Page 8 of The Princess & the Prospect
Chapter 4
Before I could move back into the shadows this time, he had caught me watching him. My heartrate ticked up a few beats per minute as the excitement kicked in. I wondered what he would do. Would he come talk to me? Would he turn and give all of his attention to the woman who had come in with another brother? She seemed to be just as infatuated with him as I was. They all laughed at something he said, though their voices didn’t carry to me where I sat on the sofa in the corner by myself. He glanced back again and then snatched up the empty beer bottles that were scattered on the pool table.
He deposited the bottles into a large trash can on his way across the room. He was headed straight for me, but that couldn’t be right. His light brown hair was still cropped close to his head on the sides and back, though he’d allowed the top to start growing out. It almost seemed like he needed baby steps to move on from the Army approved haircuts he had worn before. His face had likewise remained stubble free for the longest time. Though the past few times I’d seen him, there seemed to be a hint of a shadow across his well-defined jaw. His hazel eyes, that appeared mostly green up close and flecked with golden brown, were twinkling in amusement as he caught me staring once more. His movements hadn’t been hindered at all by my watchfulness. If anything, he carried himself more securely the closer he came to where I sat.
I’d been watching him for months now, waiting to make my move until after I turned 18 just like Toby had told me to do. The thought of my brother tore at my insides, and I nearly chickened out and ran from the room. Toby wasn’t here anymore though. He didn’t get to make his dreams come true. What if I listened to him and the beautiful man I was obsessed with decided to start dating someone else? What if one of us died tomorrow? Nothing was promised to anyone. I don’t think Toby had been alive long enough to learn that lesson. His dying is the only reason I did.
“I’ve seen you here before,” the prospect said to me as he drew closer. “You belong to someone?”
“I belong to no one,” I told him.
He glanced around, eyes sweeping the room, stopping on every single woman in the place. Each one had been escorted there by one of the men of the club. “Women aren’t allowed in the building without an escort any longer. You have to at least belong to someone for the day,” he insisted.
I smiled at him. “I’m related to one of the brothers, distantly,” I tacked on at the end. I knew he’d walk away and not even think twice about it if he knew I was a club princess and the vice president’s daughter at that.
He grinned at that, nodding his head as if in approval. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
I felt the blush rise up my chest and into my cheeks as he uttered that nickname for me. “A-A, it’s Lise.” I had been about to tell him it was Anna, but I worried he would know exactly who I was. Not many of the newer people were aware that my full first name was actually Annalise.
“Lise, I’m Evan,” he told me as he moved to sit down right next to me. Our thighs and knees touched and there was no hiding the fact that proximity sent tingles through my body. He watched with a smirk on his face as gooseflesh appeared up and down my arms. “What are you doing sitting over here all by your lonesome?” He tapped on the notebook in my hand, my journal.
“I was writing.”
“What kind of things do you write?”
I blushed again. “I don’t know all sorts of things. Sometimes poetry, short stories, or just thoughts about my day.”
“Is it a hobby or something you want to do with your life?”
“Honestly?” I asked him. He nodded his head, watching me as if he really wanted to hear the answer. He was the first person in my life who had ever asked me that question. “I want to be a novelist one day. I want to write the most epic story of all time.”
“That’s a hefty goal, and a highly debatable one unless you narrow it down a little. The Bible is arguably the greatest story ever told to some people. Harry Potter is for others. Then there’s Gone with the Wind, Tom Sawyer, The Lord of the Rings, and…”
My laughter could not be contained. “Okay, I get it! I need to pick a genre and shoot for the top of the little niche I find myself in first.”
“Now, she’s thinking. Take over the entire literary world after you get a taste for the fame, fortune, and best sellers lists.”
I sat dreamily staring off into space. “Yeah,” I whispered.
“I believe you can do it. You have that fire in your eyes,” he told me before he stood up. “I better get back to work before they fire me.”
I giggled. “They’re not going to fire you,” I insisted.
“No, they’ll just make me wear the prospect patch longer.”
“Do you like the club so far?”
“Yeah, I do.” He stood and started to move away from me, but not before glancing back one more time. “I like it a lot more now.”
The man from my memories kept moving back to the pool table where our remembered first conversation slipped into my newest nightmare. Evan turned and winked at me before grabbing the blond by the pool table and kissing her like I dreamed of being kissed.
I woke in a cold sweat, my heart beating rapid-fire shots against my chest. It was like experiencing the elation of our new relationship all over again, only to have last night’s betrayal shoved at me to rip another piece of my heart from by chest.
By the time I got settled in last night at Merc’s house in their guestroom, it was just after two in the morning and I was both exhausted and heartbroken all over again. I had just been shown my room when my cell phone beeped with an incoming text. I glanced long enough to see who it was from and shook my head in the negative when Merc silently asked the question. Was it Joker? No, he probably still didn’t even realize he’d brought me there with him, let alone the fact that he’d left me in his truck and forgotten about me.
He left me alone after that, and I stupidly opened the text from a girl I used to attend school with, Melody. When I opened her text I wasn’t expecting to see a picture, let alone that it would have been taken at the clubhouse last night. I hadn’t even noticed that she had been one of the women in attendance there. Then again, I was preoccupied most of the night, and at least I knew she wasn’t one of the many women hanging all over my husband.
It was now just after breakfast time as I sat staring at the damn photo again, and what it meant for my future. Actually, the damn thing brought to mind that saying about not being able to look away from a train wreck. It’s that moment when you see the damning evidence in full color that your dreams will never come true, yet you can’t manage to look away even though it’s making you physically sick. That was how I felt in the morning light as I stared at the photo. I wished I never saw it. I had seen enough the night before. Having to then see that it absolutely did go further than just kissing felt like a hot knife was trying to slice me open from the inside out.
