Page 7 of Tainted Princess

The silence that she left behind made me sick.

My brain was flicking through five years of memories, one after the other, as I tried to come to terms with how my life had imploded in the span of a single night.

The first time I laid eyes on Enrico, standing at the bottom of the stairs of our family brownstone, his blond hair so different from the other men around him.

All the times he would go out of his way to speak to me when all the other men I saw on a daily basis pretended I didn’t exist.

Our first kiss, stolen under cover of night, when he was on guard duty in the middle of January and I snuck out to bring him a coffee.

All the nights we lay together in his bed, his arms around me as he whispered in my ear all the dreams he had for our future.

I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, Frankie. It wasn’t part of the plan.

I dug my nails into my arms, trying to make my body hurt as much as my soul.

How could I have been so stupid?

Taking a deep breath, I finally turned to Enrico… Eric.

He was staring at me, his eyes so full of pain and remorse, I almost felt bad for him.

Almost.

I shoved down every good thing I had ever felt for him, every ounce of love and affection that I had ever held, and buried it all beneath the hurt and humiliation and pure fucking rage.

This man had fucked us over. He waltzed into the middle of the New York fucking Mafia and lied to every single one of us.

Shit like that came with a price. And he bloody well knew it.

Agent Eric Morrison was a dead man walking.

The thought made me smile. It must have been terrifying, because whatever he saw in my expression had Eric cringing back.

I schooled my face, and he relaxed marginally, blowing out a breath and clearing his throat again.

“I want you to know, Frankie,” he started quietly, “that I never meant to hurt you.”

“Francesca,” I corrected. This man had lost the right to be familiar with me the minute he drew that badge out of his jacket pocket.

He frowned but continued, “And no matter what you think, I really do care for you.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You don’t know how much I wish things could have been different, Frankie.”

“Francesca.”

“Please, baby, I—”

“Don’t.”

“Frankie, baby, would you just—”

“I said don’t!” I hissed, pointing my finger at him across the table. “Don’t you fucking dare come at me with all that ‘baby’ bullshit. You lied! Every word you ever said to me was a fucking lie! I owe you nothing.”

“Not everything was a lie, and you damn well know it!”

I grit my teeth and scowled. “I want my lawyer.”