Free Prince's Dirty Little Secret (A Royal Secret Baby Romance) by Riley Rollins

him. "You could have prevented me from being deported."
    His face lights up again. "So you do want to be here."
    "No," I say, "I want to be wherever I am on my own terms. I'm not one of your groupie girls you can boss around and fly around the world on your whims."
    "You wish I had not brought you here, then?"
    Jesus. Maybe I was completely wrong about him, and he's still a dictator at heart, and always will be. "It's about choice, Nikolai. Freedom. Something that you don't seem to understand."
    He frowns. "I have thought deeply about what you said. I am willing to stand up for my own people."
    At this point, I don't even believe him. He's probably just blowing smoke up my ass again.
    "Yet, you couldn't even consider what was best for me right now?" I'm sick and tired of being a pawn in his fucking games.
    He pauses for a great while before answering. "Jenna, my little pet. If you truly wish to go, then I will let you. And I shall never contact you again."
    Part of me wants to latch onto this opportunity to get out of here once and for all. But I can't forget the way he made me feel before, and if he's really willing to listen to me, then maybe I can make a difference now.
    But my heart is back in L.A. with Josh. I'm sure that Ashley is taking care of him, but I'm getting really fucking anxious about it. Josh needs his mother, and eventually Ashley is going to report me missing. Then… who knows. I can't be separated from him much longer.
    I toy with the idea of telling Nikolai that he's a father, but I just can't. I can't trust him to do right by me or Josh. He didn't do me right when the King deported me, and he didn't do me right the way he brought me back here.
    I can't afford to tell him.
    "Nikolai, my prince," I say, more than a hint of sarcasm in my voice, "I need some time to think about this."
    "How much time?" He sounds annoyed, not used to waiting on other people's schedules.
    "Look. If I really mean something to you, then you need to respect this request."
    He makes a snotty, pompous sound. "Very well," he says, rolling his eyes. "I shall be waiting."
    Asshole. "There's something else."
    "Do tell."
    "Your father. He hates my fucking guts. How do I know that the exact same thing isn't going to happen again?"
    He pauses before answering. "I am... taking steps... to ensure that he is no longer a barrier for us."
    "That doesn't exactly inspire confidence."
    "Very well," he says. "How about this. As long as you are here, I give you my word as the Crown Prince of North Molvania, that you will not suffer the wrath or whims of anyone other than me."
    "So what you're saying is that I'll suffer your wraths and whims?"
    He just winks at me before turning around and exiting the room.
    What a royal dick.

                                   
    CHAPTER 6
    I  can't stop worrying about my baby, so later that day I decide I need to get in touch with Ashley. The last thing I need is another FBI probe into my whereabouts, or something to happen to Josh. It's going to be a huge problem if the authorities find out I've gone missing.
    There's just one problem: in this closed-off kingdom, I have absolutely no idea how to contact the outside world.
    I wander around the palace for a while, almost losing myself in the black marble maze. It's so disorienting, and it seems to suck me in deeper and deeper. But I'm starting to memorize the turns, starting to remember certain swirls in the marble, guideposts to mark my path. Every time I walk through the halls, I half-expect the marble swirls to change as if by magic, taunting me. It's a small consolation that they do not. No matter how alien this place seems, at least it's not actually alive.
    My first instinct is to try the computer terminal in the library again, but it's no use. My email is blocked, as is Facebook.
    There's a regular landline phone hanging on the wall next to the computer. When I pick it up, there's actually a dial tone, so I punch in the