Her Secret Prince Page 5

  “Sure.”

  “Night, then.”

  “Dee.” His voice stopped her.

  “Mm?”

  “You didn’t ask how I felt about leaving you.”

  She turned back, keeping hold of the door handle. It was an anchor. No drifting towards the couch. Her stomach locked at the remorse on his face, and knowing his answer wasn’t going to help her restraint, she asked, “How did you feel about leaving me?”

  “Distraught.”

  She imagined a teenaged Jed, begging his mother to turn the car around, making empty threats and louder demands, angry tears welling when she refused.

  “Powerless,” he said.

  The younger image deflated, staring at his lap, silence his only weapon.

  “And furious.”

  Dee frowned. She wasn’t sure how to imagine that.

  “I haven’t stopped being furious. My father has a lot to answer for.” Then he gave her a tired smile and said, “I need you to know that I didn’t want to leave you.”

  Oh, this wasn’t fair. She gripped the handle tighter and gave a tight nod. “Okay, got it.”

  Swiftly, she closed the door and marched herself into the bathroom.

  Jed hadn’t wanted to leave her. He hadn’t wanted to put her at risk by contacting her afterwards. He hadn’t become any less of a man in the years since she’d last seen him. All in all, he was shaping up to be pretty damn perfect.

  Minus one tiny detail. He’d given no indication that he still had feelings for her. No hint that he was attracted to her. Being polite and making amends was not the same as showing interest in picking up their relationship where they left off.

  Dee washed her face, struggling after the day’s upheaval. She’d made it obvious that her body was drawn to his. Put it out there because she’d never seen any point in pretending. He knew, without a doubt, and hadn’t reciprocated.

  She didn’t know why he was here, but it clearly wasn’t for her alone.

  Good thing she’d prepared for the worst.

  Chapter Three

  ‡

  Dee woke with her head under the pillow and something hard pressed against her thigh. Shoving the pillow onto the floor, she glared over her shoulder. Her laptop snuggled in close, replete after a night of reworking the ending to her script.

  The latest version concluded with the characters finding each other and their lives entwining once more. Emma was delighted to have an ex-lover as a friend. Adam knew everything about her already and there was no risk of unresolved sexual tension.

  Except that Adam’s heart still beat for Emma and always would.

  Another Unsatisfying Ending, by Dee Johnson.

  With a groan, she fumbled for her glasses and dragged herself into the bathroom.

  A vision greeted her from the sink. Dark tousled hair, a bare chest, and sweatpants. It was like interrupting a divine being getting ready for work. The angel of sex appeal, casually drying his face, then the wings would go on.

  She needed to hold on to something.

  Jed looked up as she gripped the doorframe. “Morning,” he said, eyes darting down to her two piece nightclothes. She hid a wince. No bra beneath the red satin and the shorts covered little more than her briefs. A line formed on his brow as his gaze locked on the soap. “How did you sleep?”

  “No idea.” She moved in and opened the vanity cabinet. “I’ve momentarily forgotten everything about my life. How about you?”

  “Okay.”

  “Those are nice sweatpants,” she said as she pulled a comb through her hair. Her gaze found the waistband in the mirror and did a few laps of the taut stomach above.

  Momentary pause. “Thanks.”

  She put the comb back and picked up her toothbrush. “I feel it’s important to note that I didn’t hear you in here and decide to enter in skimpy satin as a means of tempting you for early morning sex.”

  The pause was much longer this time. She felt him shift. “Noted.”

  “Great, just checking.”

  The bathroom was small. She could feel Jed close behind her as she squeezed out way too much toothpaste. He reached around her to turn on the faucet, his bicep hot as it brushed her shoulder. A shiver sped through her, tightening muscles in its wake.

  “Thanks,” she murmured, running the brush beneath the water before shoving it in her mouth. As she brushed, she looked at him in the mirror. The reflection showed him right behind her. Tall, broad, and on the control-destroying side of naked. Jaw tight and hair out loose, the thick loops rolling half way down his neck.

