The Princess (Filthy Trilogy 2)

“But not, I fear, without her suffering,” I whisper.

He pulls back to look at me. “Then we’ll help her recover.” It’s not a sugarcoated reply. It doesn’t promise me everything is going to be peachy for my mother. She’s in love with his father, after all. No one knows more than Eric how much pain his father can cause. No one knows more than Eric that I can’t save her from some parts of this.

He strokes a strand of my hair behind my ear, repeating his promise. “We’ll help her and we’ll do it together. You have my word.” His phone buzzes with another text message that he quickly attends to while I savor that word “together” and the raspy, affected tone he’d spoken it in, for just a few seconds longer.

Seconds that end as Eric announces, “Isaac wants to talk.” He sticks his phone back in his pocket. “I’m going to let him squirm.”

“What if squirming makes him do something stupid?”

Savage chimes in on that one. “Adam will be there to kick his ass and stick a clown hat on him.”

I blink. “A clown hat?”

“Yeah,” Savage says pulling us to a halt in front of Eric’s building. “Issac would look really adorable in a clown hat.” He thankfully sets the bad joke aside to add, “Blake said he’s waiting on a text from you two.”

Eric motions to my pocket. “The card. We need to shoot him a photo of the message on the back.”

I hand it to him. He turns it over and when he would shoot a photo, he goes still, suddenly more stone than man. He’s just staring at that combination of numbers and letters, and while he’s not moving or reacting, I have a sense that it’s familiar to him and not in a good way. “What is it?” I ask, grabbing his arm. “What does that mean to you?”

He doesn’t look at me. He shoots a photo and sends it to Blake, then sticks his phone and that card inside his pocket. “Let’s go upstairs,” he says, reaching for the door, and opening it. He actually gets out of the SUV and he’s yet to look at me. I’m right. He knows what that message means and it’s a problem for him. It’s a problem for us. A big enough one that he doesn’t want to tell me. Maybe he doesn’t plan to tell me at all, but that’s not going to fly. He’s going to tell me. He’s going to tell me the minute we’re alone, no matter what kind of new war him and I have to wage.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Harper

Eric and I step into the elevator and Savage actually tries to follow us inside, but I’m not having it. I rotate on him and point. “No. I need to talk to Eric alone. Go take care of the truck or something.”

“One of my men—”

“You aren’t getting on this elevator, Savage,” I say.

He holds up his hands and backs away. The doors shut and Eric keys in the security code to his floor. I rotate to face him. He stares down at me, his eyes hooded, shielding him from my probing stare, and I don’t believe this is an accident.

“I know you know what it means.” It’s all I say, all I can say about the message on the back of the business card when I’m certain that we’re being recorded.

His hands come down on my arms and he pulls me to him. “Not here. Not now.” His voice is low, rough, an edge to him now that is one-part power, one-part anger, and I’m not sure why.

I rest my palm on the hard wall of his chest, and his heart thunders under my touch. He might seem cool and calm on the outside, but he’s not. “You know what it means,” I whisper. It’s not a question. It’s a fact. He knows. I know he knows.

“I know a lot of things,” he says. “None of which we’re discussing in this elevator.”

My eyes narrow on him, on the hard lines of his face, the sharpness to his features I’ve never noticed until this moment. His defined cheekbones. His square jaw. His steely eyes. “Why are you angry?”

“I have a lot of reasons to be angry, don’t you think?”

“Of course, you have reasons, but this, this that you feel right now, is different.” The elevator halts and dings, announcing our arrival at our destination, while frustratingly cutting me off before I can press him for more, but it’s also the promise of privacy.

The doors open and he takes my hand and starts walking with me, leading me down the hallway toward his apartment. We don’t speak, but I can almost feel Eric shutting himself off, caging himself in a place where I don’t exist. I’m right. He not only knows what that message means, he doesn’t want to tell me. We reach the door and I can’t get inside the privacy of his apartment soon enough. What does he know? Why is he this on edge?

He unlocks the door and I quickly walk inside, rotating to face him. “Tell me that message isn’t about my mother.”

“It’s not.” He shuts the door, locking it, and then shrugs out of his jacket, hanging it on the coatrack a few feet away, and I get the impression that it’s all show. He’s avoiding me. He’s occupying space that he doesn’t want filled with something else.

“That’s it?” I press. “You aren’t going to say anything else?”

He faces me, his legs spread wide in this alpha, controlling stance, hands settling on his lean hips. “It’s not about your mother,” he repeats.

He’s going to make me ask the question. He’s going to make me push. “Then what—”