backwards towards the door. “I s-should probably go now, right?”
“Probably,” he agreed very pleasantly, “before I forget how awfully sweet I am, and make you feel this weird thing called dying—-”
“G-going now, prince.” She quickly stepped out of the door and turned to him, saying, “But I mean it. Thank you for being so kind and understanding—-”
The prince took a furious step towards her.
Right. All nice words were definitely off-limits.
“Shutting up now, prince.” And this time, Fawn broke into a run lest the prince changed his mind about liking her—-
She tripped on her feet as the thought sank in, really sank in.
Oh my God, the prince liked her that way.
Unbelievable.
But true.
A MILITANT GLEAM SHONE in Fawn’s eyes as she came marching back to work the next day. Literally marching, which had Noah scratching his head from his post at the watchtower.