My Dark Prince (Dark Prince Road #3) Read Online L.J. Shen

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Billionaire, Contemporary, Dark, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Tags Authors: Series: Dark Prince Road Series by L.J. Shen
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Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
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I pushed open the door. “Welcome home, Cuddlebug.”

Trio and Geezer sprinted their way from the family room – Trio on his three twig-like greyhound legs and Geezer on his skateboard. Briar crouched down and let my two ugly-as-sin dogs lick her face and jump on her, peppering their noses with kisses.

Since dogs, unlike humans, were good by nature, they did not question the stranger in their house and reacted with the enthusiasm of a diehard Swiftie. Trio rolled on his back and presented her his belly for a rub, while Geezer flipped his big, Hush Puppy ears, begging her to scratch the spot behind them.

“Are you guys excited to see mommy? Is that it?” Briar cooed.

I wanted to kill myself. Not because of guilt, but because it gave me a glimpse into an alternate universe. One where I hadn’t screwed shit up with Briar. One where she really could be these dogs’ mother. One where I didn’t need spiky dildos and chastity belts to throw my friends off my scent, just because I feared an ounce of their compassion would unravel the steel wall I’d erected around me.

She rolled around with the dogs for twenty minutes while I shot nervous glances to the second floor. I knew my housemate would not come out. He never did. Not one time in the fifteen years since I’d destroyed both our lives.

But he didn’t want her here.

We’d had nuclear arguments over the phone about her move here. In the end, there was nothing he could do.

This was my house.

I interrupted her love fest with the puppies, reaching for the floor-to-ceiling black walnut shelves and retrieving a blue rose I’d picked in advance. “A rose for my Briar Rose.”

Briar peered up, her arm wrapped around Geezer. Trio ran circles around her, his tail wagging so hard his body swayed side to side, oblivious to his mommy’s dropped smile. Her pupils zeroed in on the rose. She slowly stood, plucking it from between my fingers and pressing it against her pert nose.

My heart squeezed, and I didn’t even know why.

“Do you remember?” I rasped.

“I think I do.” Her fingers teased the petals of the blue rose. She seemed mesmerized by it. “I remember you telling me that each rose has to be individually dyed, and that you have to order them from somewhere far.” She looked up. “Is this a tradition of ours?”

It was, until I screwed it all up.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “It is. Every day, I give you one of these roses.”

“Every day? Wait.” She studied the rose, holding it up to the natural light shining through the windows. “This isn’t dyed. They’re grown like these. I thought you said these haven’t been bred.”

“They hadn’t.” I scratched the back of my neck, wishing I could ice away the heat that rose up to my cheeks. “I invested in a botany start-up a while back, run by a team of scientists from Davis, Cornell, and Harvard. They cracked the code. I have a full backyard of them.”

I’d said I’d gotten rid of almost every trace of Briar.

Keyword: almost.

She was like a pesky tumor tucked into all the nooks and crannies of my most vital organs. Not even the most talented doctor could remove it all in one go.

Briar bounced on her toes, crushing the rose in her fist with her excitement. Her head spun around in search of the yard. “Can I see?”

“Slow your roll, Speed Racer.” I planted my hands on her shoulders, steadying her before she ended up back in a hospital bed. “We have all the time in the world.”

She rested her cheek on the rose, smiling up at me. “Do we still go to Lake Geneva?”

I smiled back, certain that tumor just shaved another decade off my life. “All the time, Cuddlebug.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Oliver

I had to hand it to myself – I managed to recover from the initial shock of pretending to be her fiancé pretty quickly.

A few days ago, my assistants had tracked down her apartment – a shitty studio in Downtown Los Angeles the size of my shoe rack. I’d contacted her landlord, paid for the remainder of her lease, and informed him she was moving in with me.

He didn’t ask too many questions, which made me want to strangle him. I could’ve been anyone. A criminal. A debt collector. Bad news.

You are bad news, and you better keep your hands to yourself, motherfucker, Dal’s Southern drawl warned in my head.

Thanks to my foresight, I could show her some of the things I’d overnighted on my private jet from the hellhole she’d shared with a few freeloading rats and a fake houseplant. Her scented candle collection, St. Bernard stuffie she’d had ever since she was a toddler, and her traditional Swiss fondu kit.

Before I’d left for the hospital last night, I’d stuffed my walk-in closet with her clothes, shoes, and toiletries, taking painstaking care to ensure her shit was messily strewn across the bathroom and closet for that authentic touch.


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