Page 91 of Ruthless Prince

Then again… Logan had a point about the Vespa. I hadn’t ridden it since the night before that dance five years ago, and I could never pinpoint why I suddenly stopped. I used to be obsessed with the thing, so it was a drasticchange.

I always assumed I lost interest after being sick for so long around that time, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I couldn’t actually remember if that was thetruth.

All I knew was that when I thought about the Vespa now, I felt a strange and immediate sense of aversion. It was like something bad had happened with it, but my mind blocked out whatever it was until nothing remained except a fuzzy memory of sickness and gloom. All these years, I’d naturally associated that feeling with my bout of mono. Now I was forced to wonder if that was accurate, or if I even had mono to beginwith.

Until now, I was sure I did, but my memories of that sickness were a sticky, messy blur. I didn’t actually remember falling ill. I only remembered being told by my mother that I’d gotten sick on a certain day, which made it a secondhand memory atbest.

“Would you let me do something quickly?” I asked, glancing back up atLogan.

“What?”

“Let me call mymother.”

“You must be joking.” His upper lipcurled.

I held my palms in the air. “I promise I won’t say anythingbad.”

“Yeah, because you won’t say anything at all. I’m not giving you a fuckingphone.”

“Please. If you let me talk to her, I can bring up the mono thing and my medical records in a clueless sort of way. I’ll act like I don’t remember any of the details and I need her to fill in theblanks.”

“What the fuck would thatachieve?”

“Think about it. She won’t know you’re listening, so she won’t have any reason to lie. If there’s actually some sort of conspiracy between us, she’ll just laugh and say something like: ‘Don’t be stupid, Willow, you were never sick. We were just covering up that awful thing you did’.Then you’ll know for sure that I’ve been lying and my mother helped me with it. Ornot.”

He grunted. “I suppose you have apoint.”

“So let me prove it,” I said, eyes pleadinglywide.

He grabbed his phone and held it just out of my reach. “How do I know you won’t start screaming the second sheanswers?”

“Because I know what will happen to my brother if I do that,” Imuttered.

“Right.” He nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll give you five minutes. One word against me and you’ll live to regretit.”

I lowered my gaze as a chill shot through me. “Iknow.”

He dialed my mother’s private cell number and put the call on loudspeaker. When she answered, a lump immediately appeared in my throat. I fought the urge to cry and affected a breezy tone. “Hi, Mom. It’sme.”

“Willow! I’ve been waiting to hear from you. How are you feeling?” she replied. She was talking in the slow, overly-calm tone she reserved for sick or mentally unstablepeople.

“A bit better. I’ve had a lot of time to sit and think about things,” I said. The second sentence wasn’t exactly a lie. There wasn’t much else to do in a dungeon other than sit around and lose yourself in yourthoughts.

“Logan told me everything. I can’t believe you’ve been sneaking around with him for solong.”

“Sorry.”

“I wish you’d open up to me more, but I’m glad you found someone you feel safe with. Even if that person is a Thorne,” she said with a sniff. “Anyway, where are you rightnow?”

“Um… I’m at Logan’s cousin’s country house. It’s amazing out here. Nothing but trees and fresh air. His cousin is away, so we have the whole place to ourselves, apart from Mal andAdam.”

Logan nodded at me approvingly, as if I were a pet who’d performed a trick properly for the firsttime.

“That sounds wonderful. It’s exactly what you need right now,” Mom said. “I’m just sorry everyone had to miss your birthday yesterday. I had a big celebration dinner planned, youknow.”

I raised my brows. “Didyou?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t forget your twenty-first,sweetheart!”