by Rosko, Mandy
Some nights, the fact that she hadn’t earned it herself, that it had been thrust on her, everything new, everything perfect, put a sour taste in her mouth. Which was why, when the doors closed and the last customer and employee left, she found herself in the back going over the books. She wanted to figure out how soon she could keep the place running without Inferno’s help.
Which meant she also had to focus on marketing.
There was the very real chance that after the hype died down in a couple of months, all of these customers she was enjoying would get bored and decide not to come back.
Which meant collecting emails, offering stamp cards for discounts to her current customers, and getting the app running for people to use on their phones to replace those cards so she didn’t have to buy them.
So much to do. So much to think about. Fiona rubbed her face, closing her eyes.
And she saw Inferno.
Fiona opened her eyes again, looking down at the numbers and projections she’d written down. Even still, she could make out Inferno’s eyes. The pain she saw in them that last day they saw each other, as her bags were being packed into the limo for her trip to his private jet.
He’d looked her right in the eyes, his spine stiff. To anyone else, he might have looked cold, as though it was for the best that she was leaving, but she could tell.
Had he not been royalty, had he not been, well, him…
Anyone else wouldn’t have looked their girlfriend in the eye as they’d left.
He did. Because God forbid he look weak and miserable when there might be someone with a camera hiding in the bushes waiting to take pictures and put them in the tabloids.
Which there had been. The very next day, after Fiona arrived home, she logged onto her computer just to see the headlines.
Human Baker Turns Down Dream Job as Royal Baker.
Now that she was the boss, even though she didn’t take shit from anyone else, the stress that came with making sure everything was perfect wasn’t the smooth ride she thought it would be.
The bell to the front door rang. Fiona froze. Did she forget to lock it? Or was Kate coming back?
She rolled away from her desk. “Kate? That you?”
No answer, just the sound of heavy footsteps.
She rose from her seat. “Sorry, we’re closed.”
The swinging back door opened. Fiona’s heart swelled hard, equal parts relieved and mortified by the sight of Inferno standing there.
He smiled at her, glanced around her back kitchen, then returned his gaze to her. “Thought I would come in and see how things were going.”
Fiona blinked, expecting him to disappear. He didn’t, and he looked so out of place in her kitchen. She was still wearing her white uniform and her hair was still up and kind of limp from working all day. She desperately needed a shower, and he looked fresh as a daisy in the suit he wore. He looked as though he was getting ready for a big meeting with some powerful people.
Possibly other government officials?
Or something else?
Inferno averted his gaze, a soft laugh leaving his mouth. “Stop looking at me like that. You are making me nervous.”
“I make you nervous?”
That was laughable.
He shrugged. “Well, only when you look at me like you think I shouldn’t be here.”
Fiona nodded. He shouldn’t be here, not because he wasn’t welcome, but because it didn’t make sense.
He didn’t fit with what was around him.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing. It’s not the same seeing your face in the tabloids.”
Fiona swallowed, knowing perfectly well how right he was. She’d seen his face enough on the Internet and in the papers over the last couple of days, and it wasn’t even close to the same as seeing his actual face.
If anything, the pictures just made her feel worse. “No, I guess not.”
Inferno smiled that same, watered down smile. She’d never seen him look so unsure of anything before. “You’ve healed up pretty nice.”
Fiona touched her face. “Yeah, it’s almost all gone.”
“You look good. Real good.”
Warmth flooded into her belly. “Thank you.”
That was all she said? She wanted to say more, she thought she would, but Fiona’s brain blanked out on her and clicked the light off to take a nap.
Like the total traitor that it was.
Fuck. Say something. She had to say something. There had to be something else she could get out of her mouth, but nothing was coming, and she was just standing there.
In front of him.
“Can I ask why you really came here?”
Great. Not exactly the most welcoming question in the world.
Inferno exhaled hard, shaking his head. “I came to check up on you.”
“Yeah?”
He pressed his lips together. “That’s what I told myself.”
Hope flickered in her belly when she thought there would be more. “Yeah?”
Inferno rubbed at his jaw, then shook his head, as though he’d been fooling himself this entire time. “Yeah, I came here for more than a check-up.”
He moved before she could react. That was fine, because in the next instant, Fiona was in his arms, pressed to the solid heat of his body, his mouth on hers.
It was less of a kiss and more of a claim, but she didn’t enjoy it any less. If anything, her body melted. She was struck dumb with the heat, the thrill of his mouth finally on hers after so long…
Fiona moaned helplessly against him. At night, by herself, she’d thought she could remember so vividly what this felt like. She’d thought she could recreate that sensation using only her mind. No. Not true. This showed her how close to forgetting she’d really been. The intensity was so much sharper than her body remembered, and already she was drunk with it.
Inferno’s large fingers threaded through her hair. He pulled out her messy bun. His groan was hard when her hair came down. She felt the vibration of his body all throughout her own.
