The Prince

PROLOGUE

File #1312—From the archives

SUTHERLIN, NORA

Née Eleanor Louise Schreiber

Born on March 15, 1977 (beware the Ides of March)

Father: William Gregory Schreiber, deceased (you’re welcome, ma cherie), formerly incarcerated in Attica on multiple counts of grand theft auto, and possession of stolen property. Had connections with organized crime—see file #1382.

Mother: Margaret Delores Schreiber, née Kohl, age fifty-six, currently residing near Guildford, New York, at the Sisters of Saint Monica convent (cloistered), known now as Sister Mary John.

Daughter and mother—estranged but currently in détente.

Age 15, Eleanor met Father Marcus Lennox Stearns (Søren, born to Gisela Magnussen). After her arrest for stealing five luxury vehicles in one night to aid her father in paying off a debt, Sutherlin was sentenced to probation and twelve hundred hours of community service supervised by Father Stearns. It was during these years that Sutherlin learned to submit. At age eighteen she became his collared submissive. At age twenty-eight she left him after terminating a pregnancy (father—me). For a year she lived with her mother at the convent upstate, before returning to the city and becoming a dominatrix in the employ of the devastatingly handsome Kingsley Edge, Edge Enterprises. At the time of this filing she has had five books published, four of which have been bestsellers. (See attached for financials. Her editor is Zachary Easton, publisher Royal House. See file #2112, drawer seven for Easton’s file.) At age thirty-three, after spending five years apart, she returned to her owner and has been with him ever since.

Sexual preferences—Sutherlin is bisexual although she generally shows a preference for men. A true switch, she tends to top with anyone but her owner (because, as we all know, he would break her if she tried).

Weaknesses—Blondes—men and women, younger men, tiramisu.

Ultimate weakness—Unknown. Possibly John Wesley Railey, born September 19, Versailles, Kentucky. Heir to the Railey Fortune (estimated at $930 million as of 2010) and The Rails Farm (Thoroughbreds, saddlebreds), Railey, known to friends and family as Wes or Wesley, lived with Sutherlin from January 2008 until April 2009. As the sole heir to the largest horse farm in the world, Wesley is known colloquially as the Prince of Kentucky. Six feet tall, a type 1 diabetic, boyishly handsome, not sexually active at the time of his filing (Railey file #561, drawer 4). Sutherlin has displayed intense emotion, affection and loyalty (and possibly even love) where Railey is concerned.

Strengths—Extremely intelligent, IQ 167, physically strong, cunning, highly manipulative when necessary, extremely beautiful (see attached photographs), Sutherlin is far more dangerous than she appears.

The final line in the file the thief read over and over again.

In all things involving Nora Sutherlin, proceed with caution.

Three months…for three long and sleepless months, the thief toiled over the file, which had been encrypted in layer upon layer of cipher. The thief knew French and Haitian Creole, but merely knowing the languages wouldn’t crack the code. One had to know Kingsley Edge, and luckily, the thief did—intimately.

The file thief read through all four pages of notes on Nora Sutherlin a thousand times until the words were as familiar as the thief’s own name. And as the thief read the pages until they grew tattered from wear, an idea began to form and grow until it gave birth to a plan.

The thief closed the file for the final time, and then and there decided the best course of action.

The thief would proceed…cautiously.

NORTH

The Past

They’d sent him here to save his life.

At least that was the line his grandparents laid on him to explain why they’d decided to take him out of public school and send him instead to an all-boys Jesuit boarding school nestled in some of the most godforsaken terrain on the Maine-Canadian border.

They should have let him die.

Hoisting his duffel bag onto his shoulder, he picked up his battered brown leather suitcase and headed toward what appeared to be the main building on the isolated campus. Everywhere he looked he saw churches, or at least buildings with pretensions of being one. A cross adorned every roof. Gothic iron bars grated every window. He’d been wrenched from civilization and dropped without apology in the middle of a medieval monk’s wet dream.