  “You’ve got pen marks on your face,” she said around her toothbrush.

  Jed tilted his jaw, eyeing his reflection. “I was sketching last night.”

  “Can I see what you drew?”

  He met her gaze in the glass, surprised. “I’ll go lay them out.”

  Teeth cleaned and dressing gown firmly on, she joined him in the spare bedroom. As she stepped in, his presence bunched in her chest. After only one night, the room was unmistakably his. It trapped the familiar warmth of his smell and housed his vagrant possessions. His bag sat at the foot of the bed, unzipped but contained, revealing nothing but a grey sweater. The blankets were rumpled, the sheets creased. The result of Jed’s lone—preferably naked—body finding sleep in her home.

  Distracted by that spectacular imagery, Dee moved to where he’d spread the sketches over the bed. More than a dozen pages, divided into panels of different sizes, each capturing a moment from the story.

  Looked like she wasn’t the only one who’d had trouble sleeping last night.

  Picking up a page, she asked, “Are they stand-alone posts?”

  Jed stood back, giving her space. “No. It’s a serial narrative. Urban gothic fantasy.”

  The first panel showed a youth slouched against a plaster-torn wall, head between his knees. By the final panel, he’d heard a distant sound and slunk down dilapidated stairs to investigate. “Is it all in black and white?”

  “I add water color effects digitally. Here.” Picking up his phone, he brought up the website and passed it to her. “Washed out shades to create a sense of distance.”

  The pale colors muted the action, an otherworldly filter. The scenes were minimal, the character haunting in his expressions. Text was used sparingly, leaving the illustrations to stand alone. “It’s eerie.” Dee moved to a different scene. “What’s it about?”

  “Don’t laugh.”

  “Oh, come on, as if I’m going to promise that.”

  He smiled. “Ghosts. I heard stories about sightings in Melbourne.” Dee waited, more intrigued than amused, as he moved to his bag. Out came the sweater, covering the toned expanse of his chest. “Apparently there’s one on platform ten at Flinders Street station. A fisherman, supposedly, from centuries ago. He appears with a fishing rod, looks confused, and then wanders towards the stairs and vanishes.”

  Dee looked back at the pictures, curious. “Have you seen him?”

  “No.”

  “Any at all?”

  “No.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  He hesitated and she glanced up. “I relate to them,” he said.

  She arched a brow.

  “Constantly searching for something they miss. In a place they don’t belong, with no idea how to escape it.”

  His words were serious. She lowered the paper. “Do they escape in your comic?”

  “Sometimes. It’s about a homeless teen who lives in the empty ballroom above Flinders Street station. He sees the ghosts. Helps them when he can. Sometimes it goes badly and he has to help himself instead.”

  “Does he have a story arc?”

  Jed nodded, smiling. “There’s a twist coming.”

  “Ooh, I love twists. Don’t tell me a thing.” As she held his phone out, she spoke more softly. “Do you still feel like you’re missing something?”

  His fingers passed over hers and Dee’s nerves jumped like curled ribbon. “Yeah,
” he said, holding her stare. “But I’m hunting it down.”

  She nodded once and lowered her hand. He’d tracked her down as part of the hunt, just a stop along the way. Sidestepping that pain, she said, “You’ve still got ink on your cheek.”

  Jed raised a hand. His fingers hovered over the wrong side of his face as he watched her for direction. Smiling wryly, she moved in, licking the pad of her thumb and rising onto her tiptoes. Feigning woeful balance, she held his shoulder as she reached, aching when body heat filled her palm and muscle tensed beneath. A stolen touch, to please the desire low in her belly. There it curled inwards; a leaf caught too near fire but not close enough to catch aflame.

  It was torture to heat without burning.

  Her body missed Jed’s touch, and knew it.

