The Swan Princess by Natasha Knight

Author:Natasha Knight [Knight, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Natasha Knight Publishing

4

Lucia

I think about what’s happening. About this night. A masquerade ball. My beautiful gown. Me having to run away at midnight. This man saving me from those others.

This man holding me.

I’ve never been held by a man like this. And I know it’s childish, but I’ll let myself go for just a few minutes. It’s all I have anyway. And I’ll live this fantasy. This fairy tale with my prince.

Except that for all of that, there’s a strange niggling in the back of my mind. The feeling that something isn’t quite what it seems.

“You’ve seen my face. Why don’t you take your mask off and let me see yours?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t you remember what the phantom looked like under the mask?”

I laugh. “I’m sure you don’t look like that.”

He shrugs one shoulder and spins me. He’s tall and powerfully built with broad shoulders and muscles I can feel beneath my hands. It’s nice holding on to him. And being held by him.

Nice just being held.

God, I’m pathetic.

Or just lonely, I guess.

“How do you know the Hollister family?” I ask.

“Oh, through the grapevine. I actually couldn’t pick Anna out if you asked me to.”

“Really? But it’s her party.”

“Really. Do you live nearby?” he asks.

“Not too nearby,” I say, tripping. Stepping on something sharp just then. “Ouch.”

We stop dancing as I bounce on one foot.

He sweeps me up into his arms, making me gasp with surprise. He sets me down on the bench and sits beside me to take both feet onto his lap.

“What are you doing?”

“Having a look.”

“Oh, it’s probably nothing. You don’t have to—”

“Shh.” He pushes my dress up a little, his hand warm on my leg. He keeps it there for a moment longer than necessary and I think about my plan. About what I wanted to do. What I wanted to give to someone—anyone—so Salvatore Benedetti wouldn’t be the one to have it.

But I know myself. And I can’t do that. Not with a stranger. Not even this one.

Won’t Salvatore Benedetti be a stranger when he makes you?

I clear my throat and he moves his hand down to my foot, his touch gentle. I swear he caresses it as he feels for whatever I stepped on.

“Ah.” He shifts his position to look at the bottom of my foot. “Don’t move.”

A moment later, he holds up a small thorn like thing.

I touch the tip, see the little bit of blood on his thumb from my foot. “No wonder it hurt.”

He tosses it away and reaches down under the bench and when he comes back up, he’s holding an unopened bottle of champagne.

“Where did you get that?”

“Well, before you came out here, I was going to drink it on my own, but now that you’re here,” he says, popping the cork, sending it flying into the center of the lake. “We can share it.”

He holds the bottle out to me. I reach for it, but he snaps it away.

“Only if you’re old enough to drink, that is.”

Something about the way he looks at me unnerves me.

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