Page 49 of Wicked Princess (Knight's Ridge Empire 2)

Her eyes leave mine as I continue talking. I know why. It was like all the air was sucked out of the diner the second he walked inside.

“Whoa, he looks pissed.”

When doesn’t he?

“Nice work, Pops,” Harley says with a laugh as she stops at the table, the others slowing behind her—everyone except Seb, who marches around our small audience and drops down beside me, sliding right over until I’m almost pinned to the wall.

“Is this necessary?” I snap, everyone’s eyes boring into the two of us.

“It’s been weeks since I had a chance to get this close to you,” he whispers, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear.

His hot breath races over my skin and down my neck. My nipples immediately harden, and I internally curse myself for my reaction to him when I should be hating him.

It was easier to do that when I was doped up on painkillers in the hospital. But here, without the constant reminder of what he and that life did to me, it’s easier to forget.

“Yeah,” I hiss. “There’s been a very good reason.”

His large, hot hand lands on my thigh. It burns, the heat shooting up my leg and settling in the form of an ache in my core, but I try to shove him off, pushing that aside.

“Seb,” Ruby says, rescuing me from his over eagerness. “Here’s the menu.”

He reaches out and takes it when she hands it over but doesn’t remove his attention from me.

“I already know what I want to eat,” he growls, his rough voice full of promises I should have zero interest in.

“You can eat with us. And then you can get back on an airplane and fuck off back to London. Deal?” I ask, everyone else silent as they wait for his response.

Ripping his eyes from mine, he looks around at our group.

“So, what’s good here?”

Shifting forward so he can read the menu, he slides his hand higher on my thigh, his fingers slipping just beneath the hem of my skirt. But once again, I fail at attempting to move it.

Bill comes over only a few minutes later to take our orders. I’m not sure if it’s his need to feed us that gets him over so fast or his need to know who the newbie is. Bill takes pride in knowing everything there is to know about Rosewood. So in his unique and slightly rude manner, he demanded to know who Seb was before even considering taking our orders.

“So you play soccer?” Kyle starts once Bill has gone, content with mine and Seb’s conflicting opinions about who he is.

Seb seemed to think he has something to do with me. I, on the other hand, just informed Bill that it would be the one and only time he’d ever get the displeasure of meeting him.

“Soccer? Puh-lease. F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L,” Seb enunciates. “You know, where you actually kick a ball with your foot, as the name eludes to.”

Kyle and Ash stare at him for a beat before the three of them embark on an argument about which game is the real football while the four of us just stare in amazement.

They’ve literally just met, yet they’re as comfortable with each other as if they’ve been friends for years.

It’s weird.

Too weird.

He shouldn’t have the ability to insert himself in my life like this. Not in London, and certainly not here.

“I might have issues with your opinion on football, but this I can get on board with,” Seb says, cutting a piece of pancake with his fork and placing it into his mouth.

He’s insisting on eating one-handed while the other remains clamped on my thigh.

But while he’s more than happy to eat his weight in syrup, my stomach is in knots.

He’s different. The aura of hatred and anger he’s usually surrounded by seems to have dissipated, and I have no idea how to handle him as he laughs and jokes with my friends.