  As she ran her thumb over his skin, she resolved to do what she could to help him hunt. She’d had ten years of not knowing his fate. If he moved on, she refused to be left wondering again. He could leave her once he was whole. Then she could miss him, plain and simple, without worry cluttering up her heart.

  Jed’s hand had lowered, and he’d grown still as she gently rubbed at the mark. It took her a moment to notice that neither of them were breathing; another again to realize her breasts were invading the personal space of his chest. In a swift glance, she saw his eyes downcast, pinned on the scene.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Pretend I’m a buxom matron or something.”

  He exhaled, a kind of laugh without apparent humor.

  “Bit hard, I guess, since they were the first you saw.” She spoke to avoid silence. It’d rat her out, revealing the thundering of her pulse, the scream of her body. Her breasts ached to have the fabric stripped aside; to feel his hot skin on hers. “I’m assuming, anyway. You’d never mentioned anyone else.”

  “There was no one else.”

  Dee tilted her head, eyes narrowed on his cheek, and pretended she’d missed a spot. As she rubbed, she sensed Jed’s stare and for an instant, she met dark eyes that seemed to know exactly what she was doing. Looking back to the cut of his cheekbone, she couldn’t help her next question. “But there have been others since. Did it take you long to move on?”

  Voice deep with quiet, he said, “A while, yes.”

  “Did you love any of them?”

  “Dee.”

  Her thumb fell away. She stayed close, gaze on the base of his neck. “I’m just asking.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  A lump grew, unwelcome, in her throat. She just nodded.

  Jed inhaled and Dee imagined him saying he hadn’t loved any of them the way he’d loved her. That she’d always been special to him. His first love. His deepest.

  Instead, he said, “I think it’s time for breakfast.”

  With the lump still strong, she nodded again. Alone and undesired, she retreated to her bedroom to change.

  Another unsatisfying ending for Dee Johnson.

  *

  Dee nudged her syrup-stained plate into the middle of the table and leaned back in her chair. They sat outside this morning, tucked between the potted plants. Any discomfort at the squeeze was countered by the fact they looked hip and exclusive to passers-by. Dee had never had a problem sacrificing comfort for style.

  “All right.” Jed pulled his phone out of his pocket, pressed the screen, and slid it across the table, saying, “I got an email last week.”

  Curious, she picked up the phone and read.

  “Huh.” Dee scrolled to the top and read it again. Given the absurdity of the sender’s claim, it said something that the email was most strange in its innocuousness. The man’s words held no hint of the danger she’d expect from Jed’s father. She then viewed the photographs and said, “Huh,” again.

  Jed was watching her when she looked up.

  Dumbfounded, she exhaled out of puffed cheeks. “That’s unusual.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  She frowned. “So yesterday, when you said you dad found you, you meant very recently.”

  He nodded.

  “Coming from a man who had your mum moving throughout your entire childhood, I’ll admit this email feels a little underwhelming.”

  He smiled faintly. “I’m not convinced it’s even him.”

  “The likeness is freakish if it’s not genetic. And it says Oscar. So if it’s not him, whoever sent it would still have to know your dad’s name.”

  Jed stared at her. He looked stunned. “How do you know my dad’s name’s Oscar?”

  She blinked back. “You don’t know that?”

  He shook his head. “Mum’s told me less than nothing.” His expression turned apologetic. “Dee. I need to ask you something.”

  She raised her chin, pretending it didn’t bother her that this was the reason he’d tracked her down. “Shoot.”

  “That night, the last night I saw you,” he said, and she pressed her palms into her thighs beneath the table. “Something happened to scare my mum, because when I got back upstairs she was already packing.”

  Dee stared at the table. So she’d been getting into her car, thinking forward to when she’d see Jed next at school, and Ellie had already been packing. Cruel, cruel world.