And then there was his tongue.
Warmth pooled down to her sex, and just as Fiona moved her hands to give him a little taste of his own medicine, ready to mess up his perfectly combed, gelled hair, he pulled back from her.
Not just with the kiss, but Inferno stepped away from her. The distance left her feeling suddenly cold. As though she’d just stepped out into a blizzard after sitting next to a warm fire.
“What are you doing?”
Inferno shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She reached out for him. He pulled away from her.
That shock had her yanking her hands back.
“Do you have a reason to be sorry for kissing me?”
Inferno rubbed at his jaw. “Yeah. I do.”
Painful needles got her right in the heart from all angles. “Are you engaged again?”
“Not yet, but it’s in the works.”
Fiona swallowed. “One of the human families?” She didn’t want to ask which one.
Inferno didn’t specify either. “Yeah.”
Fiona pressed her lips together. “I didn’t read anything like that in the papers.”
She’d seen nothing suggesting Inferno had found someone else to marry at all. He hadn’t so much as appeared in public with any woman that Fiona had seen, so there was no chance for the gossip rags to make any speculations about that sort of thing.
Fiona’s throat started to close. She fought against it, but that seemed to make it worse. “Are you going to get married?”
Inferno propped his hand onto his hip. “I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t.”
“You know it doesn’t work that way.”
Fiona snapped her mouth shut. She wanted it to work that way; she wanted to argue with him that it should work that way. But he was right. It didn’t. And no amount of her having a tantrum about it would change that.
“Why are you telling me t
his?” It hurt too much to know, and the fact that he’d come this whole way just to tell her made it even worse.
Inferno was silent for a moment, his hands on his hips, his heavy brows furrowed, as if this was the last conversation in the world he wanted to have.
“Well?”
Inferno rubbed at his mouth. “I’m telling you because I still love you. I still want you.”
“Because I’m an Istavan?”
He cocked his head slightly. “Did you miss the part where I said I still love you?”
Fiona wanted to laugh. In that moment, she couldn’t look at him. “You love me because I’m one of the few humans alive who can give you powerful heirs.”
“No, I love you because I love you.”
The pain in her chest was alive and clawing at her heart like a monster wanting to eat her alive. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.” He shrugged, moved his hands a little, then put them back onto his hips, as though he didn’t know what to do with them. “I wanted you to know that.”
Now her heart pounded, but this couldn’t mean what he was making it out to mean.
“You sent me away.”
“I know. I thought it was what you wanted. That it would be the best for both of us.”
Fiona shook her head. “Of course a prince would say something like that. No, forget it, any man at all. Dragon, prince, human or no, you’re all just the same, really.”
“Fine, if that’s what you want to think, then that’s perfectly all right. I just want to know one thing.”
She looked at him, her arms folded, barely able to contain the adrenaline that struck her.
“Will you take me back?”
Fiona opened her mouth, then shut it.
And then she was angry.
“Take you back? You sent me away.”
“I know, you said that.”
“Well, you need to be reminded again because you sent me away. You didn’t even try to make it work.”
“I know.”
“People were sneaking pictures of me as I left.”
“I know. I didn’t want that for you.”
“Did you ever think that maybe I didn’t want to leave?”
“I thought you did!”
His outburst shocked her. Fiona fell back a step, but Inferno didn’t stop.
“Everything pointed to that you wanted to be away from all of that. From people who were constantly trying to hurt you. I’d just found out there was someone in my immediate family, someone I trusted, who was trying to kill you, and using actual palace guards to do it. I’m sorry if that threw me for a loop. I didn’t want you to die.”
Fiona’s throat closed. She had to press her lips together because if she so much as tried to say a word, she was going to start crying.
Inferno panted for breath, red scales forming on his face and the backs of his hands. His eyes even changed to look a little more…reptilian. But then, as suddenly as he’d lost control, he regained it. Inferno’s composure changed. He straightened, cleared his throat, and his skin suddenly returned to something more normal. “I’m sorry.”
Fiona swallowed, barely stopping her voice from breaking. “Yeah, me too.”
Inferno wouldn’t look at her, and more than anything else, that hurt the worst.
“I should go.”
Fiona should say something. She should say anything, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t get the words to form from her mouth and, even if she could, she wasn’t entirely sure what she would end up saying, or if she would regret it.
Inferno sighed, turned his back, and, slamming his hand on the door to her kitchen, let himself out.
She should let him go. He was right. It wouldn’t work even if she was supposed to be his one and only. One of the other human royals would be able to give him the heir he wanted. She was sure of it. It shouldn’t matter what anyone said about how it worked, and dragon royals had been breeding with other dragons and humans for years. Too many of the human royal families had died out, so it was impossible to keep things nice and tidy the way they wanted to.
Fiona clenched her fingers. The next door she heard was the front door. The little bell chimed as Inferno let himself out.