He entered the building through a set of iron-and-wood doors, the ancient hinges of which screamed as if being tortured. He could sympathize. He rather felt like screaming himself. A fireplace piled high with logs cast light and warmth into the dismal gray foyer. Huddling close to it, he wrapped his arms about himself, wincing as he did so. His left wrist still ached from the beating he’d taken three weeks ago, the beating that had convinced his grandparents that he’d be safe only at an all-boys school.

So this is our Frenchman? The jovial voice came from behind him. He turned and saw a squat man all in black beaming from ear to ear. Not all black, he noted. Not quite. The man wore a white collar around his neck. The priest held out his hand to him, but he paused before shaking it. Celibacy seemed like a disease to him—one that might be catching. Welcome to Saint Ignatius. Come inside my office. This way.

He gave the priest a blank look, but followed nonetheless.

Inside the office, he took the chair closest to the fireplace, while the priest sat behind a wide oak desk.

I’m Father Henry, by the way, the priest began. Monsignor here. I hear you’ve had some trouble at your old school. Something about a fight…some boys taking exception to your behavior with their girlfriends?

Saying nothing, he merely blinked and shrugged.

Good Lord. They told me you could speak some En­glish. Father Henry sighed. "I suppose by ‘some’ they meant ‘none.’ Anglais?"

He shook his head. Je ne parle pas l’anglais.

Father Henry sighed again.

"French. Of course. You would have to be French, wouldn’t you? Not Italian. Not German. I could even handle a little ancient Greek. And poor Father Pierre dead for six months. Ah, c’est la vie, he said, and then laughed at his own joke. Nothing for it. We’ll make do." Father Henry rested both his chins on his hand and stared into the fireplace, clearly deep in deliberation.

He joined the priest in his staring. The heat from the fireplace seeped through his clothes, through his chilled skin and into the core of him. He wanted to sleep for days, for years even. Maybe when he woke up he would be a grown man and no one could send him away again. The day would come when he would take orders from no one, and that would be the best day of his life.

A soft knock on the door jarred him from his musings.

A boy about twelve years old, with dark red hair, entered, wearing the school uniform of black trousers, black vest, black jacket and tie, with a crisp white shirt underneath.

All his life he had taken great pride in his clothes, every detail of them, down to the shoes he wore. Now he, too, would be forced into the same dull attire as every other boy in this miserable place. He’d read a little Dante his last year at his lycée in Paris. If he remembered correctly, the centermost circle of hell was all ice. He glanced out the window in Father Henry’s office. New snow had started to fall on the ice-packed ground. Perhaps his grandfather had been right about him. Perhaps he was a sinner. That would explain why, still alive and only sixteen years old, he’d been sent to hell on earth.

Matthew, thank you. Come in, please. Father Henry motioned the boy into the office. The boy, Matthew, cast curious glances at him while standing at near attention in front of the priest’s desk. How much French did you have with Father Pierre before he passed?

Matthew shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot. Un…année?

Father Henry smiled kindly. It’s not a quiz, Matthew. Just a question. You can speak English.

The boy sighed audibly with relief.

One year, Father. And I wasn’t very good at it.

Matthew, this is Kingsley… Father Henry paused and glanced down at a file in front of him …Boissonneault?

Kingsley repeated his last name, trying not to grimace at how horribly Father Henry had butchered it. Stupid Americans.

Yes, Kingsley Boissonneault. He’s our new student. From Portland.

It took all of Kingsley’s self-control not to correct Father Henry and remind him that he’d been living in Portland for only six months. Paris. Not Portland. He was from Paris. But to say that would be to reveal he not only understood English, but that he spoke it perfectly; he had no intention of gracing this horrible hellhole with a single word of his English.

Matthew gave him an apprehensive smile. Kingsley didn’t smile back.

Well, Matthew, if your French is twice as good as mine, we’re out of options. Father Henry lost his grin for the first time in their whole conversation. Suddenly he seemed tense, concerned, as nervous as young Matthew. You’ll just have to go to Mr. Stearns and ask him to come here.

