Page 32 of Hateful Prince

“Rude. I help.”

I felt a little bad for diminishing her role, but when she was telling my brain what to do and expecting me to execute it, I struggled with sharing the credit. “Fine, we’ll figure it out.”

“Good. You have forty-eight hours to prepare. Then, it’s on. Tell your boys you’re out of commission because Kiki needs your brain.”

“I’m sure they’ll love that. They barely agreed to give me a few hours a day to myself for writing.”

“But they did agree.”

I nodded. “Begrudgingly. If they had it their way, one or all of them would be breathing down my neck every minute of the day.”

“Some women would be into that.”

Honestly, I didn’t hate the idea of them being around all the time. Surprisingly, I felt as comfortable with them as I did on my own. It was just more about needing time to reset with no one else’s emotions filling my space. “I am not some women. I am a barely reformed—or dare I say recovering—hermit. I need my me time. Space to be weird and talk to myself and dance in my underwear.”

“When have you ever danced in your underwear?”

“Semantics, Keeks. God.”

“You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

“Don’t you dare quote The Princess Bride to me.”

“I—Helloooo, handsome,” Kiki said, her retort cut off before it had legs as Taylor came into the frame behind me. “There’s another one?”

“He’s not mine.”

“Can I have him?”

Taylor arched a brow before reaching out and ending our call. “No phones in the hallway, Miss Moore.”

“Since when has that been a rule, T. Swift?” I asked, tucking the phone into my pocket.

He rolled his eyes, although I couldn’t tell if it was because of my question or his nickname. “Since you nearly walked into three people while you were talking and didn’t even register it.”

I glanced around the empty corridor. “I did?”

He pointed at some priceless heirloom. “You almost took out that bust too.”

I grimaced. He wasn’t wrong. Two more steps, and it would have been bye-bye, Mr. Darcy. Or whoever the fuck it was.

“Where are you off to?”

Why did he care? “My room.”

“Everyone’s in the rec room. That’s where you should be too.”

I laughed. “Are you sure that’s wise? Do you remember yesterday? The full-on, actual orgy. I doubt they’ve even finished cleaning it all up.” I shuddered thinking of the amount of fluids something like that left behind.

“That’s exactly why you should be there.” He took hold of my shoulders and turned me around. I hated that he was touching me. So would Tor. And Kai. And Cain. Oh fuck, Caspian wouldn’t like it either. Any moment, I expected Tor to show up and give Swiftie a stern, ‘I’ll thank you to get your hands off my wife.’ Or maybe just an animalistic tackle.

He was really taking his life into his hands with this casual maneuvering. Did he have no sense of self-preservation?

Just to be safe—I didn’t want to find pieces of him in a box tomorrow—I took a small step to the side, forcing him to drop his hands.

“Your logic is flawed.”

“How so?”