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“Family. I thought I needed the connection.”
“And now?”
“No,” I say easily, the answer that wasn’t clear when I arrived is clear now. “Not now.”
“I wish I didn’t.” She rolls off of me and onto her back. “Why do you call me princess?”
I glance over at her. “You’re the heir to a business that Kingston absorbed. You’re royal blood in these parts, just not the right royal blood.”
“I can’t accept that. I can’t just let my father’s work be absorbed and forgotten. My mother—she made a mistake. My father worked too hard to have everything he created be forgotten with this merger.”
I roll over and settle on top of her, my elbow by her head. “It’s done. It’s too late and Isaac will always be number one. You know that, right?”
“I don’t accept that. Not at all. Isaac—he’sthe bastard. And worthless. He’s about him, not about the company, not about the legacy or the future or—anything that matters.”
“It’s true, but it doesn’t matter. He’s the heir, the first blood, the golden child.”
“I want you to be wrong.”
I search her eyes and find the truth. “But you know I’m not,” I say.
“Then why are you here? If you really believe that, if you believe we can’t make a difference, why are you here?”
She hits a nerve and I shift off of her and onto my back again. “I needed to know I wasn’t wrong.”
“About your father?”
“About me,” I say and I can feel her looking at me but I don’t look at her.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“I needed to find myself.”
“And who are you?” she presses.
“The bastard.” Now I look at her, now I let her see the real me in my eyes. I let her see who she just half fucked. “I’m him. I will always be him.”
“I have much I could say about that,” she comments, more thoughtful than anything.
“I’m listening,” I say, certain this is going to be the moment she convinces me we’re of two different worlds, when right here, in this bed, we feel like we’re of one. I want her to convince me. I want her to give me every reason to get the hell out of this place, her included.
“You’re different than anyone I’ve ever met,” she says, running her hand down my ink and tracing one of the many rows of numbers on my forearm.
“How?”
Her eyes shift from my ink to my face. “It takes someone brave to be different and embrace it. I think you do.”
“I didn’t always.”
“Because as you said, you found yourself. I like that you’re the bastard but not for the reasons you might think.”
I’m remarkably on edge waiting for her to continue but she doesn’t make me wait long. She seems to know where she’s going and gets there quickly. “You’re cocky and arrogant, but you make me, and everyone else, believe it’s because you’re better than them. You do you, and most of us don’t even know what that means.”
“Meaning you?”
“Definitely me, but maybe I’ll get there. I’m trying. And I don’t know why I just told you that. I shouldn’t have told you that.”
I reach up and twine strands of her silky hair in my fingers. “Why?”
