Princess

I had been on vacation, in Rome, for exactly one week before I was called back by the Agency. The reason given to me, via a visibly cheesed off Calloway, was that ‘there were matters left unsettled’.

I knew that I probably should’ve been angrier that though my contract had been terminated, I still had to return but I really wasn’t. Having time all to myself, with absolutely nobody to spend it with, had been completely meaningless and caused me to wonder if I had made the right choice.

But I never allowed myself to think about that too long.

Now that I was back in the sterile Agency offices though, I realised that I should’ve put up a fight before returning. This place was giving me the creeps.

When I entered Calloway’s office, she stared at me as though I was the dirt beneath her feet. “Kristen, so glad you could join us again.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “…yes. I understand there’s something wrong?”

Now her look turned frosty and she stood up. Gesturing impatiently for me to follow, she guided me to the Agency’s interrogation rooms.

I swallowed hard, though I still didn’t know what it was that had gone wrong, I knew that for whatever reason she brought me down here, it must’ve had something to do with Sean Fuller. This guess was confirmed when we reached the end of the rooms and halted at the very last one.

A guard had been stationed outside and he barely paid me any attention. Instead, he nodded and asked Calloway, gruffly, “The girl?”

She permitted a small smile. For one horrible second, I thought that it wasn’t Mr. Fuller I was brought here to see but that I was tricked into being interrogated by Calloway. But then the door swung open and Sean Fuller glanced up.

He smirked when he saw me, his expression almost a mirror image of his son’s. But his tone was utterly different. “Christina Drake or is it Kristen Hart? How nice to finally meet the agent that’s landed me into trouble.”

Calloway must’ve sensed my fear but she had no patience for it. Instead, she pushed me into the room and followed me inside. Then she said, “No need to be so pleasant. I brought her here so that she can hear what you told us the last time.”

“Which part?” He pretended to look baffled, tapping his chin. It was then I noticed that his face was bruised and that his signature outfit—a pristine white long-sleeved shirt and a blazer were ruined. The blazer hung limply at his chair and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing arms with many scars. “You mean the part to do with my son, Dylan?”

What did everything have to come down to Dylan?

I couldn’t see Calloway’s expression when she nodded but Sean Fuller’s face darkened. “All right, no need to give me that face. I’ll tell the girl what I know.”

He turned his face towards me and once again, I couldn’t help but be struck by his obvious resemblance to Dylan. But then he spoke, smugly, “You were tricked by my son.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you really think that meeting him was all part of chance or the fates? If you did, you must’ve been dumber than I thought.”

I was starting to get an inkling of what Sean Fuller was implying but I couldn’t make sense of it. Or maybe I didn’t want to make sense of it. There was no difference anymore.

“Dylan arranged for everything—the kissing flash mob when you met, being your neighbour, falling for you even though you’re such a plain little thing… He knew who you were all along, Kristen Hart. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have dated you.”

“You’re lying.” I didn’t like the way my voice shook but I pressed on. “He couldn’t have known that I was an agent… He-”

“I was told, a few years ago, by an insider that you would be taking over this mission. I knew that you couldn’t be allowed to succeed. But I had thought that you would never have the guts or ability to take me on. But when you nearly infiltrated my territory, I knew for certain that it was time to take drastic measures. So I approached my son and told him that there was a girl I needed him to take care of.” Sean Fuller laughed. “Dylan was quite the ladies’ man, so it was only natural that you were fall for him. Don’t get too beaten up over it.”

“He wouldn’t have used me like that.” There was no way that he would’ve. Dylan liked the truth; he couldn’t have been lying to me all along. He couldn’t.

“Stop being a child and see the truth, Kristen Hart. Everything he learnt about you or the Agency, he reported back to me. I could tell that you had quite a lot of fun playing that Bullshit game he created.” His expression was cold, akin to Calloway’s. “Besides, you used him too. You couldn’t possibly have expected him not to have taken a chance like you.”

Sean Fuller made it sound as though I was stupid. Perhaps I had been. Though I didn’t want to think about it, it made sense.

The mission Dylan had all along hadn’t been the big operation Sean Fuller had been planning… It had been me. Everything that he’d said or done, the stupid day by the ocean which I had fallen in love with him, had been carefully planned and carried out by Luke and him.

They knew who I was, just like I knew who he was.

And Dylan used me…the same way I used him.

It was logical, intelligent and extremely sly. If it had been a plan thought up by one of my fellow agents, I would’ve admired and applauded them for their quick thinking.

But all I could now that I knew the truth about Dylan Fuller was to cry.

To cry for the only real relationship, the only time I thought someone honestly cared about me. To cry for how stupid and trusting I could still be, even after all the lessons that I had learnt that doing things like that would only get my feelings hurt.

To cry for the boy I thought Dylan Fuller had been.
To cry for the person I was with him.
To cry for the fact that I had never been Princess to Dylan...

...because all I had been was a girl he needed to use.