Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 141385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
“A week?” He clasps my wrist before I can pull away, and he tugs me down towards him.
I lose my footing and grab the back of the sofa with my free hand before I topple onto his lap.
Not a bad place to sit, but all things considered, not a place I should be trapped right now.
“You’ll give me a week?” His voice has a tetchy edge to it, somewhere between a dark laugh and a dangerous threat. My pulse thunders against his fingertips on my inner wrist, and he tightens his hold just a fraction. “Well, aren’t you generous for someone whose ideal revenge plot starts with me?”
“I think so.” I curl my lips into a sardonic smile, holding his gaze, my face barely inches from him. “Because I’m going to reveal who I really am no matter what, so we can either do it quietly, or I can do it my way. In the most chaotic, disruptive way possible.”
“What are you going to do?” he asks in a low voice. “Barge into my birthday banquet in the middle of the engagement announcement holding onto your birth certificate?”
“Ah, I didn’t think of the birth certificate. Nice touch.” I flick my wrist out of his grip and step out of his reach. “Either way, I’ll die before I see you marry my sister.”
“Because I belong to you, right?”
“That’s right. You’re mine.” I smile, then grab my things and head for the door. “You know where to find me if you decide to make me yours, Your Royal Highness.”
CHAPTER TEN – FINN
“She’s got balls,” Oscar chuckles when I’m done recounting my conversation with Harriet.
“Big balls,” I agree. “God only know where she’s hiding them, because they definitely don’t fit in her bag.”
He laughs properly, leaning forwards and resting his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers in front of his face. “So? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to marry her.”
“You what?”
“I’m going to marry her,” I repeat.
He frowns. “Are you fucking mad? This woman just walked in here, claimed ownership of you and your crown, threatened to ruin you if you choose her adoptive sister over her, and you’re going to give her what she wants?”
I tilt my head to the side, pressing my lips together. “I wouldn’t say it was a threat. It was more of a warning.”
“Wow.”
“And, for what it’s worth, it was pretty fucking hot when she told me I belonged to her.”
“Great. She made your dick hard for thirty seconds, and now you’re going to marry her. I can’t believe you’re the next head of state in this country.”
“I’ll have you know that my dick has excellent taste.”
“You’re a virgin, Finn.”
I hold out my hands. “Precisely. I’m practically a thirty-year-old virgin. If my dick wants Harriet Sinclair, who am I to argue with it?”
Oscar shakes his head, looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
Perhaps I have.
“Let’s move on from your royal penis,” he drawls, sitting back in the sofa and sighing. “I suppose it’s not the worst idea in the world. She’s honest about why she wants to marry you, and it won’t exactly be a nightmare for you to have a wife like that. She’s fucking gorgeous.”
“Hey.” I frown. “Keep your eyes to yourself.”
“Whoa, settle down there. Until you accept her proposal, I can look, can’t I?”
He fucking could not.
“There’s no proposal to accept. She’s right—the engagement that was arranged was between me and her originally, even if the official agreement stated ‘a daughter of the Sinclairs.’ The wording was deliberately left up to interpretation in case something happened to either of us. We could carry the agreement forwards to another generation if need be.”
“That’s archaic as fuck.”
“Isn’t your betrothal a two-hundred-year-old pact?”
“We aren’t discussing that,” he grinds out. “Can you really just switch like that, though? Everyone thinks you’re going to marry Jasmine.”
“I don’t see why not. My mother would much rather I marry Harriet, and she’s already said that she won’t give Royal Assent to an engagement with Jasmine because of this whole situation. To be honest, I don’t care. It’s not as if I’m desperate to marry Jasmine. All things considered, she’s not a bad choice, but she isn’t one I’d make for myself. I also know her—I know how conniving and manipulative she can be, and even if I did care for her, I’m not sure I have the energy to doubt my wife’s sincerity every day.”
“On the other hand, they do say ‘better the devil you know’ and all that,” he muses. “What about Harriet?”
“Oscar, the woman just looked me in the eye and told me she doesn’t want to marry me, but she will just to stop her sister from doing so. It doesn’t matter if I know her. She’ll tell me exactly who she is every time she opens her mouth.”