Christ, I’d fallen so damn hard, I hadn’t recovered from the bruises even years later.

It was only till after I was freed from prison did my infatuation with the princess I’d met that night turn to malice. Such simple adoration twisted the more I learned about her. The more I researched and grasped at fragments of information widely available online and in newspapers.

She was rich.

She was powerful.

She could’ve helped free me.

But she hadn’t.

She’d left me to rot.

She’d lied to me that night about feeling something. Because if she’d felt half of what I had, she wouldn’t have left me behind bars without doing everything in her goddamn power to find me.

But I’d grown up since then.

Since Larry found me and did what I’d hoped she would.

I finally had someone on my side, and it wasn’t her.

I wasn’t proud, but I’d let the snowballing hate smash through whatever ground I’d stood on. I’d fallen harder for her but the wrong way this time. I’d allowed my stupid sleuthing to tarnish the only good thing in my world and turn it into the chalice of everything I despised.

I’d never felt like that before.

Never been so livid against injustice and frustration and anger. I’d known weakness and helplessness. I’d know destitution and abandonment. I’d known terror and shame and respect and confusion and every fucking emotion on the roulette called life.

But I’d never known love until her.

And I’d never known hate until her.

Never laid awake at night with my guts churning and heart burning and a paralysis that kept me stuck forever thinking about her.

Her out there. Free.

Her out there. Rich.

Her out there. While I was inside trapped and crippled by a system that’d failed me in every fucking way since I’d been born.

I had nothing to say as the officers led me from the apartment I’d paid for in cash—cash I’d earned the right way, not the wrong way—and crammed me into the hallway.

Elle chased us.

Her face alive. Her eyes disbelieving that once again, the law would tear us apart. She didn’t even know. She didn’t trust, even now. She believed I was Gio or Sean.

How fucking could she?

How could she kiss me and not trust in that?

How could she think I was a rapist when I had so much I wanted to fucking say to her but never would?

You hurt me, Elle.

More than anyone.

In a strange way, I was glad I wouldn’t be allowed to see her again. It made this so much easier. I wouldn’t have to deal with the betrayal or spill everything I’d done to make amends.

I wouldn’t have to admit I was wrong.

That she was rich and powerful and above most rules, but she hadn’t forgotten me. I knew better now. She would’ve come for me. If only I’d told her my goddamn name that night instead of keeping it secret—terrified she’d be embarrassed by me. That she’d go from thinking I was a down-on-his-luck passerby and know the truth. The truth that my bed consisted of cardboard and donated blankets. That my meals consisted of charity and theft.

It was my fault.

And hers.

We’d fucked up together.

All this time, I thought I would be begging for her forgiveness. That she would walk out of my life once she knew I’d lied to her and I admitted just how much my hate navigated my actions.

But in reality, I would leave her and the justice system would banish her from my world.

“Stop!” Elle stood to her full height in her ridiculous gold negligée, wrapping herself in authority not many excel at and few are born with. “Let him go. I won’t ask again.”

“Ms. Charlston?” David, her driver, bodyguard, and fucking nuisance, climbed the stairs with his arms loose by his sides. He seemed to have a knack for turning up at the wrong time.

Did he not trust me with his employer?

That made two of them.

His languid steps didn’t fool me. He was packing and just itching to draw. He’d wanted this ever since he recognized me the night I picked Elle up at the Blue Rabbit and took her back to my place to fuck her the first time.

He’d glared into my eyes, and in that glimpse, we’d both relived that night in Central Park. The night when he’d come to claim sweet nineteen-year-old Elle and left me on my own. I’d expected him to say something. To say more than ‘he looks familiar’ but he hadn’t. He’d zipped his lips and let Elle decide who to believe I was.

I had to give him credit for that, at least.

“David, tell them to let him go.” Elle whirled toward him, looking to him to fix this. He might’ve stopped Elle from being arrested three years ago, but he hadn’t done it for me then, and he wouldn’t do it for me now.

His jaw tightened, his dark skin hiding stress and anger better than Elle’s pale complexion as he moved to her side. He didn’t touch her. Professional until the end. “Greg woke up and pressed charges. Mr. Everett hurt him. He’ll have to suffer the consequences.”

Elle growled, “Greg kidnapped me. He was seconds away from raping me. Penn stopped him.”

The officer with red hair mumbled, “Greg will be taken in for questioning, too, once he’s been cleared at the hospital.”

“Hospital?” Elle threw her hands up. “Are you kidding me? He’ll have a few bruises. He’s over-acting the entire thing.”

The office shook his head. “Reports of a bruised larynx and broken ribs have been confirmed by the doctors. It’s a serious matter, Ms. Charlston, and both parties will be dealt with.”