Runaway Princess Bride novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Ten Minutes Alone

The hotel in town had a suite with two bedrooms.

Eli fell asleep in one of them before the bellman finished carrying the bags.

He had held my hand through the whole elevator ride.

I tucked him in with his dinosaur backpack, still on his shoulders, because he would not take it off.

"Stay," he mumbled.

"I'm just in the next room."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

The driver sat down in a chair outside Eli's door with his arms folded.

He looked like a mountain that had agreed to babysit.

I went into the sitting room and found Tristan standing at the window with his jacket off, watching the lights on the bay.

He turned when he heard me.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

"My mother said to ask what you paid," I said.

He closed his eyes.

"She did."

"So I'm asking."

"Yes." He opened them again. "There's something I haven't told you. It isn't about Clinton, and it isn't what you're afraid of. But it matters, and you should have all of it. Sit down, and I'll tell you everything."

I looked at the clock.

It was one in the morning.

I had been hit, locked in a room, sold, chased, kissed, arrested and cheered in under thirty-six hours.

I thought of Eli's breath going slow behind that door.

I thought of my mother in the ballroom, smiling at me in a way I had never been smiled at.

"Is it going to hurt me?" I asked.

He didn't lie.

"It might."

"Then not tonight," I said.

"Delaney."

"I just got my brother back. Clinton's in a cell. For ten minutes, I want to be a woman who is not in anyone's story." I walked toward him. "Tell me on the plane. Tell me tomorrow. But I'm choosing tonight."

"On the plane?" He frowned.

"You're leaving, aren't you? Your uncle froze your accounts. He knows where you are. You can't stay here, and Clinton has friends, and my parents are out there somewhere." I stopped in front of him. "Take us with you. Me and Eli. To your country."

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