Page 7 of The Royal in Room 3

“Okay. Breathe for me.”

“No, you don’t understand.” I shoved to my feet too quickly and swayed. He reached out, but I stumbled away before he could steady me. “They were mine. They were the only things I had left that were mine. I lost everything. These were all I had left.”

I went to the closet and pushed the door fully open to confirm my suitcases were gone. They’d mostly held clothes—expensive, branded clothes that would fetch a good price even secondhand.

“She took my clothes,” I said with a wheeze.

My chest seized around the words. Air went in, but it did not seem to reach anywhere useful. I grabbed the edge of the closet door, my fingers digging into the cheap painted wood as the room blurred around me.

“Soren.” Officer Vale’s voice reached me through the roaring in my ears. “Look at me.”

I shook my head. “I can’t breathe.”

“You’re breathing. It just feels like you’re not.” His voice stayed low and steady. “Put one hand on your chest and one on your stomach.”

“I don’t want breathing lessons.”

“I don’t care. Do it.”

The soft command got through to me. No wonder I gravitated to him. Everything about him screamed that he was a Daddy, something I’d never thought I would have before Felipe. But Felipe wasn’t a true Daddy. He’d screwed me over.

Officer Vale held my gaze. “Hand on your chest. Hand on your stomach.”

My hand twitched uselessly at my side.

I obeyed because I had obeyed people all my life and because he was speaking to me like a Daddy taking charge. Apparently, ruin had not cured me of my need to let go and let my Daddy assume control.

He’s not your Daddy.

“There you go,” he said. “In through your nose. Slowly.”

“I hate this.”

“Good. Hate it while you breathe.”

A sound escaped me that was almost a laugh and almost a sob. I dragged air in through my nose. It came too fast and shallow.

“Again,” he said. “Slower.”

“I can’t.”

“You can because you’re doing it.”

I was. Barely. Badly. But I was.

The room stopped tilting by degrees. When the worst of the panic eased, it left me so exhausted that my knees threatened to fold. I hadn’t had a panic attack like this in a long time. Usually, I was triggered by tight spaces.

Officer Vale exhaled through his nose as he guided me to sit on the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

I sniffed. “Because if you’re kind to me, I’m going to cry.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You can cry.”

“I absolutely cannot.”