a romantic nighttime ride on the most beautiful horse you’ve ever seen with an extremely hot, sexy prince who wants into your knickers. If you’re not in a mood to fuck, then my name isn’t Prince Liam.”
“You know, that’s not how romantic gestures work. One: you actually have to mean them. Two: the girl can’t be your prisoner.”
“What are you talking about? There are loads of Stockholm Syndrome romances.”
I can practically hear the eye-roll in her voice. “Okay, enough. Where are we going?”
“You’ll see in a few minutes.”
For the rest of the ride, I hold Daisy’s waist and weave Shadowfax through the trees until we reach a clearing. I’m lucky there’s a full moon illuminating the path, otherwise I’d be shit out of luck. Up ahead, there’s a six-foot fence with barbed wire. I dig my heels into the horse’s sides, and she breaks into a canter.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Liam!”
“Haven’t you been on a horse before?”
“No!”
We rock back and forth as Shadowfax canters toward the fence and then slows to a trot. I walk her toward the barrier, which stops right before a bottomless ditch filled with giant, white blocks.
“Look.”
Daisy cranes her neck, the color draining from her face as she peers through the fence into the quarry. She says nothing for a long time, her hair fluttering around her face like a black shroud.
“Did you bring me here to gloat?”
“No, I brought you here to show you what you’re in for if you don’t accept my offer.”
“Which is?”
“Let’s get down. My balls are starting to ache.”
The faint happiness I saw in her eyes fades as I dismount Shadowfax and hold out my hand for Daisy. She drops to the ground with an elegant hop I wouldn’t have expected from someone who never rode a horse.
The chain-link fence rattles as Daisy hooks her fingers through the links, gazing down into the abyss.
“You can’t see it, but there’s a jail across that gaping hole where all the—ah—workers live. That’s where you’ll go once you start your new job, and if you didn’t enjoy your stay in the dungeons, you’ll like the prison encampment even less.”
“Ten years… of this.”
“It wouldn’t be ten years. My dad’s not going to last long. He’s very ill.”
Hope dawns on her face. “With what? Cancer?”
“Pancreatic cancer. It’s only a matter of time before the old bastard kicks the bucket, and then I’ll become king. The first thing I plan to do is demolish the hard-labor prison camps, but it could be months, a year even, before he dies.”
“I’m glad you’ll get rid of that horrible place.” Her face is livid with fear.
“Daisy, you won’t last a month down there. Some of the boulders are fifty pounds, and your job is to climb all over that rocky terrain while carrying stones that could crush your spine. It’s dangerous. I’ve seen the people who work there every day. Trust me, you don’t want to do this.”
“I know I don’t!”
Her voice carries over the pit, bouncing back on the farthest wall.
“There’s a way out, but you won’t like it.”
“What?”
Fuck.
“Just tell me!”
“We get married.”
“Stop joking around!”
“I’m serious.”
Her hands freeze on my shoulders as she gives me a look of abject terror. “Are. You. Insane?”
“King Jonathan will die and the labor camps with him, but I don’t know how long that will take, and you probably won’t survive the camps anyway.”
“Oh God.”
“My father wants me married by the end of the month or I’ll lose my claim to the throne. If we get married, you don’t have to spend the remainder of my father’s life breaking your back and I don’t have to spend the rest of my life married to some empty-headed, high-society girl.”
“Are you fucking crazy?”
I’m impressed by the sheer volume of her voice coming from such a tiny chest. Are all American girls so loud?
“I think it’s a brilliant plan myself.”
“We can’t get married!”
“Sure we can!” I roar back. “I’m a prince—I can marry whomever the fuck I want.”
“Until your dad decides it’s illegal and chucks me back into prison!”
I shake my head. “Not if we publicize the fuck out of it. We could even sell a story to the press. Star-crossed lovers, whatever. People love Romeo and Juliet.”
“I’m not marrying you!”
She clenches her fists at her sides, her nostrils flaring as she glares at me. There are a half million women on this island, and most of them would jump at the chance to marry a royal.
“It’s me or weeks, possibly months of backbreaking labor. Don’t be a fool, Daisy.”