Crown of a Prince (Finn Shelby)

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And she couldn't afford to touch his shoulder as she took the seat beside him, let his arm wind around her chair and tug at her hair lightly when she said something sarcastic or snappy at him that would make him smirk.

None of it. And she worried how much of it was real when his eyes drank her in, from her eyes to her lips, down her neck and body to her hands that she had linked in front of her, to the way she tugged at the bare skin of her ring finger and his eyes narrowed at it.

It's the game. It's a cover. It's a mask. I love you as much as I always have.

She tried to scream into his mind, wishing he could read her mind like she always imagined he could.

She had thought it to be the next convincing step of their ruse. As if Ailbhe Shelby had removed her ring in a fit of temper with her husband and that she was growing sick and tired of him. 

Your husband loves you more than him and he's going to suffocate you. 

Let Duke think he was right. Let all of them think what they liked. As far as Finn was concerned, the only person who mattered was her.

They weren't to know that she was wearing her ring on a chain around her neck, nestled under her clothes close against her skin so she could feel it against her beating heart.

She missed him. She missed her husband and she missed the people they used to be. Before this war and this battle had stripped pieces and pieces of him and her away, pulling them in separate directions too.

But she could get them back. They could be happy, she knew it in her bones as much as the girl who had kissed him on her 18th birthday or the boy who had kissed his best friend at John's wedding knew it.

Finn's jaw rolled, tensing as he reached for the glass of whiskey Arthur had poured him. A simmering anger rolled off him like waves and Ailbhe felt their family watching them, staring and deducing.

None of them had ever seen Finn and Ailbhe during an argument. It never usually lasted long enough for the family to realise and this was unfamiliar territory.

Ailbhe knew that a part of Finn's indignation was real. Seeing her without a ring made his skin feel too tight on his body. Seeing her stand so far away from him and look at him with indifference made all of it seem utterly not worth it.

The money, the power, the fun, the sport, the addictive buzz of being a Shelby prince. It wasn't worth jack shit if she wasn't wearing a ring that meant that she wanted to be his and him to be hers.

He just wished that their lives were as simple as saying he loved her and that the rest of it didn't matter.

But it did.

Billy. Tommy. Michael. Arthur. Duke. Mosley.

All of them had asked different things of Finn and if he didn't deliver to all of them. He would be face down in the cut for Charlie to fish out before he had even spoke of his betrayal.

Finding a way out of the wicked web they had woven themselves was proving harder by the day.

Arthur seemed lost, his jaw hanging open as the glass in his hand was frozen in its track from the table to his lips. Liam looked away, seeming uninterested or unbothered. Ailbhe knew her brother well enough to know that he probably hadn't realised there was tension. Social cues had always been Liam's weakness.

"You're late."

Tommy snapped, jerking his hand in her direction ushering her to come and sit as quick as possible. He hadn't looked her in the eyes and she was grateful. She wasn't sure she could.