At the mention of Mr. Stearns, Matthew’s eyes widened so hugely they nearly eclipsed his face. Kingsley almost laughed at the sight. But when Father Henry didn’t seem to find the boy’s look of fear equally funny, Kingsley started to grow concerned himself.

Do I have to?

Father Henry exhaled heavily. He’s not going to bite you, the priest said, but didn’t sound quite convinced of that.

But… Matthew began …it’s 4:27.

Father Henry winced.

It is, isn’t it? Well, we can’t interrupt the music of the spheres, can we? Then I suppose you’ll just have to make do. Perhaps we can persuade Mr. Stearns into talking to our new student later. Show Kingsley around. Do your best.

Matthew nodded and motioned for him to follow. In the foyer they paused as the boy wrapped a scarf around his neck and shoved his hands into gloves. Then, glancing around, he curled up his nose in concentration.

"I don’t know the French word for foyer."

Kingsley repressed a smile. The French for foyer was foyer.

Outside in the snow, Matthew turned and faced the building they’d just left. "This is where all the Fathers have their offices. Le pères…bureau?"

Bureaux, oui, Kingsley repeated, and Matthew beamed, clearly pleased to have elicited any kind of encouragement or understanding from him.

Kingsley followed the younger boy into the library, where Matthew desperately sought out the French word for the place, apparently not realizing that the rows upon rows of bookcases spoke for themselves.

Library… Matthew said. Trois… Clearly, he wanted to explain that the building stood three stories high. He didn’t know the word for stories any more than he knew library, so instead he stacked his hands on top of each other. Kingsley nodded as if he understood, although it actually appeared as if Matthew was describing a particularly large sandwich.

A few students in armchairs studied Kingsley with unconcealed interest. His grandfather had said only forty or fifty students resided at Saint Ignatius. Some were the sons of wealthy Catholic families who wanted a traditional Jesuit education, while the rest were troubled young men the court ordered here to undergo reformation. In their school uniforms, with their similar shaggy haircuts, Kingsley couldn’t tell the fortunate sons from the wards of the court.

Matthew led him from the library. The next building over was the church, and the boy paused on the threshold before reaching out for the door handle. Raising his fingers to his lips, he mimed the universal sign for silence. Then, as carefully as if it were made of glass, he opened the door and slipped inside. Kingsley’s ears perked up immediately as he heard the sound of a piano being played with unmistakable virtuosity.

He watched as Matthew tiptoed into the church and crept up to the sanctuary door. Much less circumspectly, Kingsley followed him and peered inside.

At the piano sat a young man…lean, angular, with pale blond hair cut in a style far more conservative than Kingsley’s own shoulder-length mane.

Kingsley watched as the blond pianist’s hands danced across the keys, evoking the most magnificent sounds he’d ever heard.

Ravel… he whispered to himself. Ravel, the greatest of all French composers.

Matthew looked up with panic in his eyes and shushed him again. Kingsley shook his head in contempt. Such a little coward. No one should be cowardly in the presence of Ravel.

Ravel had been his father’s favorite composer and had become Kingsley’s, too. Even through the scratches on his father’s vinyl records, he had heard the passion and the need that throbbed in every note. Part of Kingsley wanted to close his eyes and let the music wash over him.

But another part of him couldn’t bring himself to look away from the young man at the piano who played the piece—the Piano Concerto in G Major. He recognized it instantly. In concert, the piece began with the sound of a whip crack.

But he’d never heard it played like this…so close to him Kingsley felt he could reach up and snatch notes out of the air, pop them in his mouth and swallow them whole. So beautiful­…the music and the young man who played it. Kings­ley listened to the piece, studied the pianist. He couldn’t decide which moved him more.

