Thorne Princess Read Online L.J. Shen

Categories Genre: Contemporary, Dark, Romance Tags Authors: L.J. Shen Advertisement1

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Los Angeles.

The next few days passed in a daze.

Ransom did not leave my side. Barely even gave me privacy when I went to the bathroom. I counted down the days, the minutes, the hours until we flew to Dallas. He was obsessed with keeping me safe, and it obviously got to his psyche, because after four days, he called Max and asked him to bring a backup to my house.

“Make sure you patrol the place and don’t leave her alone for one minute,” Ransom ordered. “I have to get some fresh air.”

Oh, did he now? Funny how it never occurred to him I might be needing a breather, too.

Max was too wrapped up in his job to be nice to me. He seemed relieved when, shortly after Ransom disappeared, I went upstairs and roamed the lonely rooms of my mansion, trying to find something to do.

I never quite understood how lonely I was until Ransom got here. His imposed lockdown made me realize that without my nighttime outings, I barely even left the house at all.

Like a ghost, I wandered the rooms on the second floor, until Ransom’s was the only one left.

Don’t go in there. Don’t ask for trouble.

But trouble was a great cure for boredom, as any ditzy heiress could tell you, and I wanted to stir the pot a little. Besides—what else did I have to do? Max was anxiously sitting downstairs, checking the windows and doors every half hour like war was upon us.

I sauntered inside Ransom’s room, closing my eyes and inhaling him.

I liked that I was attracted to him. It felt safe, because I knew he would never try anything with me.

A scribbled note on his desk drew my attention. Was that the same note he took from me? The leaflet that made him change his behavior and become so protective of me?

I made my way to the note and picked it up. It didn’t look like the paper I found in the doorway the other day. No. This looked unmistakably like Ransom’s bold, long-stroked handwriting. An address. In downtown Los Angeles.

Let’s look for trouble.

For a long time now, I wanted to find out something interesting and intimate about my bodyguard.

He knew so much about me. It was only fair I had some information on him, right?

Shoving the note into my pocket, I grabbed my bag and denim jacket. Max was downstairs, and I knew two more men were patrolling the neighborhood. The so-called backup.

The security app on Ransom and Max’s phone was on, so if a door opened in the house—even a window—they’d know about it.

But they wouldn’t know about my bedroom balcony.

My bedroom balcony did not have a camera installed, which made it a blind spot. It had one, when I first moved in three years ago, but it fell a couple years ago, and I never got around to fixing it.

I’d done it before. Slipped out via my own balcony. A couple times when I accidentally locked myself inside the house, and another time when Keller was here and made me promise him I wouldn’t break my promise not to eat ice cream after midnight.

My hands and feet shook. Despite that, I slid down easily. Hopping over the balcony, firmly placing one foot over the gutter, then lowering myself until I was leaning against a garden statue.

I hopped down, cleaning mud and grass from my hands and knees. I peered into the house. Max was there, looking out the opposite window, his back to me.

Turning around, I slipped into my second favorite car, the Prius. It was parked outside the garage from the time NeNe had borrowed it to stealth from a Botox treatment undetected, so no app was going to ping.

The entire drive downtown, I kept staring at the note with the address. What could Ransom possibly be looking for in this part of town? It wasn’t seedy per se, but it wasn’t swanky, either.

Forty minutes later, I was at my destination. I parked in front of the address on the note. It was a Mexican bar. Small, loud, bursting with colors and music. The front patio was teeming with people drinking and laughing.

He’d gone drinking?

Slowly, grasping my clutch to my hip, I began moving through the thick crowd on the patio searching for his face. What was I expecting to see? Ransom on a date? How stupid. I didn’t even know the guy and I knew he wasn’t the dating type.

He wasn’t in the bar. He wasn’t in the seating area, either. It occurred to me that he may have tricked me, to see if I’d take the bait and follow him here.

I made my way out of the bar, the music shaking the ground beneath my feet. The street was still alive and buzzing. I decided to take a quick walk. Maybe he went somewhere nearby instead?


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