Royal Line (Tattered Royals #1) - Carrie Ann Ryan Page 0,34

know that if I promised to keep her safe that was my intention. But I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that’s what happened.

Are you going to keep her safe just like Phoebe?

Even from my subconscious, that was dickish. “Just relax. We’re almost there.”

When we switched cars, I’d switched to GPS on my phone. The thing about GPS devices was that they never told you exactly what to expect about the location you were traveling to, with the exception of Google, maybe. You could get a street view, or a satellite view if you had one. But when we pulled up to London’s friend’s place, I felt like I was at the Guggenheim Museum.

Ultra-modern, weird, funky architecture. A large metal sculpture sat at the top. It looked like a metal wonton. What in the world?

The house itself was all white and chrome and steel. “This is your friend’s place? Rian?”

She stared up at the building as if she wanted to smile but it couldn’t quite reach her face. “Yep. Rian Drake.”

I frowned. Why was that name familiar?

“She was one of People magazine’s most beautiful last year. The cover, actually. And she won an Oscar two years ago. A Tony, too. Oh, and a Grammy for her movie, The Wild Children.”

I paused at the entrance of the driveway. “What? Rian Drake? The actress?”

“Yes, she’s an actress.”

I blinked at her. “So the last two hours we’ve been driving, you didn’t think to mention that your friend with the ridiculous security is a world-famous actress?”

“Her place is private, secluded. No one knows about it. And it’s secure to the hilt.”

“Way to bury the lead.” London rattled off the security code, and I punched it in and drove us into the long drive. Once the gate receded behind us, it rolled back out, and I noticed the electrical panels at the security gate. “What you’re telling me is those things go hot when you say they should?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know everything about her security, but she told me I’d be able to stay here and feel safe.”

Interesting. Had she known she’d need to feel safe before the bullets had flown? “I hope she has a manual for this place.”

Chapter 9

London

The princess and the protector

I had never been so relieved to reach a destination in my life. I knew I wasn’t being dramatic. Being locked in the car with Kannon for two solid hours only made me relive every second of that kiss. Pure torture.

Especially as he hadn’t said a word about it. Not one. I kept waiting for him to say something, anything. Instead, he was perfectly comfortable not addressing what had happened.

If he could pretend nothing had happened, well, so could I.

It helped that I had more important things to worry about. Someone had tried to kill me. Twice. They tried once and then came back around to make sure that I was dead. At least that’s the best I could come up with. I needed to talk to Roman again. Maybe he’d found out something that could explain what the hell was going on.

Aunt Rebecca had said there were people who were looking to take the crown from him, from us, but would they resort to murder? And hello, I was hardly in line to rule. Roman would eventually recover from the loss of Kissa, and he would marry. It would just take time. And then both Breck and Wilder were ahead of me. I was basically a commoner. Why anyone would care what the hell I did or if I had a child was beyond me.

You heard it with your own ears. You have a year to have a baby, or the royal line changes.

I hoped to God my aunt was being dramatic, but she’d had real fear in her eyes. My father’s sister had looked out for us since our parents died. She’d always been there. Always guiding.

Roman had been so young. Only twenty-two. When most men his age were sowing their wild oats and making mistakes, he’d been left to run a country. And the rest of us, well the rest of us were just unruly. The boys were the worst, of course. No one wanted me to be like Princess Stephanie of Monaco, so I had been reared with firmer hands. But I was still independent as hell.

If there was real danger, Breck would have been all over it. He would have been the first to warn me. No, my brothers didn’t