Princess

Angry Italians grumbled loudly under their breath, probably about how I had shined a flashlight in a place where people wanted to enjoy their meals in darkness. Don’t ask me how I knew this when blood was rushing so hard to my brain that I thought I was going to burst a blood vessel.

“Kristen?” Dylan’s voice was small.

I ignored him and fumbled around, touching him by accident once and jerking back immediately, before grabbing my purse. I stood up noisily, not caring about manners anymore. There was no real way I could get out of this restaurant, of course, but all I wanted to do now was to put some distance between Dylan Fuller and the fragments of my heart.
Walking determinedly, I bumped right into a table.

Wincing, I broke out of my militaristic purpose and found that I had started crying. Silent tears, those traitors, slipped down my cheeks. I tried to convince myself that it was from the pain of knocking into the table. But the corners of my brain whispered—that trick is not going to work anymore. Not when he is here.

“Kristen?” His voice was louder now, close behind me.

I have to snap out of it. If he sees me crying…

I didn’t know how to complete that thought. So what if Dylan saw me crying?

“Kristen.” I could tell that he was right in front of me now. He reached towards me, spun me around and found my cheeks, as well as the wetness on them. He said, softly this time, “Kristen.”

I tried to tell him not to touch me, to stop affecting my heart rate, to stop pretending to care when he had not before. But none of the words came out. Instead, I said, “Don’t.”

“I-”
“I don’t want to hear it.” I batted his hands away and rubbed roughly at my cheeks.
“But I want to say it.”
“That doesn’t make a difference.”

“Don’t you want to know why?”

Was he talking about why he was doing this? Or was he referring to something else? Did it really matter?

At the last thought, I made up my mind. My heart thudded in my ribcage, aware of the blatant lie I was about to tell. Don’t do it, you will regret it, warned my conscience half-heartedly. But it was smothered, since the rest of me had realised something important now. Dylan Fuller equated to pain and for me to survive, I needed to protect myself from the pain. “No.”

He was quiet. “Okay. At least let me bring you out.”

Surprised that he had believed my lie, I allowed him to take my hand and guide me out.

And I pretended that I had wanted him to believe me.
***
Outside, I could see Dylan clearly now and I wished for the darkness. At least, he could not see how affected I really was there.

I tried to keep a lid on my emotions and tugged my hand away from his. I allowed two words to escape from my mouth to brush against him coldly. “Goodbye, Dylan.”

“You’re being a hypocrite,” said Dylan, matter-of-factly.

I gapped at him for three seconds before my fist flew. His instincts must have been sharper than I thought, or maybe it had been his intention to rile me up, but he managed to block my fist and attempted to twist my arm behind my back.

I was no novice. Smiling grimly, I tossed my purse aside and kicked Dylan in the shin.Though he had grimaced, he made no move to let go of my arm, instead his grip was even tighter than before. Well, if he wasn’t going to let go…

His green eyes widened in surprise when I turned around. Instead of tugging my arm away, I swiped at his feet and because he was operating on instinct, he jumped. When he jumped, I smashed my fist into his stomach.

But he still didn’t let go of my hand.

Getting a little tired of the gawking Italians (since we were in the open street after all); I asked him, “What do you want from me?”

“Your understanding and maybe a little bit of your time.” He somehow managed a smile though I had wounded him.

“My understanding?” I repeated, stupidly. “I don’t comprehend anything that you’ve done, Dylan. And there’s no reason for you to want me to.”

“Why are you so freaking stubborn?”
“Because I know what is good for me now.”
“And I’m not on the list?” His jaw was clenched.
I managed to annoy him. It was about time. “No. Why should you be?”
“I suppose Owen Harrison is, then.”
He seemed especially annoyed. “Yes.”

Dylan blinked at this, processed it for a few moments. “Bullshit.”

I flinched, reminded of the stupid game we’d used to play...and what his father had said about it. “Let me go. I have other things to do here.”

“Why are you here?” asked Dylan, suddenly letting go of my arm. “Is the Agency still following me?”

