My Dark Prince: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Dark Prince Road)

You can hide Trio in your JanSport and Geezer under your oversized Baylor sweatshirt.

The half-baked scheme flickered through my mind like a lifeline. Surely, airport security wouldn’t check too hard if I faked a pregnancy. But alas, it would be cruel to kidnap Oliver’s dogs on top of dumping him.

And I would end things.

Nothing had changed. My work on set began in two weeks, and Sebastian’s condition anchored Oliver here. Our lives didn’t fit. They never had. Turns out, love is a demanding bitch. It waits for no one but has the audacity to be worth the wait.

“We can’t be together,” I announced at the breakfast table over eggs and vegan sausage.

Oliver slapped the Financial Times onto his plate, glaring at me as if I’d ruined the perfect breakfast combo forever. Not that he took me seriously.

I could read the defiance sizzling in his eyes. In fact, he’d spent the past twenty-four hours hovering over me, watching for signs of a pending breakdown over the news of Cooper’s death. He probably considered my words to be the tipping point.

“Yes, we can.” He closed the paper, wiped a hollandaise stain off the front page with the napkin on his lap, and casually resumed his meal. “But go ahead and tell me what you think is standing in our way.”

I buttered a slice of sourdough toast, imagining what he’d say to me if I hadn’t ruined breakfast with my announcement.

Probably something along the lines of – I love you. I truly do, but I don’t understand why you toasted bread that’s already hard. Are you not fond of your teeth?

“Ollie.” I sighed, sinking my teeth into bread that did, indeed, hurt to bite. “This fake engagement hoax was fun, but there are other people involved now that expect it to actually happen.”

His brows shot up. “You mean like you and me?”

“I mean like your parents.”

“Right.” He ran his tongue along his upper teeth, settling into his chair. “And why can’t this marriage happen?”

I set the toast down, watching butter pool on my plate. “Because I have a life, friends, and a career – and they all happen to be in SoCal. And you have to stay here.”

“Welcome to the jet-setting life, baby.” He spread his arms wide. “You even have a private plane all to yourself.”

“I don’t want to fly in a private plane for ethical reasons, remember?”

“I do. All too well.” He pushed his plate in, huffing out an exaggerated sigh. “Why couldn’t I fall in love with someone like the Townsend sisters, who would single-handedly burn down an entire rainforest if it helped them plow their way into a designer sale?”

“They’d replant the trees,” I tried to protest, shocked by how much I’d grown to like them.

What’s another two people to miss?

He sent me a be-for-real look. “You can fly commercial.”

I shook my head. “We film weeks at a time, and it’s a hectic schedule. Often twenty-hour days.”

“That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. I’ll help you file it. We’ll ride off into the sunset with the settlement, and you can use it to launch your own production company. Here. In Potomac. Next to me.”

“I’m not suing my employers, Oliver. And I’m not doing anything that will blacklist me from Hollywood forever.” I planted my elbows on the table. “This is my dream.”

A tiny, traitorous tear leaked out, crawling down my cheek. I swiped it away before he noticed. There would be no signs of weakness. No crack he could pry open to convince me to stay. For once, I needed to choose myself.

Ollie didn’t budge. “We can make it work.”

“If you’re not in LA, it’ll turn into a long-distance relationship.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll do long-distance, then.”

“Yeah.” I snorted. “That turned out so well last time, right?”

Oliver conceded with a nod. “Fine. Good point. I don’t want to be away from you anymore, too.” He emphasized too, yanking his plate back and slicing into his Canadian bacon. “I did it for fifteen years, and it was torture. I’ll move to Los Angeles with you, then.”

He rubbed his heart as if he was butthurt that I hadn’t extended the invite first. Except, my gut – and every brain cell that hadn’t died from the concussion – warned me that moving to SoCal together would only end in heartbreak. He didn’t have it in him to abandon his family. I would never ask him to.

“Oliver.” I met his eyes, tearing the toast in half and dunking it into egg yolk. “You can’t move. You have Seb.”

“He’ll come with us,” he blurted, clearly not thinking.

Sebastian would never agree to that. He wouldn’t even leave his wing, especially not after the fiasco at the surgeon’s office. In the days since, he’d banned visitors (including me), stopped rowing (even at night), and accepted his groceries through a cart (wheeled to the deck by Usain Colt and roped up to the balcony through a levy system).

I rose, striding over to him. “No, he won’t.”

We both knew this as an indisputable fact.

His neck corded with strained muscles, as if he could physically hold on to this relationship. “You’re seriously ending this?”

“It’s always been a game of who will blink first.” I let him yank me onto his lap and tipped his chin up, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Me. I’m blinking first. This is over, Oliver.”

