uninvited

chapter fiftyfour

"What the fuck?" He mouthed.

Tell her about it.

"How is that even possible?"

"Hell, If I know." She growled. "God, I want to hit something. This is just fucking great. Just one more damn way I belong to him."

Jess gave herself a full minute to vent. She kicked, she screamed, then realizing that wasn't going to make her feel better, she took them back to her room.

The last thing she needed was anyone to know about this. How was this possible? She wasn't a royal. In all the history classes she's had to endear she hasn't once heard of a mate taking on another's gift.

Not that they were mated.

Fuck, who was she kidding?

Julian grabbed a notebook but all he seemed capable of saying is what the fuck over and over.

"No wonder you've been upset."

"That happened about five minutes ago. This is my life now. We should have run. Maybe it's not too late."

"What happened today?"

She paced the room not even sure she could put everything into words. "I like him."

Julian waited for her to say more.

"I really like him. Really, really, really like him."

The fool's lips twitched. "Yeah, I know. What happen?"

"He likes me. A lot, I think."

"Really, really, really, likes you?"

She jumped across the room so she could punch him in the arm as hard as she could. "This is serious."

He lost his smile. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, babe. I know this is serious, but it doesn't have to be a bad thing."

"Are you sure? I feel like this is a bad thing. We are too different. He's... he's all good. And soft spoken. Well, most of the time. He's responsible. He's an alien king for god's sakes. He likes to follow the rules, I would rather not. When he says he wants to go slow he means no sex and plan the wedding. When I say I want to go slow I mean, let's have sex and hide our feelings for eternity. You know how I feel about all that queen nonsense. I'd rather be beheaded than deal with all that crap. I thought I knew how much I would hate keeping secrets from you and it's even worse than I thought it would be."

"Come sit by me."

"I can't. He hates that. No, I could handle that. It's worse than that, he gets this sad little hurt feeling in the pit of his stomach like he's just lost the only thing he likes in the whole world. He tries so hard for it not to bother him, but it does. Why couldn't he fall for Hayden?"

"Because she's not you. She's got nothing on you, babe."

"She's prettier and smarter. Always looks classy. She's freaking beautiful. Ninety-nine out of a hundred would pick her."

"Ninety-eight maybe. And all of those are fools."

"Don't even. You even like her. Think I haven't noticed that? I may be losing my mind, but I can still keep track of who my best friend is crushing on."

He smiled. "Only a little."

"Good, because she belongs with him. She has to."

"Why?"