Page 22 of Traitorous Lies (Prey Security: Charlie Team #6)

Well, they lived, and now all she wanted to do was forget.

Because she was no Cinderella and Jax was no Prince Charming.

He was nothing but another liar who didn't really see her. All he saw when he looked at her was her last name and what he could get out of it.

Now granted, his reasons for wanting to use her were definitely unique, not like any of the other men who had used her, but in the end the result was the same.

She was nothing, not a real person, just a tool.

Just something to be used and discarded.

And that was exactly how she felt, all wrung out and empty, unsure of her place again. Something she’d worked so hard to overcome so many times before.

“You know what hurts the most?” she asked Cinderella as the hedgehog excitedly scrambled into her lap and then scurried up her arm to her shoulder, the little creature’s favorite spot to snuggle.

It was silly to talk to an animal about her problems, but who else did she have?

It wasn't like her grandparents cared that she’d gotten her feelings hurt.

If anything, they’d be annoyed that she’d left the Halloween gala with anyone who wasn't a billionaire.

After all, they never gave up hope that she would finally do what they wanted and agree to marry an eligible—by which they meant man approved by them—bachelor and fulfill what they believed was her legacy.

While she was friendly with the people who worked with her at the rescue, she genuinely liked them and spending time with them, they weren't really friends. Certainly not people she could talk to .

So her options were to talk to no one or talk to Cinderella.

The little hedgehog was for sure better than nothing.

“It’s the fact that he didn't see me. I thought …

I thought that he did. I thought that my last name didn't matter to him.

In fact, I got the feeling that he liked me in spite of my last name, and that was so refreshing.

I'm so tired of being nothing but the Kerr princess.

I'm not that woman, and all I want is for someone to finally see me . Is that really so crazy?”

Her hedgie nuzzled into her neck, and she smiled and lifted a hand to stroke Cinderella’s quills.

Nudging the little one into her palm, she shifted Cinderella off her shoulder, touched a soft kiss to her little head, and then set her down on the grass and grabbed a small ball, rolling it and watching with another smile as Cinderella scampered off after it.

Well as much as a hedgehog could scamper.

“I think that’s something I have to stop hoping for.

The facts are, my family is well known and has way too much money, that’s always going to be all someone sees when they look at me.

It’s stupid to keep thinking differently.

I'm not Cinderella, I'm just a regular old girl with a family name she doesn’t want, and nothing is ever going to change that. There is no Prince Charming in my future. Well, at least not a human one,” she said with a giggle that only sounded a little forced to her own ears.

Her little fox was there with her at the rescue. She hadn't introduced him to Cinderella yet, but she intended to because she wasn't going to rehabilitate and release the fox, she was going to keep him. The thought of not having him close led her to almost a panic attack.

Unexplainable though it was, she needed that animal.

So since he was staying, she was going to give him a name to match with Cinderella, and she’d settled on Prince Charming.

That definitely had nothing to do with the man she’d wondered if he could be the real-life answer to her fairytale dreams.

Jax was no prince, and she didn't mean that in regard to his level of wealth.

Those were things she’d never cared about.

Of course, she wasn't na?ve and knew that having money alleviated a lot of problems, but it also created a whole set of new ones.

Especially when you were the shy girl at your expensive and exclusive private school who wasn't into makeup and clothes. Even as a kid, she’d known the only reason the other girls didn't bully her was because her family was wealthier than their own, and they wanted to keep her as an in.

“I’m so sick of being used,” she shouted into the quiet evening, startling Cinderella, who came hurrying back over to her and nudged her hand for pets. It had taken her a long time to earn the trust of the orphaned baby, but now the little creature was so empathetic, a true friend, her little baby.

Complaining about Jax and his family was pointless. What was done was done, and she’d been truthful when she told them she understood they’d acted out of desperation and not with a malicious desire to hurt her.

But she’d also been truthful when she said using her wasn't okay.

Just because it was hard for her didn't mean that she didn't enforce her boundaries. Over the years, she’d become an expert at it. If she hadn't, she’d be living under the thumb of her grandparents and have been effectively sold off in a business partnership marriage as soon as she was legal.

Boundaries were important, but Monique longed to be able to lower them and let people in.

Like she’d done with Jax.

No one else other than the cops who had worked her kidnapping case, the doctors who had treated her, and the counsellor who worked with her in the immediate aftermath knew about the rape.

For once in their lives, her grandparents had actually done the right thing for her and made every single one of them sign detailed NDAs.

More than a decade later, almost half her life, she had never found a person she was comfortable sharing those details with.

Until Jax.

She hadn't just given him her secrets, and she hadn't just given him her body. She’d also given him her heart.

Which had to make her the stupidest woman on the planet.

What kind of idiot gave out their heart to a man they didn't even know within days of meeting them?

Obviously, that answer was her .

She was that idiot.

Worse still was that Monique knew herself well enough to know that she would now close herself off even more as another man shattered a piece of her trust. How many pieces of trust did you have before you ran out?

It felt like she was dangerously close to running empty.

That wasn't what she wanted. She wanted a big family filled with love and laughter, the opposite of what she’d grown up with.

She wanted people she could go to when she was sad, or angry, or happy.

She wanted people who would share the ups and downs of life with her.

She wanted to be loved and accepted for who she was as a person and not because she’d happened to be born into one of the wealthiest families in the world.

She just wanted to be seen.

Wasn't that what everybody wanted?

To be seen and accepted.

It sounded so simple, and for billions of people around the world, it was.

For Jax it was.

While she sat alone in her backyard, playing with her little hedgehog, he was at home surrounded by his family without the ache of loneliness in his chest that she had in hers.

An ache she was starting to wonder if it would forever be a part of her.

After all, she’d handed over a piece of her heart to Jax, so there was a piece missing now, one that she could never find and replace.