The Prince

“Dad. Let’s go in the house and talk.” Wesley took a step to the side, trying desperately to put himself between his father and Nora. His dad wasn’t the violent type, but he didn’t need to be. Words were weapon enough for his father, especially when he was angry like this.

“That woman is not allowed to cross the threshold of my home, J.W. And quite frankly, I’m shocked that you’d even suggest it.”

“That woman?” Wesley stood up straighter and stared into his father’s blue eyes. He’d gotten his brown eyes from his mother, his temperament from her. Most days it was only the similar set of their jaws that betrayed Wesley and his father were even related. “‘That woman’ is my best friend, Dad. She’s also a four-time New York Times bestselling author.”

“Five, actually,” Nora interjected with a sly wink at him.

That wink gave Wesley the courage to keep going. No matter what his dad said to her, Nora could take it. In their fifteen months apart, he’d almost forgotten how much fun she had getting yelled at.

“Sorry, Nor. Forgot about the new book. Multi-New York Times bestselling writer. She’s also—”

“A whore.”

The word came out of his father’s mouth and hung in the air between them. Wesley’s right hand balled up into a fist. His dad might not be violent, but he was coming damn close to getting Wesley to that point.

“Ohh…” Nora said with that wicked smile of hers, that smile that made men either fall at her feet or run for their lives “…he totally went there. I can respect that.”

“Take that back, Dad.” Wesley leveled his coldest stare at his father. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about, J.W. Did you think your mother and I believed it when you said you just wanted to come back home to Kentucky because you were homesick? You spent two years telling us how much you loved it at Yorke, how much you wanted to spend your whole life in Connecticut, how happy you were, and then one day it’s ‘I’m ready to come home.’ You think we bought that? Your mother did, because that’s what she wanted to believe. I knew better. Did a little digging—”

“Jesus, Dad, you investigated me?”

“Had to be done. And I did it for your own sake.”

Nora laughed softly. “Can I take a moment here to tell you both how cute your accents are when you’re angry?”

Wesley and his father both looked at her, Wesley in shock, his father in disgust.

“Okay, that’s a ‘no’ then. Carry on.” She took a step back and waved her hand at them to continue.

“You think this funny, don’t you, miss? Well, it’s not funny to me. Or to my wife. Our son was a wreck when he dragged his tail back down here. I had an uncle come home from Vietnam looking less shell-shocked than my boy did that day he turned up here.”

The smile fell from Nora’s face. Nodding, she stepped forward again and took Wesley’s hand. He squeezed her fingers and found them surprisingly cold, as if she was nervous or something. His Nora? Nervous?

“I’m sorry, Mr. Railey. I know I hurt your son. And I’ll regret it until the day I die. But I—”

“Hurt my son?” Wesley’s father shook his head and gave a horrible, cold laugh. “You didn’t hurt my son. He falls off a horse and gets hurt. You broke that boy’s spirit. Crushed him. I know about the smut you write. The wife’s got a whole case of trash like that in the library. From what I can tell, only thing different about your books and the ones she reads is that in yours they get a little more creative. Your books don’t bother me a bit. That you sell your body doesn’t even bother me. What does bother me is that you pulled your tricks on my son. You used him, chewed him up and spit him out.”

Wesley opened his mouth to protest, but Nora spoke up first.

“You say you know me, Mr. Railey, but obviously, you don’t. If you did, you’d know I don’t spit out.”

“Nora, please,” Wesley said, ready to drop on his hands and knees to beg her to let him handle this. Not that it would work. For a single second Wesley felt a pang of sympathy for Søren. Nora was lawless, unmanageable, uncontrollable. You told her one thing, she did everything but that. She laughed when others cried. Danced when others sat. She clawed her way to the top and didn’t even chip a nail on the way up. No one could break her. No one could handle her. No one could shut her up.

God, he had missed this woman.

Wesley turned to his father, stepped directly in front of Nora and raised his chin.

“Dad, my private life with Nora…what happened between the two of us isn’t any of your business. We worked it out. And she’s not a whore. I can’t believe you’d say that.”

“I said it, and I’ll say it again. What else do you call selling your body?”

“A good career move.” Nora peeked around Wesley’s arm. “Although technically, I was a Dom—”

“Nora, can you give me a minute here?” Wesley tried to ask as politely as his raw nerves would let him.

“Take your time, Wes.” She patted him on the back again.

“Dad, I love you. But you’re kind of pissing me off right now. Nora’s my best friend. She’s my girlfriend. She’s staying here with me while I figure out what I’m going to do next. If you’ve got a problem with that—”