Chapter 18: My Dark Prince: Chapter 17

Thirty minutes later, I sat in the hospital cafeteria with Romeo, Dallas, Zach, and Farrow, nursing overpriced lukewarm coffees and three-day-old pastries. This looked like one big, fat intervention, which seemed unfair, considering my alcohol, sex, and coke habits were largely manageable.

“So. Let me get this straight.” Rom stirred his coffee, his keen eyes glued to my face. “This woman, whom we’ve never met, is your childhood sweetheart, who now hates your guts, but she suddenly suffers from amnesia, so she thinks you two are getting married?”

I gritted my teeth together. “You’re making it sound ridiculous.”

“It is ridiculous.” Zach took a sip of his coffee, recoiling from the taste. “It sounds like a straight-to-cable romcom.”

Romeo’s lips pulled into a satisfied smirk. “Only an intellectual titan like Ollie could get himself into this kind of predicament.”

“These pastries are awful,” Dallas said around a cinnamon roll but continued eating, nonetheless. “Staler than a dad joke.”

Romeo nabbed his wife’s roll and swapped it with a shortbread cookie he conjured from his inner suit pocket. “So, you can’t tell her the truth about the nature of your relationship?”

I shook my head. “The doctor said it’s crucial that she remember things on her own and that, in the meantime, I need to provide a supportive environment for her.”

Zach yawned. “She’d get better support if she were kidnapped by a pedophile ring.”

“Well, obviously.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s in her early thirties. They have no use of her.”

“What did you do to piss her off and kick you out of her life?” Farrow oozed strong burn-the-patriarchy vibes. The fact that she could chop a person into microscopic pieces didn’t help her appeal in my eyes, either.

I shrugged. “The usual. Slept with her then ghosted her. I suppose it stung her more, considering we knew each other since birth.”

Everyone at the table stared at me with various degrees of shock and disgust. Other than Dallas, who was still engrossed in her pastries. And I needed the intervention. Who had a sweet tooth so bad their husband carried food in his pockets?

“I love most things vintage, but not my dessert,” Dallas complained, sniffing a stray brownie before taking a bite of it.

“You’re not really going to take her home, are you?” Zach asked, constructing a three-dimensional swan using a hospital napkin.

I strummed a beat on the sticky table with my fingertips. “Got no choice.”

I’d already ordered my herd of assistants to hunt down her home address and fetch her shit to my house. The level of diligence surprised me, too. It wasn’t like I could wipe the slate clean between us. She would remember, sooner or later.

Romeo stubbed his chest with his finger. “You don’t even let us come into your house.”

I balled a napkin and threw it on him. “You literally had your wedding at my house, you fucker.”

“Backyard.”

“Dallas got ready in one of the rooms.”

Zach stroked his chin with a squint. “The one where you don’t keep your sex slaves, presumably.”

“Christ, what do you take me for?” I ran a hand over my disheveled hair. Less crunchy, thanks to a quick rinse in the sink, per Briar’s orders. “I keep them in the basement, not one of the upper floors. What is this … amateur hour?”

“I always wondered about that. Assuming these are consensual sex slaves …” Fae sent me a pointed glare, her fair brows crushed together. “How do they survive in basements? I mean, I imagine the smell is awful and sexually off-putting. And don’t get me started on the number of nutritional supplements you’d need to stay healthy …”

Romeo nodded. “They probably need to take vitamin D pills the size of Zach’s head.”

“I have a perfectly proportionate head in relation to my brain, thank you very much.” Zach flicked the napkin swan at Rom. “I’m sorry not all of us were born with ill-quipped craniums that can barely hold an apple-sized brain.”

“Rom, we’re going to have to go to a bakery after this, because nothing tastes good,” Dal whined, stealing a Danish from Fae’s napkin.

“No problem, Shortbread.” He kissed her hair, returning his attention to me. “You’re incapable of taking care of another human. In fact, I wouldn’t trust you with a houseplant.”

“A plastic one,” Zach clarified. “One that doesn’t need any watering or sun.”

“I happen to wholeheartedly agree.” I lounged back, flinging a muscular arm over the backrest. “Which is why this is going to take team effort.”

Zach squinted at me. “You’re asking us to babysit a woman we’ve never met?”

“Well, she can’t be left alone, not even for one moment, and hell knows I’m not going to stop my life just to cater to her.”

I had a secret. Something that kept me away from Briar all these years. Something dark and shameful I couldn’t share with anyone. A reason why people were not welcome into my mansion, as grand and as big as it might have been.

“It’s fine.” Dallas peered up from her brownie. “I wasn’t planning on letting you have your way with this innocent soul without close supervision, anyway. I’ll be there every day to ensure this girl’s safety. What’s her name, by the way?”

“Briar.”

“Beautiful name.” Farrow leaned against Zach’s shoulder. “And you said pre-amnesia Briar hates you?”

“Loathes every fiber of my being,” I confirmed.

“Smart girl.” Farrow nodded. She and Dallas shared a look. “We’ll be there to help out.”

This was supposed to make me feel better. It didn’t. I didn’t need people around me because I didn’t have time for Briar. I had all the time in the world. I needed them to stop me from making a mistake. Because Zach was right.

Doctor Cohen just entrusted the cat with the cream.

Briar was temptation.

And me? I was the perfect sinner.