The pianist was easily the most handsome young man Kingsley had ever seen in all his sixteen years. Vain as he was, Kingsley couldn’t deny he’d for once met his match there. But more than handsome, the pianist was also, in a way, as beautiful as the music he played. He wore the school uniform, but had abandoned the jacket, no doubt needing the freedom of unencumbered arm movement. And although he was dressed like all the other boys, he looked nothing like them. To Kingsley he appeared like a sculpture some magician had turned to life. His pale skin was smooth and flawless, his nose aquiline and elegant, his face perfectly composed even as he wrung glorious noise out of the black box in front of him.

If only…if only Kingsley’s father could be with him now to hear this music. If only his sister, Marie-Laure, were here to dance to it. For a moment, Kingsley allowed himself to mourn his father and miss his sister. The music smoothed the rough edges of his grief, however, and Kingsley caught himself smiling.

He had to thank the young man, the beautiful blond pianist, for giving him this music and the chance to remember his father for once without pain. Kingsley started to step into the sanctuary, but Matthew grabbed his arm and shook his head in a warning to go no farther.

The music ceased. The blond pianist lowered his arms and stared at the keys as if in prayer before shutting the fallboard and standing up. For the first time Kingsley noted his height—he was six feet tall if he was an inch. Maybe even more.

Kingsley glanced at Matthew, who seemed to be paralyzed with fear. The blond young man pulled on his black suit jacket and strode down the center of the sanctuary toward them. Up close, he appeared not only more handsome than before, but strangely inscrutable. He seemed like a book, shut tight and locked in a glass box, and Kingsley would have done anything for the key. He met the young man’s eyes and saw no kindness in those steely gray depths. No kindness, but no cruelty, either. He inhaled in nervousness as the pianist passed him, and smelled the unmistakable scent of winter.

Without a word to either him or Matthew, the young man left the church without looking back.

Stearns, Matthew breathed, once the pianist had gone.

So that was the mysterious Mr. Stearns who inspired both fear and respect from the students and Father Henry. Fascinating…. Kingsley had never been in the presence of someone that immediately intimidating. No teacher, no parent, no grandparent, no policeman, no priest had even made him feel what standing in the same room with the piano player, with Mr. Stearns, had made him feel.

Kingsley looked down and saw his hand had developed a subtle tremor. Matthew saw it, too.

Don’t feel bad. The boy nodded with the wisdom of a sage. He does that to everybody.

NORTH

The Present

The fear had been his favorite part. The fear that followed him like the footsteps through the woods where he’d fled for sanctuary and found something better than safety. The footsteps…how his heart had raced as they grew louder, drew nearer. He’d been too afraid to run anymore, afraid that if he ran he would get away. He ran to be caught. That was the only reason.

Kingsley remembered his sudden intake of air as a viciously strong hand clamped down onto his neck…the bark of the tree trunk burning his back…the smell of the evergreens around him, so potent that even thirty years later he still grew aroused whenever he inhaled the scent of pine. And after, when he woke up on the forest floor, a new scent graced his skin—blood, his own…and winter.

Three decades later he could never uncouple sex from fear. The two were linked inextricably, eternally and unrepentantly in his heart. He’d learned the potency of fear that day, the power of it, even the pleasure, and now thirty years later, fear had become Kingsley’s forte.

Unfortunately, at this moment his Juliette was not afraid.

He could change that.

Kingsley watched her out of the corner of his eye while he sipped his wine. Standing next to Griffin and young Michael, she smiled in turns at each of them while they bent her exquisite ears with the tale of how Nora Sutherlin had brought them together. For one single solitary day without hearing about the amazing Nora Sutherlin, he would cash out half his fortune, lay it on a pyre in the middle of Fifth Avenue, set it afire and watch it turn to ashes. If only it were that easy to kill the monster he’d created.

No, he corrected himself. The monster they had created.

Juliette glanced his way and gave him a secret smile, a smile that needed no translation. But he would wait, bide his time, let her think he wasn’t in the mood tonight. He’d let her anticipation build first before replacing it with fear. How beautifully Juliette wore fear, how it shimmered in her bistre eyes, how it shivered across her ebony skin, how it caught in her throat like the scream he’d hold inside her mouth with his hand….

