Page 326 of Bad Prince

---

“She makes me feel like I’m about to screw everything up again.”

There’s a sharp exhale on the other end.

And then—a voice that is very much not Leo’s.

“Are you kidding me right now?”

I freeze.

“…Jade?”

“Hi,” she says, flat.

Then immediately?—

“Damn, Vale. You’re messing this up again?”

I pull the phone away, staring at it for a second. “You’re on speaker?”

“Obviously,” Leo mutters.

“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to be an idiot this time,” Jade continues, her voice cutting clean through me.

“I’m not?—”

“You are,” she snaps. “You are doing the exact same thing you did before. Playing it safe with the girl who’s there while you’re emotionally tied to someone else.”

I clench my jaw.

“That’s not?—”

“That’s exactly what it is,” she cuts in. “And it’s not fair to Isa.”

That lands.

Hard.

“And it’s not fair to Stella,” she adds.

Softer now.

But worse.

“And honestly?” Jade continues, “it’s not fair to you either.”

I drop back onto the bench, dragging a hand down my face.

“So what, I just—what—blow everything up?”

“Yes,” Jade says immediately.

Leo snorts quietly. “She’s not wrong.”

“Or,” Jade adds, more measured now, “you stop pretending you don’t already know what you want.”

Silence.

Because I do.

---