Once we were both clean, she said she was going back to her room.

“Fine. Let’s go,” I heard myself saying.

Even though I’d already pissed on every single rule I’d made concerning the opposite sex tonight, and I knew spending the night together was the final nail in my pussy-whipped coffin.

She put her boots on, not looking at me as she asked, “You mean, walk me to my dorm?”

“I mean…” I clenched my jaw, resenting her for making me say it. “To sleep in your room. Same bed and all that fucking jazz.”

She looked up with a smile, tossing me a pack of gum she’d found under my bed. “Cute.”

“Ain’t gonna spoon you, Good Girl.”

“But you are going to fork me.” She laughed. “And yes, you were thinking of spooning.”

“Don’t embarrass yourself.”

Yes, I was. I was glad Knight didn’t have mind-reading abilities. He’d ride my ass until retirement if he knew I’d wondered how it felt to sleep with Len in my arms.

We walked down the hall toward her room. Save for the owls hooting outside and the crackling of fire in the rooms, the place was silent. We rounded the corner leading to the staff area, where Edgar, Harry, Alma, and the rest of the fuckers resided. Len slipped her hand in mind, lacing our fingers together. Then she froze in her spot all of a sudden, her boots squeaking on the floor.

I turned around to face her. She cocked her head toward her dad’s room. We listened carefully. Voices seeped under the closed door.

“Arabella?” she asked voicelessly, her lips shaping the name.

I advanced toward the door, pressing my ear to it. She did the same next to me. It was risky, but what did I really have to lose? Nothing.

I wasn’t even that hot on the internship.

I was close to executing my plan with Harry, and between pissing Edgar off and letting Lenora down, I knew which side I was on: the one that didn’t fuck someone thirty years their junior.

We heard sniffling, whining, and shuffling, then the uncanny sound of Arabella moaning loudly.

“Darling,” Edgar said, his voice tender and raw.

Arabella moaned again.

“Get off of me, please.”

I unglued myself from the door, taking Len by the arm and dragging her away. She fought me on this, her legs heavy against the floor, trying to shake my touch off. She slapped my hand away when I tightened my grip on her.

“Let me be!” she whisper-shouted.

I turned around, baring my teeth. “So you can hurt yourself some more? The fuck I will.”

“Vaughn.”

“Len.”

We stood like this for a moment before I scooped her up by tackling her midriff, flinging her over my shoulder, and marching down the corridor like a caveman. She pounded her little fists, clawing with her nails into my flesh through my shirt.

“Let me down!”

“Enough people have done that recently. I think I’m gonna stick to being the voice of fucking reason. My first executive decision is to leave.”

“What about my father?”

My father. Goddamn posh people. She very rarely called him Dad. Every time she called him Papa, I had flashbacks to an Oliver Twist musical my parents once dragged me to.

“I’ll deal with him.”

“He’s my problem.” She scoffed, still draped over my shoulder as I rounded the corridor toward her room.

“Well, now he’s ours.”

“Put me down, Vaughn. I mean it.”

She was already walking the tightrope between deranged with anger and emotional, and I didn’t want her to feel more powerless than she already felt, so I lowered her to the floor. She looked away, refusing to let me see her tears. I pawed both her cheeks, relishing how small she was in my hands.

“Look at me.”

She dragged her eyes to mine reluctantly, blinking away tears. I pressed my lips to hers as gently as I possibly could.

She’d opened her mouth to say something when a voice behind her cut through the air, interrupting.

“Well, well, the heartless prince not only lives past nineteen, he also loves. That’s a twist in the story I didn’t see coming.” Harry Fairhurst strode forward, climbing the stairway and stopping in front of us. His arm was in a cast and sling. He had dark circles under his eyes and looked even thinner than his usual malnourished self. There was no humor in his voice, just malicious intent.

But the real kicker were the words he’d carefully used.

Prince.

Heartless.

Lives.

Loves.

He remembered every single one of our encounters. Each verbal exchange. Shouldn’t have surprised me.

I glowered. Him seeing this was not in my plan.

Lenora turned around, flashing him a smile.

“Uncle Harry! You’re back from the hospital. How’re you feeling? No more coffee for you, you clumsy thing,” she joked, running to him and flinging her arms over his shoulders.

Two things happened simultaneously. One, I realized that Len truly liked her uncle, and there was nothing I could do to change that. Two, she was never going to forgive me for what I was about to do.