Kingsley’s groin tightened; his heart began to race. Setting his wineglass down, he strode from the bar through the back room and into the hallways of The 8th Circle. Right outside the door to the bar, his foot connected with something lying on the floor. Curious, he bent down. Shoes. A pair of shoes. He picked them up. White patent-leather stilettos…size six.

Shoes last seen on the feet of Nora Sutherlin.

Staring at the shoes, Kingsley pondered how and why they’d ended up in the hallway outside the bar. Nora could do almost anything in her high heels. He’d seen her top some of the most hardened masochists in them. She’d beaten them, whipped them, flogged them, kicked them…. She could stand on a man’s neck in high heels, walk on his bruised back, balance on one leg while her other foot was being worshipped. He knew of only one activity she couldn’t do in her towering high heels—run.

He carried the shoes down to the bottommost floor, where he and a few of the other VIPs kept their own private dungeons. At the last door on the left, he paused, but didn’t knock, before entering.

A man, blond and tall and deep in thought, stood by the bed, his arms crossed, his brow furrowed.

Have you ever heard of knocking? Søren uncrossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the bedpost. Kingsley clenched his jaw.

I’ve heard rumors of knocking. I never believed them. Kingsley stepped into the room. No one’s dungeon at the Circle exemplified the concept of minimalism better than Søren’s. It held nothing more than a four-poster wrought-iron bed tucked into an alcove, a Saint Andrew’s cross front and center, and a single trunk filled with various implements of torture. Søren’s sadistic side was the stuff of legend at The 8th Circle and throughout the Underground. He didn’t need a thousand types of floggers and single-tails and dozens of canes and tawse and toys. Such a piece of work was Søren—he could break a submissive with a word, a look, with his penetrating insight, his calm, cold dominance that left even the strongest quaking at his feet. He cowed them with the beauty of his exterior first, and second, with the beast that was his heart.

I brought you a gift.

Kingsley held out the shoes by the straps. Søren raised an eyebrow.

Not really my size, are they?

Your pet’s. Kingsley dropped them on the bed. As you know. You must have walked past them as you left the bar.

I left them there so she would find them when she came back for them.

Kingsley gave a small, mirthless laugh.

Didn’t I overhear you telling her that if she had any mercy in that dark heart of hers, she wouldn’t run from you to her Wesley?

Søren didn’t answer. He merely stared at Kingsley with his eyes of steel. Kingsley resisted the urge to grin. Schadenfreude…such an unbecoming emotion. He kept it to himself for as long as he could. Then, turning on his heel, he swept out of the room, quoting an old poem as he left Søren in his dungeon, with only Nora’s shoes on the bed for company.

"I saw pale kings and princes, too,

pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

they cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

Hath thee in thy thrall.’"

Kingsley returned to his own dungeon and paced as he waited. His bed sat in the very center of the room, unlike the priest’s at the end of the hall. For Søren, pain was sex. He could possibly be what the church demanded him to be—a celibate priest—if it weren’t for Nora, for his Eleanor, who needed the flesh as much as Kingsley needed the fear. He could only imagine the tantrum she would throw if her owner decided to cut her off sexually. But Søren would never do that. He inflicted pain for his release, and the sex that followed was mere afterglow. And who didn’t enjoy the afterglow?

Kingsley paused midstep as he heard the floor creak in the hallway outside his chamber. Silently, he moved to stand by the door and waited. He’d spent two years in the French Foreign Legion after leaving school, and five years pretending to still be in the French Foreign Legion while he served his country in other quieter ways. He’d learned the lessons of a spy well. See everything but never be seen. Hear everything but never be heard. When Juliette slipped through his door, he knew she expected to find him in bed, waiting for her. When his hand shot out and captured her by the arm, she gasped in fear.

Parfait.

