I glanced out the window. The sun was dipping into the west. Henry had been gone all day. River had flashed us a knowing look when we came out of the bedroom: Henry flushed and flustered, me with my rat-nest hair from Henry gripping it as he came down my throat.
When Henry returned, I would show him the necklace. Explain what it meant. And hope that it wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had to trust that what Henry and I had was strong enough to get past it. Still, my hands shook as I dropped the hated thing back into the box.
“Irina, are you in there?” Josie’s voice called through the door. There was a frantic edge to it.
“I’m here, is everything okay?” I asked, setting the box on the bed next to my phone and taking the few steps to the door. I swung it open to find her, pale-faced, expression distraught.
My stomach swooped. “What’s happened? Is Henry?—”
“It’s Abernathy!” she interrupted, her words rushed. “He managed to get up on deck, and … I think he’s run off!”
The swooping became a nauseating churn. I surged into the hallway, heading for the stairs, heart in my throat. “Shit. Where’s Henry?”
“He’s still out with River. I tried calling him, but they must be out of mobile range. We need to find Abs!”
“Abernathy!” I called, racing across the deck, bending to check under the lounges, the coffee table. “Abernathy!Pizda, why did Henry have to give him such a mouthful of a name?”
Rushing to the railing, I scanned the jetty below, but there was no sign in the evening light of a flash of fluffy ginger.
“Are you sure that he’s not below deck?” I asked, heading towards the gangplank.
“Parker is doing a thorough search down there now, but I saw him up here from the bridge, and I raced down as fast as I could, but he’d disappeared. We really should check the jetty.”
Anxiety bubbling up in my throat, I nodded and headed down the gangplank with Josie hot on my heels.
“Abernathy?” I shouted, peering into the darkness thrown by the boat. “Abs, come on buddy, where are you?”
A figure emerged from the shadows.
It wasn’t a cat.
“Sorry, Irina,” Josie mumbled as the man loomed over me. My heart leapt into my throat, stealing my breath. It wasn’t until he was close enough to reach out and grab me that I recognised him withouthis Cockerels cap. I opened my mouth, filling my lungs to scream, but with a crack, and a sharp pain in the back of my skull, everything went black.
… the princess emerged from her uncle’s study, her acceptance letter to the University of Sydney clutched in her shaking hand. She swallowed back misery, but the tears came anyway.
Four years.
Four years of pretending she wasn’t a complete wreck over the death of her brother. Four years of doing everything that was asked of her by her uncle. Four years of keeping her face impassive, her expression mildly interested, when he demanded her presence during his little ‘lessons’ on how to manage the underlings. Four years of hiding her disgust for him and everything he stood for, even when it made her sick to her stomach.
Four years in pursuit of one solitary goal. Escape.
Four years for nothing.
His dismissive, “No,” had brooked no argument. Had left no room for negotiation.
“What’s wrong, Ri?”
She turned, blinking tears from her blurry eyes to find her cousin striding towards her. He, too, had changed after Andrei’s death. He’d been folded into the machine that was the family business, and despite her knowing he despised it as much as she did, he’d become compliant too.
Things had changed for their family in the last few years. Calin, the guest who had come for dinner the night of Andrei’s death, the one who had made her skin crawl with the way he looked at her, had become a fixture around the palace. The princess tried her best to disappear whenever he was around, but she hadn’t been successful in avoiding him entirely.
His sharp gaze, his vile remarks to her uncle about how she was growing up to be a real temptress, made her want to vomit all over his expensive boots.
Maybe then he wouldn’t look at her like she was a piece of meat.
“Ri?” Stefan urged, taking her by the elbow and steering her out of the hallway and into a quiet room. “What happened?”
She hadn’t spoken candidly to Stefan for a long time, not since he’d been more actively involved in her uncle’s business, but she found herself explaining everything in shaky, stuttering words. About how she’d worked hard to get good marks, to be accepted to university overseas. How his father had refused without so much as letting her finish.