He would get married to someone else. Some other woman would have his babies, be by his side.
Inferno might forget about her and learn to love his new wife.
But she wouldn’t be able to forget him. Not in a million years.
Unable to stop herself, Fiona left her kitchen. “Inferno!”
He was already outside; of course he wouldn’t hear her. She ran around the counter and to the door, bursting onto the sidewalk. “Inferno!”
Of course, just as she shouted his name, she had to notice his limo pulling into the lane over, merging with traffic.
No. No.
She ran after it, pushing through a couple and narrowly avoiding crashing into a plump woman with her child.
“Sorry!” she shouted as the woman glared at her. “Inferno!”
The limo stopped at the next traffic light. Thank God. She had a chance. She just had to catch the limo. Fiona lifted her hand, waving it. She knew enough about Inferno’s life to know the limo would be both bullet proof and sound proofed. So she waved her arm like an idiot.
“Inferno! Stop!”
If he didn’t have tinted windows, she might be able to tell if she was making a difference, but she couldn’t see a damned thing either. And, of course, like out of a goddamn cartoon, construction workers holding a glass panel started walking away from the back of a van, cutting off the sidewalk she was trying to run on.
“Hey! Watch it, lady!” one of the guys yelled, glaring at her after she barely came to a stop in time to keep from crashing into the glass wall, killing herself.
Sorry, sorry. She watched the limo, noting the traffic light as it turned green. “Could you guys maybe hurry a little?”
More glares from the men holding the glass.
“Bitch, you know we could kill ourselves if we drop this the wrong way? Just wait.”
Fiona bit the inside of her cheek. The only reason she didn’t crawl under the thing was because, well, she didn’t want these guys to drop it on her and slice her in half.
Luckily, traffic was moving slowly in this part of town, even with a green light. Somewhere far up the street there must have been a jam.
“Finally,” she sighed, ignoring the glares she got from the construction workers again as she was able to get around them and their glass trap. “Inferno!”
She expected the limo to keep moving straight ahead with the traffic. She didn’t expect to see the turn signal start. Oh shit. It was going to move down the faster street. She was going to lose it. Fiona ran faster, pumping her arms and legs harder, waving her arm. “Wait!”
The limo turned, merging with traffic, and was suddenly out of sight around the corner.
Fiona slowed to a stop, panting for breath. Her side hurt. She hadn’t realized that until just now. Or how sweaty she was. No. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be the end of it. Fiona stumbled forward a few more steps. Maybe she’d get lucky. Maybe his limo would get stuck at another light.
But now that her adrenaline fizzled, like a pathetic wheeze out of a balloon, she could hardly move another step.
The burn in her eyes, and her heart, was more painful than the day she’d walked out of Inferno’s life. This was it? This was how it was going to end for them? With him driving off to marry some other royal human to keep up appearances?
And she realized that her dream of owning her own bakery wasn’t enough. She needed more than that.
She needed him.
Inferno rounded the corner of the street, on the sidewalk, his eyes finding hers, locking on.
Fiona stared at him, something light waking up within her. Her eyes burned, but she couldn’t stop smiling as Inferno ran across the street. He stepped in front of a few cars. They blared their horns at him, but he barely seemed
to notice they were there. His eyes were only on her.
Thank God the traffic was moving slowly. It allowed him to make it safely to the other side of the road.
Fiona ran to him, the blur in her eyes making it difficult to see him as anything other than a blob in front of her as she crashed into his chest.
And his powerful arms wrapped around her.
Fiona sighed. Those strong, rough fingers pushed her chin up, forcing her to look into his eyes.
“I was hoping you would change your mind.”
Fiona wanted to laugh as she blinked away her tears. “I was worried you wouldn’t see me.”
“How could I not when you were flapping your arms like a chicken for me?”
This time, she did laugh, from the depths of her belly, even as Inferno kissed her.
Fiona was vaguely aware of the people who had stopped around her, taking a look at what was going on now that they recognized one of the dragon princes in their midst. A few cameras flashed, but nothing could pull her from this moment.
Nothing could destroy the happiness bubbling within her.
“Will you have me? For the rest of your life?”
She couldn’t stop grinning, tightening her arms around his waist. “You’re not going to kidnap me again?”
His grin showed off the whites of his fangs, his voice a promising threat. “I will if you let me.”
Fiona thought about it. “All right. Just wait for me to get someone to watch the bakery for the next couple of days. Then you can take me away and propose to me properly.”
Inferno nodded, kissing her again. “That I can do.”
The End
About the Author
USA Today Bestselling Author Mandy Rosko is a videogame playing, book loving chick. She loves writing paranormal romances that range from light steamy to erotic, and has some contemporary and historical romances as well. You can find her on all sorts of platforms, including Twitch, Patreon, Wattpad, Radish, and more!
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