Page 64 of Forbidden Heart

Silas responds with a fake yawn, and it’s like something inside me snaps.

“Don’t you care about anything?” I shout. My knuckles feel numb because I’m squeezing my hands so tight. I’m trembling inside, but I look him straight in the eye, my intensity unwavering. “Can you please just pretend that you actually give a damn about something for once in your life? Show some passion? Act like something other than you matters?”

Silas’s pupils dilate, and his eyes narrow. For a moment, I think he is going to snap my head off, but he suddenly pulls me into his arms and kisses me instead.

I’m already breathing heavily, my pulse racing from the one-sided shouting match, and when our lips touch, all of my anger and frustration explodes in my chest. Without thinking, I grab Silas’s t-shirt, balling up the fabric between my fingers as I pour all my emotions into the kiss.

Silas groans low and subtle and claims my lips with more passion—and more anger—than I can handle. It’s suddenly all too much. The cold metal of his lip piercing. The burning fire behind his kiss. The hard, deep, dark urgency which consumes me.

“Let her go,” Tate suddenly shouts, his voice echoing through the room seconds before Silas is physically jerked away from me.

The Dark Prince gasps, his eyes wide and filled with shock. Shock that I know is mirrored on my own face. I watch his chest rise and fall as he struggles to catch his breath and realize mine is doing the same. Because I just kissed Silas... while Tate, Charles, and JJ watched.

I gasp and instinctively stumble back. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to cheat on my three roommates with a member of their own a cappella group. I didn’t mean to break our silent understanding and the relationship we were just starting to figure out. I didn’t mean to kiss Silas right in front of them.

“How dare you?” Tate shouts, his eyes narrowed in outrage. He takes a menacing step toward Silas, but his gaze encompasses us both.

“Don’t you ever touch Roonie again,” JJ shouts, storming up to us and shoving Silas, hard. Taking out his anger on the Dark Prince when he should be taking it out on me.

Silas stumbles and Charles grabs him by the collar of his shirt. JJ and Tate round on him, too, and I let out a horrified cry.

This is all my fault. I goaded Silas, and I kissed him and I broke up their a cappella group.

“I’m sorry,” I cry, drawing four faces filled with outrage. Tate, Charles, JJ, and Silas—all of them scowling at me.

Chapter 25

I do the only thing I can do. I turn tail and run.

“Roonie, wait,” Tate shouts after me. He sounds pissed, and it's all because of me.

He probably wants to tell me off to my face. I bet all three of the guys do. They're going to tell me to go back to the apartment, pack my stuff, and get out. After what just happened with Silas, I can't blame them for wanting me gone.

I just can't bear to see their angry faces or hear those terrible words from their lips. Not from Prince Charming, who rescued me. Not from the Beast, who took care of me. Not from my Knight in Shining Armor, who helped me find confidence in myself. The thought of the three of them hating me is more than I can bear.

Tears stream down my face as I focus on putting one foot in front of the other. I keep moving forward, the world blurring around me until I reach the dorms. I make it up to the apartment, but once I'm there, I don't know what to do. Do I wait for the guys to come back and tell me to get out? Do I just take my things and go?

Once again, I'm reminded that I have nowhere to go. Father's is out of the question and there isn't really anyone else who would take me in. Except maybe Angela?

I fumble with my phone and send her a quick text, asking if we can meet up. My phone buzzes with a response, and a split second later there's a knock on the front door. Could that be Angela? Was she already on the way here, maybe for another massage Tate booked without telling me? Or is it Silas, here to... well, I'm not quite sure why the Dark Prince would be here, and I doubt it's him. Just like I know it can't be JJ or Tate or Charles. They wouldn't knock on their own apartment door. Not when they live here.

I turn the lock, a part of me hoping it's one of my princes here to tell me everything's going to be okay. Except it's not, and it isn't Angela.. It's Marcus the RA Dragon.

"We meet again, Roonie Hill," he says, crossing his arms across his chest.

"How'd you know my name?" I ask. I know I didn't give it to him last time we met.

"Dean's office." Marcus smirks, a triumphant glint in his eyes.

"Dean's office?" I ask. As in the same dean's office Charles was supposed to go to after rehearsals today on my behalf? Not that he'll ever do that now. Not after what happened with Silas. If anything, Charles probably called the dean and asked to have me kicked out.

"Someone reported that you've been living here," Marcus says, confirming my worst fear. "Is it true? Or do you live at one of the other dorms?"

I'm way too upset, and betrayed, to reply.

"Can I see your student card or a piece of ID?" Marcus presses.

"I... don't have it here. I left it... at home." My wallet and my ID are still at Father's house, and obviously a student card isn't in my future. Though, who am I kidding? Even if Charles had convinced the dean to let me take classes here, I would have flunked out of all of them in no time.