Chapter 21 – Genevieve #2
“And you’re after that? Is that why you came to the cottage? Why you agreed to come with me and didn’t simply take the knife and kill me?”
“No. Finding you was the oddest coincidence of my life, and if I believed in fate, I’d call it that too.
I met your mother a few years back when she hired me to steal the tiara from a woman who I now know to be her sister.
I did, and when I went to collect payment, your mother tried to kill me.
I escaped and kept the tiara, but then a few months ago, it was stolen from a safe I had in someone else’s house.
It was stolen by a woman. Your mother says it was her sister and said that if we find her and kill her, we can keep the tiara.
But she wants you back. The house I had the tiara in belonged to the man from the alley and his twin brother. They were associates of mine.”
“Meaning thieves.”
He licks his lips and the water running down his face.
“Yes. Thieves. I stole the necklace with them, and there was a knockoff tiara there. I took that too. They weren’t happy that I ran off and left them with a fake.
They never knew I had the tiara in the first place.
I sent them what your mother told me about her sister and getting the tiara, and I told them if they took care of that, they could keep it.
But they were clearly already in contact with your mother and likely have been all along.
My guess is that’s how she was able to steal the tiara from my safe in their home.
I haven’t gone through Lars’s phone yet to confirm anything, but I know it.
It’s how he knew about you. I never told him. ”
I wrap my arms around my waist, suddenly feeling as naked and exposed as I am. My hair covers my breasts, so I focus on my lower half. Rhys—er, Ferrin—isn’t looking, though. He’s all over my face.
“You knew my mother. Did you see her at the cottage before we left?”
He nods. “Yes. I saw her.”
“And you believed she had stolen the tiara from you, and you wanted… what? Revenge? That’s why you came with me?”
“Something like that.”
He doesn’t wince or appear the slightest bit apologetic. At least he’s being honest. He was using me for more than getting the necklace. It’s why he came back tonight. I bet that tiara is worth a hell of a lot more than his necklace.
“You didn’t kill him to save me. You killed him for the tiara.”
He blinks and shifts his gaze to the tile wall before he releases a heavy breath.
“I want the tiara back. I do. But I killed him because he was going to take you, and I couldn’t let him do that.
I didn’t want you with him, and I don’t want you near your mother either.
They have no reason to keep you alive, and even if they did, she was going to lock you back up. ”
It’s what he said to me in the car. It’s what I texted with her about earlier.
“Are you planning to hold me for ransom? Me for the tiara?”
He exhales a harsh breath and steps into me ever so subtly. “I’m not going to ransom you to your mother. If she even is that. You shouldn’t go back to her. Not ever.”
I scoff derisively. “Suddenly, you care about what happens to me?”
He licks his lips but doesn’t answer me.
“You think I’m the stolen princess. Don’t you?” The words float past my lips, hovering in the thick air between us.
Ferrin pushes his hair back from his forehead. He doesn’t care about covering up the way I do. “I think you may be, yes.”
That cracks open a dam inside me, and I shudder as fresh tears come. I swallow and nod, thinking all this through. All these wild, juggled pieces. All the parts of my life that never quite added up, and now all these people are trying to get me, to use me, to hurt me.
It’s too much. It’s all too much.
“Do you know how many years…” I gasp out a sob, unable to finish that as I cover my face with my hands.
“The world is a dangerous place, Genevieve,” I say, mocking my mother’s voice.
“You can’t leave the cottage. It’s not safe.
Someone will try to take you from me again.
” A scream wrenches from my chest, and I pound my fists on Ferrin. “Who the fuck am I?”
I don’t know how to begin to process this.
He grabs me by the wrists and holds me still, getting right up in my face.
“I believe you’re Princess Desta. I believe you were kidnapped as a small child from your crib in the palace.
I believe your father, the king, was killed trying to stop it.
I don’t know if it was this woman, who’s been acting as your mother, who stole you or the person you were with before that who did it.
But you have the same hair and eye color as the princess did, you’ve been locked away in a tower since you were a little girl, and the woman I only know as A wanted the princess’s tiara badly enough to kill for it. ”
I crumple, my forehead meeting his sternum as I shred apart. His arms wrap around me, but I just as quickly push him back.
“Why are you here, Ferrin? Why did you get me this room and a car service? No more lies. You say you’re not here to ransom me, yet you admit you want the tiara back. You killed a man tonight who was either going to kill me or take me to her. I don’t get your angle in this.”
“I had the tiara for years. I never sold it, though it’s priceless.
It never felt right, and that always made me feel as though there was some piece of me that was still human.
Or maybe it was your story that got me. I don’t know.
I didn’t come back for the tiara, and I didn’t kill Lars for it either. ”
He stops here, and I press my hand to his chest. His heart is pounding beneath my palm.
I step into him, watching his expression as I do.
As my body touches his. His eyes blacken, and his cheeks flush.
A hand comes to my waist, and he holds me steady, but the feel of his rough palm on my bare flesh makes my skin prickle with awareness.
My chest rises and falls, heat cascading down my back and spreading across my body.
“Are you using me still?”
He shakes his head, words failing him.
“You could have kept going. You had the necklace. You could have stayed away.”
His other hand finds the dip of my waist. “I couldn’t. I tried, but I couldn’t. I was going to watch from a distance. I was going to let you be and make sure you were safe. Then Lars sat down beside you.”
“What did you come back for?”
After a long, tense moment, he utters, “I came back for you.”
I grasp the back of his head and crush his mouth to mine.