What came out was nothing. Just silence, and me standing there like an idiot with my mouth slightly open.
Smooth, Rocco. Real smooth.
She slid her palms down the front of her gown—a nervous gesture that made my chest ache. She was anxious. About tonight. About me.
"Hi." Her voice was steadier than her hands. "Angelo sent the limo?"
I cleared my throat. "Yes. You look..."Exquisite. Breathtaking. Like every dream I didn't deserve to have."...stunning."
A flush crept across her cheeks. She smiled—a real smile, not the guarded one she'd given me at the café—and something cracked open in my chest.
"Thank you." Her gaze traveled over me, lingering on the tuxedo, the loose hair, before meeting my eyes again. "You look amazing too."
I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't deserve the warmth in her voice. Didn't deserve the way she was looking at me like maybe, just maybe, she'd forgotten all the ways I'd hurt her.
She held a black sequined purse. Angelo said that she kept her house key and the keys to Iris Hall on the same ring. How he knew that, I didn’t know.
But I was supposed to steal her key and let myself into the hall.
Hopefully, I could do this without Selena ever knowing. God, I felt like such a dick.
But I was a selfish bastard. So I let myself have this moment anyway.
She slipped her arm through mine, and heat shot through me like lightning. My skin burned where she touched me, even through the layers of fabric. Every instinct screamed at me to pull her closer, to bury my face in her neck, to claim her as mine.
I didn't.
I escorted her down the steps and along the sidewalk toward the limo, hyper-aware of every place our bodies touched. The click of her heels. The whisper of her gown against my leg. The soft scent of her perfume—something warm and floral that made me want to do very stupid things.
You can't have her.
I used to think she wasn't good enough for me. She'd been a traitor—or so I'd believed. I'd looked at her with contempt, called her a disgrace, told her she wasn't worthy of being my mate.
What a fucking fool I'd been.
Now the roles were reversed. She was the respectable one—the professor, the protégé, the woman with the beautiful townhome and the life she'd built from nothing. And I was the disgraced prince who'd beaten his own mother and exiled himself to a flea-trap hotel.
She deserved better. She deserved someone who wasn't broken. Someone who wasn't using her to pay off a debt to a mafia king.
Let her go, I told myself. After tonight, make sure she never sees you again.
It was the right thing to do.
So why did it feel like ripping out my own heart?
Chapter Seven
Vex
I leaned against the wall in the alley and stifled back another laugh. Prince Rocco? He'd sunk lower than hell itself. The Mardi Gras Hotel? This had to be one of the worst dives down here.
I was surprised it wasn't condemned.
Rocco was beating himself up so bad, it was laughable.
I hid in the darkness and waited.
Angelo had definitely recruited Rocco for something, and it had something to do with Red Rose Academy—the party tonight.
