The Prince (Masterpiece Duet 0.5)

“Better? No, but it’s definitely more lucrative this way.”

It’s upsetting that he looks so clean and crisp and beautiful standing beside a run-down tenement. Upsetting that he looks so good when he’s clearly a bad man. That his movie star smile hides a terrible broken soul. “You’re not the boy I knew.”

“No,” he agrees. “Are you the girl I knew?”

“You’ll never find out.”

He tilts his head to the side, as if demurring. Too much of a gentleman to tell me I’m wrong. Except he’s no gentleman. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to speak to your father.”

My heart thuds. “Why?”

“He owes me money.”

Oh God. Daddy, what have you done? “He doesn’t.”

I’m only delaying the inevitable, but I can’t think right now. Can’t deal with the fact that we have rent due in two days and barely enough money to cover it. How will we pay back hundreds of dollars?

Damon looks to the side a little. As if he’s embarrassed by my horror. Or maybe bored. He straightens the cuffs of his fine white shirt, perfectly tailored to his broad chest and narrow waist. He might be waiting in the eaves for an opera to begin, so casually refined.

“How dare you?” I whisper, waiting for him to meet my eyes, daring him.

He glances back at me, one dark eyebrow raised. “Pardon?”

“You know he doesn’t have a way to pay you back. How dare you loan him money? Charging insane interest rates he’ll never be able to afford. How dare you?”

A small laugh. “Would you have preferred I told him no? He would have gone straight to my father, who would have charged him higher interest than I did.”

“I hate you,” I say, tears stinging my eyes. “I hate you both.”

“And it’s not quite true that he doesn’t have a way to pay the money back.”

The silence spins out in brutal possibility. “How?”

“He has you.”

*



Thank you for reading THE PRINCE, the free prequel to the Masterpiece trilogy. I hope you loved meeting Damon Scott. Find out what he does next in THE KING!

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