CHAPTER THREE – HATTIE #2
They’re just businesspeople, taking a break from their meetings.
Just a smoke break.
The smoke can’t hurt me.
Still, that doesn’t stop the tightness that spreads across my chest, nor does it calm the heavy beating of my heart.
Trauma isn’t rational.
My room.
I need to get to my room.
To a place where I can barricade the door, curl away, let this panic run its course.
Shit. I should be over this by now.
“Miss Porter?”
I flinch at a gentle touch on my arm and step away, putting several feet between me and whoever just called my name.
My head is spinning now. My vision is fuzzy.
There’s a whole bundle of cotton in my mouth that keeps getting thicker and thicker, drying out all my saliva, threatening to choke me on the dryness of my throat.
“Damn it, Michael, did you scare her again?”
Ah.
I know that voice.
I hold onto the hushed, deep tone I recognise and close my eyes, using the familiarity to ground myself.
“Miss Porter, are you all right?”
I blink, clearing my vision, and find myself staring into a pair of arresting blue eyes peering over the top of a pair of dark sunglasses. “Yes. I’m sorry, I was in my own little world.”
Crown Prince Finley—Flynn—stares at me for a moment, almost looking like he’s considering arguing with me. Instead, he slides his glasses back up his nose to cover his eyes. “Understandable. I’m surprised to run into you here.”
“Sir,” Michael says, leaning in. “Perhaps we should move somewhere quieter if you wish to speak with Miss Porter.”
The crown prince glances over his shoulder. “Ah. Are you going up?”
I blink at me. “Pardon?”
“The lift. Are you going up? Are you staying here?”
“Oh, yes. I’m on the twelfth floor.”
He softly touches a hand to my upper back and gently nudges me in the direction of the lifts. “Mind if I ride along?”
“Uh…” I toss a glance in the direction of Michael’s steadfast gaze. A small crowd of people are gathering, with a couple of them whispering, and nod. “Yes, that’s fine.”
Michael has already taken command and opened the doors. His foot is in the way, stopping the sensors closing them, and he ushers us both into the small cubicle. “Jon will meet you up there, sir.”
Crown Prince Finley nods and all but ushers me into the lift. The doors close with barely a breath to go behind him, and he sags against the corner, pulling off the sunglasses and ballcap.
“I apologise,” he says gruffly, removing his cap and rubbing his hand through his hair.
“You know,” I reply slowly. “If you’re trying to be inconspicuous, you’re not going about it very well.”
He raises one eyebrow in question. “Pardon?”
“The glasses and hat.” I motion to the items he’s holding. “I don’t know about anyone else, but as soon as I see someone wearing those two things with a great behemoth of a man following him around, I instantly think he’s someone famous, important, or interesting.”
Crown Prince Finley tilts his head to the side, the shadow of a smirk teasing his full lips. “And you? What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re either the most famous man in the country or someone who thinks extremely highly of himself.”
He barks out a deep laugh, and it bounces off every wall in the lift, almost echoing around us. “What if I’m both?”
“Then you’re playing fast and loose with your security by telling a professional photographer, aren’t you?” I smile, tapping my camera bag.
“Hmm, I don’t know.” He leans back against the wall, grabbing the railing, and looks up at the mirrored ceiling. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, and my gaze inadvertently traces the sharp line of his jaw. “You don’t really strike me as someone who’d sell me out.”
“Is that so?” I ask. “You know nothing about me.”
“Oh, that’s not true. I know your name is Hannah, that you’re a photographer, and I know that whatever little world you were in when we were in the lobby isn’t one that you wanted to be in.”
I freeze.
Ouch.
Talk about accurate.
I glance at the screen for the floor number. Seven to go. Why is this thing so fucking slow? “I think that’s an awfully bold thing for you to say to a stranger.”
“I—”
The lift stops, and the doors slide open. Crown Prince Finley rams his hat over his head and turns, completely hiding his face from view, and I look from his totally not suspicious behaviour to the couple standing in the hall.
“Going down?” the man asks.
I shake my head. “Sorry, no.”
He takes a step back with his partner, glancing at the man in the corner. “Uh, are you all right in there?”
“Yes, sorry. He’s just shy.” I smile, hit the button to close the doors, and swing my attention back to Crown Prince Finley. “You’re getting more suspicious by the second, do you know that?”
With a chuckle, he turns, tilting the front of the hat away from his face again. “Yes, that wasn’t my best moment.”
I roll my eyes.
If I didn’t know this man was next in line for the throne and someone told me, I’d laugh them out of the building. The country, perhaps.
This version of him hiding behind a baseball cap in a lift certainly doesn’t match up with anything I’ve seen about him since I returned to Askurg.
It does, however, remind me of the child I once knew.
If I could smile about that, I would.
But I can’t.
I sigh and look at the floor number again.
“Anxious to get rid of me?”
“Mm,” I reply. “What young woman doesn’t want to be alone in a lift with a suspicious man who has numerous bodyguards posted around the hotel she’s staying at?”
“A fair question,” he says. “On the other hand, you know it’s safe here.”
“For who?”
“Everyone.”
“Remember when you asked me who I think you are?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’d like to choose the ‘egotistical’ option,” I say as the lift finally arrives at the fifteenth floor. “Thank you for the company, Mr… Flynn.”
He laughs as the doors open. “The pleasure was all mine, Miss Porter.”
“I bet.” I step out into the hallway and meet his gaze. “Goodness knows it wasn’t mine.”
On that, I turn, and the last thing I hear is the sound of his raucous laughter as I walk away.
Hopefully, I’ve done enough.
Of all the men who have ever been interested in me, he’s the only one I care about. I need him to be interested in me.
No.
I need him to be intrigued by me.
I need him to approach me. To want to approach me. To want to know more about me.
Really, it works in my favour that he lied about his name. We’re on equal footing here—neither one of us willing to be truthful about who we really are.
Mostly.
I have a slight edge, given that I do actually know who he is; to him, I’m still a complete stranger, after all.
I tap my room card to the lock on the door. Footsteps thunder against the carpet, and I turn in that direction, only for Crown Prince Finley to be running towards me.
“Let me in!” He pushes at the door, bursting into my room.
I freeze in the doorway. My fingers are still clutching at the keycard, and I simply blink at the door as it swings closed right in front of me.
What. The. Hell?
The door opens again, and the trespasser’s handsome face appears in that space. “What are you doing? Get in here.”
I shuffle into the room and step aside as he closes the door and presses his face to it to look through the peephole.
Right.
Okay.
You know, if I really didn’t know who he was, I would have blinded him with hairspray by now.
Huh.
Hairspray.