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He started to jog after Vicky, then slowed, deciding maybe a quieter approach was better if he didn’t want to spook her.
* * *
Vicky paused to catch her breath. She listened but heard no sign of anyone following her.
She hadn’t found the door the man had indicated, but she had stumbled on an enormous rack of costumes.
She thumbed through the fabrics. Gorgeous period dresses and coats, along with some capes and robes that would be easy enough to throw on over her current outfit.
Would taking one make it easier to evade Ryder? If she took one of these with the hood, she could walk right past him. Though did she want to add stealing—borrowing—to her list of transgressions today?
“If you’re trying to blend in, Elizabethan is probably not the way to go.”
His voice was hushed and husky, reverberating through the empty space.
Every cell in her body melted just a little.
“Vic . . .”
She wanted to turn around. She did. She wanted to look at him and touch him and collapse into him.
She also desperately wanted to escape. So when a door swung open behind the rack of costumes, another black-clad headset wearer stepping in, by the smell of it, from a smoke break outside, Vicky ran.
* * *
She got about ten strides away from the building before she realized she had run straight at a crowd.
What could only be described as a throng of people had gathered, spilling out from the front of the entrance where, presumably, security was keeping them at a distance, and wrapping around to the side of the amphitheater. Police tape stretched between the building and nearby trees to cordon off the area. People carried signs that said things like “We <3 You, Noah” and “Sabrina + Prince Charming 4evah.” One woman had a T-shirt of Noah’s face. And one earnest-looking young man held up a small sign that read, “Team Ryctoria.”
Vicky skidded to a halt.
Maybe she could scurry out through the trees.
“Hey, you there! You’re not supposed be back there! They already threatened to arrest—” The overzealous gentleman who had been offering her his advice stopped and squinted at her. “Hey, you know you kinda look like—”
“Omigod, it’s him! It’s Ryder Prince!!” shrieked a teenage girl before actually, literally, swooning. The crowd flocked around her, momentarily distracted.
“This is definitely not what I’d call blending in, princess.”
He had stepped up behind her, so close she could feel his warmth at her back. She squeezed her eyes shut. “No?”
“Why’d you run, Vic?”
“I don’t know. I was embarrassed.”
“And this is less embarrassing?”
The girl who had fainted had gotten back on her feet. Someone gave her a water bottle. And the crowd slowly turned its attention back to them, watching quietly as if trying not to spook a pair of rare, exotic animals.
Vicky dissolved into a fit of nearly silent giggles. “Yes?”
Ryder stepped around in front of her, shielding her from the crowd. He leaned in close so that only she could hear. “I’ve missed you.”
There was no point in denying it. “I’ve missed you too.”
“Vic, I”—God, she loved it when he called her Vic—“I’m pretty sure I have other feelings about you too.”
She searched his eyes and nearly got lost in their depths. They were full of strength and vulnerability, earnestness and trust. He was nothing she had ever planned for . . .