“Wait.” He silenced me with a finger to my lips. “I lost you once because of Sebastian. I love my brother, but not enough to lose you again. You come first. No matter the outcome. It’s you, Briar. Not him.”

“This is bigger than us.” His finger muffled my words. I clasped his wrist, removing it from my face. “I have my own conscience to think about. I can’t let you desert him. And in a month of living in Los Angeles, you’ll realize the same thing. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable.”

“We can make this work.”

“We can’t.” I cupped his cheek, savoring the feel of his skin beneath mine. I’d miss touching him the most. “Because I know what your biggest secret is.”

“Yeah. Seb.” He pressed the back of his hand to my forehead, checking for a fever or any signs of lingering concussion damage. “I know you know.”

“No, Oliver.” I swatted his hand away, guiding it to my waist. “That’s not it. Your biggest secret is that you’re more beautiful inside than you are outside. And you are really freaking beautiful outside.”

“All the more reason to stay.”

“No.” I pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose, unable to stop myself. “Because the Oliver I know would never abandon his family. I wouldn’t fall in love with someone who would.”

He groaned, resting his forehead against mine. “You’ve trapped me.”

“I know.”

“If I don’t go to LA, I lose you. But if I do go, I’m no longer the person you fell in love with.”

I tried to smile, lifting a shoulder. “I would’ve made a great lawyer, huh?”

He didn’t speak for a few minutes. The bitter stench of goodbye assaulted my nostrils. As if he could understand our conversation, Trio whined, nuzzling my ankle with his wet snout. Geezer joined in, attacking my toes with his paws.

Our babies. They, too, wanted me to stay.

I pulled at the loose fibers on my sweater, hoping for a distraction from the three sets of puppy dog eyes aimed at me.

Don’t fight this, Ol.

I’m not strong enough to resist.

For once, give me a beautiful goodbye.

Finally, finally, Oliver broke the silence. “Do you have a place to stay at in Los Angeles?”

I sagged against him, realizing his underlying meaning. “I can sleep on Hazel’s couch until I find one.”

“The Grand Regent in Beverly Hills has luxury condos for long-term tenants.”

I rose from his lap, putting some distance between us now that there was no us. “I’m not accepting your charity, Oliver.”

“I broke your old lease and sold your car. It’s not charity. It’s compensation.”

I considered it, hopping onto the edge of the breakfast table. “Okay. But only for as long as it takes to find a new place. And I’ll pay rent.”

“I’ll draw up a lease.”

This was adult-like. Mature. The closure I wished I’d gotten fifteen years ago. We could do this. Go our separate ways. Maybe in a few years, when the dust settled and I could look at him without wanting to weep, we might even be friends again.

You’ll survive, I tried to convince myself. You’ll look back on this moment one day and thank yourself for putting yourself first.

“It feels like the sky is falling,” I confessed.

“You’re strong enough to hold it up,” he told me, his words proud but his eyes sad.

“Thank you.”

For teaching me how to fly.

For helping me regain my wings.

For letting me go.

He rested his chin on my knee, peering up at me from his seat. “You’ll be okay, won’t you?”

“We both will,” I assured him. And because I couldn’t help myself, I traced a fingertip down the bridge of his nose. “You gave me wings, my dark tragic prince.”

Before I could second guess myself, I slid off the table and headed for the stairs to pack my things. I paused at the base of the stairs, turning to face him. His eyes hadn’t budged from me.

Oliver stared back at me but didn’t speak. A wave of confessions found their way to the tip of my tongue.

I love you.

I will always love you.

I will only ever love you.

Instead, I settled for a simple, “Oliver?”

“Cuddlebug.”

I strode back to him, slid off the engagement ring, and pressed it into his palm, curling his fingers around it. “You will make an amazing husband one day.”

Just not mine.

He shot up from his seat, startling me. “Bullshit.”

I backed away as he stalked to me, step by deliberate step. “Excuse me?”

Another step.

And another.

My back hit the wall. Oliver planted a hand on each side of my face, caging me in. Our heavy breaths tangled together, his eyes dark and unrelenting.

He dipped his head, bringing his lips to the shell of my ear. “If I don’t marry you – and that’s a big fucking if – I’ll make the worst husband in the entire world. Because I’ll spend every second of every minute thinking about you. When I make her laugh, it’s your giggles I’ll hear. When I kiss her, it’s your lips I’ll feel. And when I slide deep inside her, it’s your pussy I’ll imagine, dripping wet around my cock. You’ve ruined me, Briar. Completely and utterly destroyed me for every other woman on this planet. It’s you or nothing.”