Thorne Princess

by L.J. Shen

The nicest thing my mother had ever said about me in an interview was that I added texture to the family. Texture. Like I was a decorative wallpaper.

“He seems like a bad idea.” “My favorite type,” my best friend retorted. “Yours, too.”

“Aww. When God made you pretty, he forgot the R.”

“President Anthony Thorne’s daughter.” I spared the magazine another disinterested look. “Must’ve taken after the pool boy.”

I never went to the movies with friends, never attended parties, never slurped neon slushies with a classmate. Nobody wanted to hang out with the weird Thorne girl.

“Is he rich? His Rolex says yes, but his job description says no.”

What a toolbag.

Do you have a girlfriend? A boyfriend?” “Irrelevant,” he said, not tearing his gaze from his screen. “I have standards.”

I imagined she was having a Beauty and the Beast moment, where the ugly-ass beast feeds the birds in the snow. Little did she know, if I had birds in my palm, they’d be rotisserie chicken before the stupid song was over.

“Random, you can’t be serious.” “Deadass, as you influencers say.”

“Bodyguard with benefits? Really?” Keller cooed from my phone screen, his eyes almost bulging out. “Me likey. And a little jelly.”

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.

“My parents are going to kill you if they find out.” Not that I was going to tell them. “Your parents are lucky I don’t kill them.”

Turning away from him, giving him my back, was the hardest thing I’d had to do. He was, after all, my protector. The man who taught me so much about myself. The man who made me laugh. Who made me live again.

I wondered what inspired me to have this conversation on the phone and not face-to-face. Keller had a weakness for aesthetically pleasing people.

“Fair enough. What are your intentions with my daughter?” Fuck her into the next decade? Beg for her forgiveness? Ask her out on a date?

“I’m here for Hallie Thorne.” “And you are?” She cocked her head sideways. Her nightmare.

“I’m an asshole,” I warned, in case she wasn’t paying attention. “But you’re my asshole. And I love you.”

Art doesn’t have an address. Its home is in our souls.”

“If I ever hurt her, she’d hurt me back twice as hard. That’s why I’m marrying her.”

“She marked you.” Anthony gives me an appeasing once-over, like he is finally sold on me. About to make an offer on a horse. I sit back and watch the love of my life as she becomes an integral part of her family. “She didn’t need any ink to do that.”