Page 31 of Stolen Princess

“For what?” His words come out as sharp as his glare.

I bat my eyes at him. “I want to look up how far we are from the ocean.”

“We can do that after dinner. Together.”

I smirk tauntingly. “Don’t trust me with your phone?”

“No,” he answers curtly, and right, why should he?

“I don’t trust you either.”

He rolls his eyes, and yeah, I need to work on my comebacks.

“You could still not be an asshole and let me see it. I don’t care about the stuff you have on there. You’re not interesting to me. The ocean is.”

He scowls, and score one for me.

“Fine,” he grumbles as he shifts his weight on his stool and pulls out his phone, unlocks it with his face, and hands it to me. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I go to that picture he used to show me the other stuff and start there.

I type in Curse of Messalina, but before I can dig deeper, our food arrives, and Rhys yanks his phone back from me, which frustrates me to no end. I want to read more about this. Rhys mentioned that the festival was for the stolen princess and the dead king. I didn’t know about the curse on the royal family, though.

“The festival is for you. For your birthday.” That’s what the woman I was with said to me that night.

The stories are beyond tragic, but a baby being stolen from her crib, never to be seen again... It’s sticking with me.

10

GENEVIEVE

Rhys and I eat in silence, both of us seemingly lost in thought. The food is okay. Nothing great. The drinks, on the other hand, are fabulous. “Another?” Masters asks, indicating my French 75.

“What about more of that whiskey?” I counter.

“No,” both he and Rhys say.

“Why?” I pout.

“Because I know drunk when I see it,” Masters tells me. “You’re the first breath of fresh air this place has seen in months. Don’t get sloppy.”

Ugh. “Fine. I’ll have the pink thing.”

I turn on Rhys and glare. “I get why he’s cutting me off, but why are you?”

He talks as he chews. “Similar to the food poisoning rule, too much alcohol will make you sick.”

“Speaking of sick, I’m more than a little sick of people telling me what to do.”

“Tough luck on that one, princess.”

I flick his ear, and he jumps away from me. It makes me smile. And giggle, which tickles my belly a little. This warm sensation is pretty nice, too. It’s making my vision soft at the edges and my head light. I pick up a fry and pop it in my mouth, but it’s not like my fries. “You should try adding truffle oil and fresh rosemary to these,” I tell Masters.

“Fresh out of truffle oil and rosemary, I’m afraid.” He sets my new drink in front of me, and I go to pick it up when he catches my wrist. “That’s your last one.”

“Fine,” I grumble, and he releases me. “You’re nice to me.” I jut my thumb over toward Rhys. “He’s not, but you are.”

Rhys grunts something under his breath. He’s been doing that a lot tonight.

“Then why are you dating him?”