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Which hy he’d ruin her…

If she let him

“Where did you go after he died? Your grandmother?”

For so up a wo tears If she focused on her, on people eren’t her beloved father, ether “She’s been dead as long as I can remember, so definitely not”

“Then where—?”

She shook her head and pulled free of his touch “It doesn’t matter, does it? I went somewhere, and then I went somewhere else, and then to another place, and another Then that place, all those places, led ht now And that’s all you need to know”

“Alicia—” He stared down at her, as if trying to read all her thoughts, and all her dirty little secrets, but the thing was…they weren’t his to discover Not if she didn’t want hi in her eyes that told hiuard “Please leave us, and don’t come back in until I call for you”

She recognized one as the man who’d ridden in the car with her the day she’d been abducted He saluted and said, “Very well, Your Highness”

The uards to follow him out The second the door closed behind theht, but it was a difference in the way he held his face, and his hands

Less as if he were a statue that would crack if he moved

When he spun back on her and opened his mouth, she cut him off before he could speak “I dare you to take off your suit jacket”

He frowned and glanced down at the ite adorably perplexed at her dare “I don’t have a proper dress shirt on underneath If someone saw me—”

“What are you wearing underneath?” she asked, reaching out and tugging on the stiff lapel “A Hello Kitty shirt? Disney Princesses? Transfor?”

He frowned “Alicia”

“Take it off” She crossed her arms “I dare you”