Page 6 of Stolen Princess

“You won’t be able to untie yourself or squirm out of the ropes. Answer me.”

He puffs out a breath, momentarily aggravated that I caught on to what he was trying to do. “I didn’t find you, as I wasn’t looking for you. You found me. I have a bump on my head to prove it.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth.” His eyes scroll over me with new scrutiny. “Are you someone famous? A celebrity hiding out or something?”

I tilt my head, my hair falling along my side, and I flip it behind my back. “A what? What’s a celebrity?”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

I shake my head but move on. “I’m not hiding out. I live here.”

He studies me for a long moment before he glances around the kitchen. “That’s… something.” He returns to me, his expression open, the edges of his lips curled up. “I don’t know who you are, and I wasn’t trying to find you.”

I point in the direction of the hedge. “You broke through my perimeter, which is no easy feat, and triggered my alarm. You were also at the window of my cottage, looking in.”

“Why does a lady like yourself require such security?”

I give him a deadpan look. “So assholes carrying weapons like yourself don’t try to kill or kidnap me.”

His expression alters, making his eyes narrow ever so slightly. “That happens to you often?”

More than you’d think. I don’t answer him.

“Listen, pretty girl⁠—”

“That’s not my name either.”

That cocky smirk is back, making his green eyes sparkle. “Nah, I beg to differ there. It’d most certainly be your name if you were mine.”

“Huh?” I scrunch my nose.

He huffs. “That one usually works.”

I shake my head, utterly bewildered. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

He sobers. “I gathered that. What’s your name?”

“Genevieve.”

“I can’t say all that. It’s a mouthful. I’m American and Irish, and we don’t say words like that. Gen. I’ll call you Gen. Why did you—oh, shit. Where’s my knapsack?”

I smile cheekily. “You mean the one with the gun and the necklace?”

“Fuck,” he hisses, alarm spreading across him. “Where is it?” He jerks, fighting against the rope, but it won’t budge.

“You can fight, but you won’t get free. I tied you up good.”

He stops struggling and hits me with a look that doesn’t make sense. He goes from upset back to charming in a nanosecond. “I can tell. It’s strangely hot for not even being my kink.”

“What on earth are you saying, and what’s with your smile thing?” I wave a finger, indicating his mouth. “It’s kind of creepy.”

He belts out an odd, humorless laugh. “No woman has ever thought this particular smile was creepy. Fine. You don’t like my attempt at being charming. I’ll ask you straight up then. What can I do to get you to let me go and be on my way with my necklace?”

I lean across the stool in his direction and level him with a no-fucking-around expression. “How about you tell me who you are and how you found me? If I like your answers, I’ll let you live, and you can walk out of here with both. If I don’t, I’ll kill you and bury you in the forest where no one will ever find you.”

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