“Don’t burn this fucking tree down,” Damien barked at her. “I haven’t had time to sit all day.”
“He said kings will keep dying, but he’ll send me flowers when it’s my father,” Evelyn told him through gritted teeth.
Damien winced and took a drink.
“Do you have anything to fucking say?” Evelyn yelled.
“I would’ve let you kill him if there weren’t so many witnesses. Not that anyone in the palace would miss him.”
“Why the fuck would he say that to me?”
“He wanted to make you mad. And he did.” Damien swallowed several gulps of wine.
“He was kissing Leo’s ass this morning! Now his favorite game is pissing off princesses?”
“He thinks women are easy targets.”
Evelyn paused, considering his words.
Damien noticed the silence and glanced up at her. “Why do you think I’m trying to keep you away from him?”
She took a deep breath and sat beside Damien. “Are you going to share?”
He grumbled but handed her the bottle.
Evelyn took a drink. “Your sisters still live at home, don’t they?”
“Yep.”
They were so nervous at the ball. So was his mother. What does Damien’s father do?
“Why don’t you kill him yourself?” Evelyn asked.
Damien stared off into the distance, not really seeing anything. “I ask myself that every morning.”
I would give up books for a year to be able to read his mind.
She gave him the wine, then rested her head on his shoulder. “Thank you for helping me.”
“I will always protect you, Princess.”
29
Broken
Evelyn and Damien stayed under the tree even after the wine ran out. They were quiet, lost in their own thoughts. Evelyn was pretty sure Damien fell asleep briefly.
She spotted Leo walking up from the beach and waved him over.
“Is there any wine left?” Leo asked when he reached them.
“Nope,” Damien said. “That’s what you get for abandoning your own party.”
Leo rolled his eyes and sat beside Evelyn. “Why are you out here, anyway?”
“Evelyn was going to burn the palace down,” Damien lied.
“I was going to burnoneperson, not the whole palace!” she corrected.
