Page 35 of The Royal in Room 3

“Hopefully she hasn’t sold them. I’ll call you if I have more information to share.”

“Okay, thank you. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Aaron. You’re the first decent person I met here in California.”

“And now you have Jude, Phoenix, Dean, and the others,” he said. “Chin up, Soren. I have a feeling everything will work out for you.”

When Aaron hung up, I tried to cling to his words, but it was hard to do when I’d been disappointed by so many people. I must have dozed off at the bay window because a soft knock on the door jerked me upright. Confused, I stared around me, surprised at how much time had passed, given the position of the sun.

“Come in,” I said, rotating my neck, stiff from where it’d hung awkwardly in my seated position.

The door pushed open, and Jude walked in. My heart rate fired up and I wanted to run to him, but I was pissed that he’d made me worry by not showing up when he said he would, so I stayed exactly where I was and angled my head away to stare out the window.

“You’re mad at me,” Jude said, closing the door quietly behind him.

I bit the inside of my bottom lip to stop myself from responding to him. Jude walked over to where I was, lifted my legs, sat on the opposite side of the bench, and placed my legs over his lap. He pressed his fingers into the soles of my feet, and I almost levitated at how good it felt.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “An emergency came up that I had to take care of.”

“You could have called,” I muttered.

“I did call Phoenix. Didn’t he tell you to expect me later?”

I shook my head. “Phoenix went to the club earlier.”

“Damn it. I’m sorry I let you down, little prince.”

“I guess that’s okay. I forgot to give you my number so you could call me directly.” I finally looked at him. “But what was the emergency?”

“My mom fainted and hit her hip. I had to take her to the hospital and stay with her until my sister arrived.”

“Your mom?” I gasped, feeling terrible for my selfish thoughts while I’d waited for him. “Is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine. She’s just getting a bit older and more stubborn by the minute.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I was mad at you.”

He chuckled. “It’s okay to be mad, but I don’t want you to bottle it up like you just tried to do. We should always talk things out to prevent misunderstandings. I’ll try not to keep things from you, and it’d be nice if you did the same.”

“Then will you tell me the full story of why you went to prison? I have a feeling you left some things out.”

He reached over and gently booped me on the nose. “Of course you’d have noticed that.”

“So what happened?”

“I was in a relationship at the time,” he said. “It was serious—at least for me—and I saw us being together forever. But he was using my credentials to access client accounts.”

My stomach tightened. “Without you knowing?”

“Yes.” Jude continued his rhythmic massage of my feet. “I put my trust in the wrong person. Darren knew my passwords because I was stupid enough to believe love meant having nothing to hide. He started making trades under my name. Small ones at first that could be explained away if anyone noticed.”

“And then?”

“Then he got bold. He made unauthorized trades through several client accounts, moved money around to cover the losses, and altered enough records to make it look like I’d approved everything. By the time anyone started asking questions, every trail led back to me.”

I stared at him, horrified. “But surely you told them it wasn’t you.”

“I did.” His mouth twisted. “But saying ‘my boyfriend did it’ doesn’t carry much weight when your name is on every transaction.”

“He framed you.”