the prince half-mean his words, but the truth was in his calculating, grim gaze.
If she made one mistake of showing that she loved him-—
If she made one slip and revealed that everything was just a lie between Grant and her—-
He would leave.
****
It was rare for the prince to display any semblance of naiveté, but it became quickly apparent to him that he had been naïve where Fawn Cornwall was concerned. He had hoped, now that he had a taste of Fawn’s sweet body, once would be enough. With the novelty and challenge gone, he had hoped, naively as it turned out now, that his obsession with her would wane or even disappear.
The prince had said as much once to Derek Christopoulos, to which his friend had only laughed out loud, saying, “It will only get worse, Chalkias. Much, much worse than you can imagine.”
And as it turned out, Derek had been all too accurate.
Every day of his life was now heaven and hell, and it was no exaggeration. Waking up to Fawn was one of the things he always looked forward to, and the pleasure he drew from seeing her innocent, sleeping face next to him only seemed to grow each day. The usual things that followed it were his favorites as well, as the prince never wasted a chance to share a shower with Fawn and accompany her downstairs for breakfast.
In between bites of toasts and sips of coffee, the prince and his fawn would talk, and there would not be a moment that they wouldn’t be touching. She would brush the hair from his eyes, he would wipe off a crumb on the corner of her lip. Simple little things that the prince had long thought would have been impossible for him, but with his fawn, he had found himself doing them without even thinking about it.
The worst parts of the day were when she was away, and every day the prince had to force himself not to go after her. It was strange, but she met more often with Bennett now compared to when she hadn’t yet known that the other man had been cheating on her. He brooded on this more often than he was comfortable admitting, and in the instances that his possessiveness would get the better of him—-
A humorless smile touched the prince’s lips as memories flooded his mind. He remembered the first time he had expressly forbidden her to meet up with Grant, remembered how incensed he was that she had only shaken her head at him and stubbornly insisted that she wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“Why is it so important for you to meet with the man who’s cheating on you?” he charged violently.
“Because he needs me!” She answered with such feeling that the prince knew she was telling the truth, but it was also that very fact which grated on him and made his insides scorch with jealousy.
Stalking after Fawn into her adjoining suite, he watched her pick her dress with care, and every second of it fed his wrath. Why the fuck would she care what she was wearing with Bennett? When he saw her take a seat in front of the vanity, going as far as prettying herself for another man in front of him—-
His control snapped, and in one swift stride he reached her, snatching the lipstick out of her hold and throwing it out.
Fawn cried out as the lipstick broke into two upon impact, leaving a red streak against the creamy walls of her walk-in closet.
“What did you do that for?” she cried out, horrified.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t I do that,” the prince snapped, “when you’re going to so much effort to look good for an asshole—-” Taking her by the shoulders, he pulled her up, snarling roughly, “And that you would even have the fucking guts to do it in front of me!”
Even with rage clouding his judgment, a part of the prince knew that he was being unreasonable, and that part of him already expected Fawn to point the same thing out, to rub it in his face that he had been the one to tell her they could only be together behind Bennett’s back.
But rather than scream or struggle away, Fawn did what the prince least expected. Instead, her hands crept up, cupping his face, and with a smile that held on precariously to her lips, she whispered, “I’m doing this for us.”
The prince stilled.
Her hands fell, and when she turned away, he let her