Page 27 of Wicked Princess (Knight's Ridge Empire 2)

CHAPTERSEVEN

Stella

This was probably a really bad idea.

But it’s too late to regret it now, because I’m here. And fuck, do I feel better.

For the first time since I woke up, I can actually breathe.

I knew Calli’s dad had the hospital surrounded, looking for any kind of threat. And while I was inside, I felt safe because of it.

But the second I walked out, my skin prickled with awareness. It was as if he—whoever he is—was waiting for me.

He couldn’t have been.

Emmie, Toby and I slipped out of that place in the dead of night. The only other person who knew what was happening was Carla, who ensured we had a clear run to the back exit.

My heart tumbles as I think of the boy who was curled up on a row of chairs right outside my room, but I refuse to focus on it.

Him being there changes nothing.

I hadn’t seen him since the day he emerged from my shower, tempting me with everything I could have.

I assumed he’d just left and stopped trying to see me.

“He’s been here since the moment you came out of surgery,” Emmie unhelpfully whispered in my ear as we walked away from him.

It had been over two weeks.

That can’t be right. There’s no way he’d have stayed.

No way.

But part of me knows she’s right. Knows that’s exactly what he would have done.

Guilt ripped through me as I turned and walked away from him, not once allowing myself to look back.

Both of them helped me into the back of Toby’s car and he drove as gently as possible, despite the fact that I told him repeatedly that I was okay.

Every few minutes he would look back at me in the rearview mirror. He thought I was doing the wrong thing. Running away.

I was running. But not for the reasons he thought.

He assumed I was scared. I’m not.

I just… I just need to breathe.

I need to leave the secrets, the lies, the bullshit that my life in London has become behind me.

I’m not stupid. I know that all I’m doing is covering the wound with a Band-Aid. At some point, I’m going to have to deal with it all. Learn everything that everyone seems content on hiding from me.

Even as we drove toward the airport, Toby still refused to give me the information I craved about my reality.

Well, fuck him. Fuck all of them, because I don’t need their deceit in my life.

I refuse to be run around in circles by them, by my father.

I never have needed anyone, and I’m not about to start now.