  “She said my father had found us—that we had to leave straight away. Only afterwards did I think it was odd that she hadn’t rushed into my room the moment she came home. It was also odd that you were gone—she said she’d sent you home. But you wouldn’t have given yourself away. I’d obviously missed something important.” He paused. “Do you remember anything from that night? A phone call or an outburst. You’re the only person aside from her who might know something about my father. She refuses to talk to me about it. I know the man’s explanation in this email is a crock of shit—he didn’t find me by chance. If he’s dangerous, which he almost definitely is, I want to know everything I can before I meet him.”

  Dee’s hands bunched, anxious. Jed had hunted her down to prepare himself. She could see the hope in his eyes and feared she would let him down. Surely there was something she could offer. With a small shake of her head, she thought back.

  “The main thing I remember is Ellie kicking me out. I wanted to stay and say goodnight. It didn’t seem fair that she could kick me out after what had just happened between us.”

  At that, Jed shifted.

  “She found me in your room. She knew the moment she looked at me. We were busted.”

  “She came in looking for me?”

  “No. Well, kind of.” Dee frowned, rubbing her ear. “There was a man—I’m pretty sure he was French. He turned up just after you left. They argued. I wasn’t sure whether to go out there or not. Then he burst in to your bedroom. I was just standing there.”

  The memory came with the chill of unease. To call the experience uncomfortable would be an understatement.

  “The accent might connect,” Jed said distractedly. “Leguarday is this tiny principality between France and Belgium. I looked it up. The border line on the map barely comes apart to let it in.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  He raised a shoulder. “But perhaps they speak French. The man could have come from there, at my father’s direction.”

  She nodded. “Possibly.”

  “What did they argue about?”

  She closed her eyes. “I’m not sure.”

  “What did he look like?” The questions came fast.

  “I don’t…” She trailed off, eyes still closed. No image was forming.

  “Anything like the man in the photos?”

  “Hey, easy with the pressure, all right?” she said, eyes opening as she leaned back. “Until this moment, the dominant memories of that night have been about losing you. I hated your mom after that. She could have told me she was about to take you away. She could have let me say goodbye. Afterwards, I was terrified that I’d start to forget you so I pushed everything else aside.” She settled in her chair, arms crossed. “Now I have to damn well find it again.”

  Jed
allowed that to shove him into silence. With a strange look on his face, he gazed back and waited.

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “Just hold tight and let me think.”

  He didn’t hold tight for long. “What do you remember of me?”

  “Jed,” she warned, mind instantly muddled by a teenage masterpiece. “That’s not going to help me remember the man.”

  “The man, then.”

  A fragment formed, sharp-eyed and well-dressed. Glaring. She was vulnerable, sprung with Jed’s taste on her lips and losing her virginity on her mind. The last thing she’d needed was a stranger’s scrutiny.

  “Not like the man in the photos,” she recalled. “Thinner. His face too, thin and narrow, I think. I guess if it were Oscar himself, I’d remember that he looked a lot like you.”

  Jed nodded, frowning. “How do you know the name Oscar?”

  “Hang on.” Dee tilted her head, sifting thoughts. “First Ellie pretended I was her daughter. That was really weird. I went along with it. I mean, you wouldn’t lie about your kid for no reason. And then he said I looked nothing like Oscar and left.”

  His frown folded tighter. “Nothing like Oscar.”

  “Supposedly nothing like the man who believed Ellie had his child.”

  “What was the man like?”

  “Let me think.”

  Again, he waited, feigning patience. His hands were fists on the tabletop.

  “I don’t recall feeling threatened. He didn’t seem like a thug or brute or anything. Refined, even. But that’s about all I’ve got.” It was a sketchy recount of events that shed no light on the scruples of Jed’s father. She couldn’t disguise the bitterness from her voice as she said, “Sorry you tracked me down for no reason.”

  “Dee,” he said instantly, a broken word.

  Silence followed, and Dee decided this would require additional coffee. She reached out to graze a passing waiter’s elbow. “Ardalan, sweetie, would you bring me another latte?”

  The waiter paused in his bustle to peer at her accusingly. “Depends on how many you’ve had.”

  She pouted a little. “Just two.”