His hand over her mouth killed her scream as Kingsley shoved her into the wall. He kicked the door closed even as Juliette attempted to wrest herself from his grasp. And although at five-ten, his willowy Juliette could not match his strength—no woman could—that didn’t stop her from trying, from digging her heels into the hardwood floor as he dragged her toward the bed. Twisting in his arms, she cried out against his hand. My God, she was as good at this game as he was. Even racked with desire as potent as his, she could still put up the most impressive fight, even when he knew she wanted him as much or more than he needed her.

He loosened his grip on her wrists long enough to turn her. He wanted her facedown tonight, bent over the bed, impotent in her struggles. The spreader bars, cuffs, shackles and ropes hung unwanted, unneeded on the walls all about them. He’d rather hold her down with his own body than employ any tools.

Monsieur… she panted, her eyes wide with fear as he shoved her forward and she fell across the bed. The scent of fear and sweat graced her skin like the most drugging of perfumes. Non…s’il vous plaît…

Her voice broke at the end of her plea and Kingsley almost laughed. Anyone who’d ever chanted no means no had never met his Juliette. This wasn’t only his favorite of their games. It was hers.

Kingsley gripped her by the back of the neck and pressed her face into the sheets to silence her. With his free hand, he wrenched the back of her dress up, tearing it in the process. She did look so lovely in white. How it glowed against her dark skin. He’d found her on a beach in Haiti years ago…when she’d been eighteen, barely more than a child. But she’d suffered the miseries of a thousand lifetimes in those years. He’d brought her back with him, made her his property. And in the unlikely event she ever forgot who owned her now, this was how he refreshed her memory.

With his knees he pried her thighs apart as he opened his pants. When he shoved himself inside her, she let out a scream that anyone in the hall would have heard. But it didn’t matter. No one would come to her aid.

He rode her hard with brutal thrusts. Breathing deeply, Kingsley willed his pounding heart to slow. He wished to savor this moment, savor her fear. He never imbibed her fear right away. He’d always let it breathe first, decanted it, before pouring it out and drinking it deep.

At times Juliette forgot it was him, her Kingsley, and got lost in the memory of the man who’d done this to her out of hatred and not love. Kingsley knew when her body went stiff underneath him, when she stopped struggling, that her fear had reached its peak.

He lived for those moments.

Her grunts and cries of pain and fear were the sweetest sounds he could imagine. Only they could silence the music in his ears that he heard from the time he woke until he fell asleep and into blissful oblivion again. One piano concerto thirty years ago…and still he couldn’t unhear it.

Juliette’s breathing quickened. She made a last valiant attempt at escape, but Kingsley merely dragged her arms behind her back and held her immobile. He thrust again, thrust hard, and with a shudder he came inside her, as her inner muscles clenched around him with the orgasm she’d fought against until finally surrendering to him.

He lingered inside her and simply enjoyed the bliss of the moment, the emptiness of it. His people were so right to call orgasm le petite morte…the little death. He died while inside her and he cherished that death, that freedom, those few seconds when he was released from the spell of the only man in the Underground who wore a collar but belonged to no one.

Juliette’s laughter jarred him from his musings. He couldn’t help but join her in her postcoital amusement. Releasing her hands, he pulled out of her, and relaxed onto the bed as she straightened her clothes before draping herself over his chest.

"You scared me, monsieur. I thought you were still with le père."

"I meant to scare you. And no, he’s praying, je pense."

Praying for what? Juliette turned her eyes up to Kingsley and he stroked her cheek. His beautiful Juliette, his Jules, his jewel. He treasured her above all others. Only one person had he ever loved more. But the one he loved more, he hated with equal passion. He wished that the mathematics of the world were like the mathematics of the heart—then his equal love and hate would mean he felt nothing instead of double.

For his lost pet to come back to him someday, I’m sure.

Juliette sighed and relaxed against him.

But she is not lost. Juliette kissed his chest. She’s just off her leash.

Kingsley laughed.

"It’s much worse than that, mon amour. His pet’s run off, and this time, she hasn’t got her collar."

SOUTH

As long as Wesley’s parents hadn’t heard of her, everything would be okay. And surely they hadn’t heard of her. Why would they have heard of her, a BDSM erotica writer from New York? Did they even sell her books in Kentucky? Ludicrous thought. Of course they hadn’t heard of her. And everything would be a-fucking-okay.