I stared at my hand, wondering why it was tingling even after he let go of it. “Why are you running the Mafia?”

He was completely silenced and when I finally tore my gaze away from my hand, I found that he looked totally stunned…almost as though he had no idea what I was talking about.

“Oh, don’t even try to pretend to be innocent,” I grumbled. But still, my heart started speeding up, certain that there was something fishy happening and that Dylan truly didn’t know what was happening. But I needed to behave rationally…I couldn’t just operate on belief.

Besides, why did I even believe him?

“The Mafia is here?”

“Yes.”

He was quiet but then he spoke again.

“I suppose you won’t believe me if I say that I have nothing to do with them?” His tone was wry but his green eyes were serious.

I snorted. “Why should I believe you?”

“You’ve given me no reason to trust you but I do.”

Laughing though I felt more like bursting into tears again, I said, “Then you’re a fool. What makes you think that I wouldn’t run off and tell Owen or Calloway everything that’s happened today?”

“You don’t trust either of them enough,” said Dylan. Then he cracked a wicked smile and added, “In any case, Calloway wouldn’t be interested in anything that has nothing to do with the case. And Owen…the only reason why you’d tell him this is to make him jealous.”

I suddenly flashbacked to our first meeting, where he had been unnerved and annoyed me…it was uncanny how accurate my original impression of him had been. I changed the topic to avoid speaking of Owen Harrison. “So you have no proof that you’re not here because you’re the heir to your father’s empire.”

Here Dylan looked bemused. “What in our history together convinced you that my father would leave the Mafia to me?”

“Nothing about our ‘time together’ was entirely real.” I shrugged. “How am I supposed to know which part you really meant?”

I could tell that he was serious now. “I meant everything I’d said, Princess.”

Princess…

I pretended to not notice that he’d called me Princess again and rolled my eyes at him. “Enough. Why are you here, if not because of the Mafia?”

“My father got arrested. I was free. Sicily seemed like a far enough place from America and working here as Aloysius has been fun. Well, at least until you got here.”

His explanation seemed logical. If I was Dylan Fuller and my tyrannical father had been put behind bars, I’d probably get as far away as I could and enjoy myself. It had been clear before that there was no love lost behind father and son. Yet, I hadn’t thought about this until he brought it up. “Then why would the Agency’s contacts claim that you’re heading the Mafia here?”

“Maybe one of your agents has gone rouge.”

The only agent that I knew with questionable loyalties was Owen…. Luke said that he had seen Owen speaking to Sean Fuller. Owen had stood up for Sean Fuller during an argument with Dylan. Owen who had been so loyal to Calloway and the Agency that she had complete trust in him.

Capable, efficient, ruthless Owen. Could he really be the heir?

That thought was so, very tempting. “So you’ve been working here as Aloysius the waiter in the Taste of Darkness.”

“No… Tia has some relatives here. When she realised that I haven’t been doing anything here, she managed to pull some strings for me to end up working in their kitchens. Freda only asked for my help when she realised that there was an American here.” He must’ve seen how my face had brightened when he mentioned Tia, because Dylan quickly added, “Luke and her managed to contact me a few days ago. But I still don’t know where they are.”

Though I was disappointed, I was also relieved that I did not need to face Tia yet. It was easier talking to someone who had actually been glad to be rid of their parents and I knew that TIa did not belong to that group. She would probably still be hurting at how I had put her parents in court and almost behind bars.

Shaking off that thought, I asked, “How did you know that it was me then? If you were in the kitchen before?”

He smiled. “I saw you entering the restaurant. You haven’t changed much.”

Neither had he but I did not say this aloud. Instead, I flushed. This was getting a little too close to relationship zone for my taste. “Do you have any proof of any of this? Or any evidence that there is another heir?”

Dylan thought for a moment before slowly conceding, “Yes, I do have proof…and I have a few clues as to the identity of the heir… But I don’t have it with me now. If you want it, I need you to follow me.”

To my surprise, I followed him without hesitation.
***