Nora sighed as they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line at Hagerstown, Maryland, and entered the South. Her stomach clenched hours later when they crossed the state line into Kentucky.

What the holy hell was she doing in Kentucky?

After she’d gotten over the shock of seeing Wesley again, she’d tried talking him into staying with her in her house in Connecticut. But he’d been unusually insistent.

Kentucky, he’d said.

Please, he’d said.

I lived in your world. Come live in mine for a while, he’d said.

She’d finally acquiesced, unable and unwilling to ever again see sadness in those big brown eyes of Wesley’s. But at her insistence they’d driven in separate cars—he in his Mustang, she in the Aston Martin Griffin had delivered to her. After all, Nora never went into any situation without an escape plan. She’d learned that lesson well back in her days as a professional Dominatrix. She hadn’t commanded her exorbitant fees by simply being more beautiful or more vicious than other pros. She did what few others of her kind did. Instead of working from a guarded, well-staffed dungeon, she went to her clients’ houses, their hotel rooms, wherever they paid her to go. Back then she’d joked her motto was Have Riding Crop, Will Travel. And travel she had. From New York to New Orleans, from Midtown to the Middle East, she went wherever Kingsley sent her. And for her own safety she relied on two things—her notoriety as the most dangerous Domme in the world, and Kingsley’s reputation as the last man in America anyone wanted to cross. She had only to say her name or his and the Underworld toed the line.

Now Nora prayed that where she went no one would have heard of her. Especially Wesley’s parents. Surely, as conservative as Wesley painted them, they’d never even been in the erotica section of a bookstore, much less heard the name Nora Sutherlin.

But it didn’t hurt to ask. She fished her cell phone out of her bag and called Wesley.

Yes, we’re almost there, he answered before she even said hello. Every hour on the hour she’d called to him to ask, Are we there yet?

That’s not why I’m phoning this time.

Sure about that?

Nope. So you never told me what your parents think about me coming to visit. Nora turned on her blinker as they veered onto exit 81.

They’re fine with me having visitors. A lot of my college friends came by over the summer.

Nora pursed her lips. She would have stared Wesley down had he not been in the yellow Shelby Mustang two cars ahead of her.

Nice nonanswer there, kid.

It’s fine. He laughed and Nora couldn’t help but smile. God, she’d missed that boy’s laugh in the fifteen months they hadn’t seen each other, hadn’t spoken. Wesley’s absence from her life had been a void no amount of sex or money or kink or fame had been able to fill.

Seriously, Nor. My parents are nice people. They like all my friends.

Friends. Good. Let’s go with friends for introductions. Let’s practice. You’ll say, ‘Ma, Paw—’

You’re getting my family confused with the Waltons again.

Hush, John-Boy, we’re practicing. You say to them, ‘Mother, Father—this is my friend Nora. I used to work for her back at Yorke. She’s come to visit and not cause any trouble.’

Not going to be able to say that with a straight face.

Which is why we’re practicing, Your Highness.

Wesley groaned, and now it was Nora’s turn to laugh at him.

You’re never going to drop that, are you?

Nora could easily envision him rubbing his forehead in amused frustration.

I kind of like it—the Prince of Kentucky. Very sexy title.

One stupid reporter called me that three years ago in one article—

Yeah, in an article about you hanging out with Prince Harry at the Kentucky Derby. Crazy that he’s turned into the sexy one now. Can you get me his number?

We didn’t stay in touch.

So, if you’re the Prince of Kentucky, Nora continued, unwilling to drop a thread of conversation that made Wesley so delightfully uncomfortable, who’s the Princess? Are you supposed to marry the governor’s daughter or something?

God, I hope not.

What? She a dog?

She’s a very cute nine-year-old girl, Wesley said as the first of the stars showed themselves at the edge of the southern sky. At the pace they were going, they’d be at Wesley’s house within the hour.