Prince Charming Does Not Exist

Daphane POV

Chapter forty-two went live at 11:15 p.m., and by 11:21 I had stopped pretending to do anything else.

I was curled in the corner of the couch in sweatpants with a hole in the knee, a mug of coffee gone cold beside me, refreshing my phone like it owed me money.

OMG he LOOKED UP FROM HIS PHONE AND SAW HER I’m screaming

Why can’t real men be like this

Chapter 43 WHEN

I need a Thomas. I need a Thomas so bad.

Those EYES. Those green billionaire eyes.

Okay but when is Ryker getting a sequel?? Ride or Die lives in my head rent free

Still not over Brood. Maid of the Manor RUINED me. 10/10 would be ruined again

Hearts. Fire emojis. A gif of a woman fainting onto a chaise. I grinned at the screen like an idiot. This was the part nobody told you about writing romance: the hours alone, the deadlines, the reviewers who called you trash, and then this. A few hundred women, all at once, falling in love with a man I made up on a Tuesday.

I scrolled. Another heart. Another I NEED HIM. And then one comment that didn’t fit.

Why does nobody ever come for me?

No emoji. No exclamation points. Just that.

I frowned at it. My thumb hovered over the reply button. Then the comments refreshed, it slid out of view under a wave of fire emojis, and I let it go.

Someone knocked.

Dinner, if you could call it that at eleven-thirty. Finally. I’d ordered pad thai forty minutes ago and was starting to suspect the driver had eaten it himself. I padded to the door, already digging in my pocket for a tip, and pulled it open.

It was not my pad thai.

It was a McLaren.

Orange, low, absurd, idling at my curb like it had taken a wrong turn out of a music video. And standing on my porch, one hand still raised from knocking, a leather backpack slung over one shoulder, was a man who looked like I had written him.

Pressed jeans. A crisp white button-down, open at the collar. A Hermès belt. An Armani jacket that fit him the way jackets only fit men in my books. An Omega on his wrist that caught the porch light. Shoes that, if I had to bet, were Tom Ford. Sunglasses, even though it was nearly midnight.

He smelled expensive. I could tell from four feet away.

“Can I help—”

He walked straight past me into my house.

“Excuse me?” I spun around. “Hey. Hey. You can’t just—”

He was already in my kitchen. He set the backpack on my table, nudged aside the stack of unopened mail with a small look of disapproval, and pulled out a chair. Then he pulled out a second one, across from him, and waited.

“Sit, please,” he said.

“Absolutely not. Who the hell are you?”

He unzipped the backpack and took out three books. Mine. Ride or Die. Maid of the Manor. And my newest, Glass Hearts, the one I had posted chapter forty-two of twenty minutes ago, printed and bound, stuffed with sticky notes in four colors.

Then three manila files. He laid them in a neat row beside the books and finally took off his sunglasses.

Of course his eyes were good. Of course they were.

“Daphne Hughes,” he said, “you’re under arrest.”

I stared at him. “By what authority?”

“The HEA.”

“The HEA.” I folded my arms. “Like happily ever after. Yeah, because that’s real.”

“Daph—”

“Don’t call me that. Nobody calls me that. Ever.”

He reached into his jacket and took out something sleek and silver, smaller than a phone, and held it near his mouth.

“Subject is able to stand up for herself,” he told it.

That was it. I did not sit. I walked—calmly, the way you’re supposed to around strange dogs and strange men—to the counter where my phone was charging, unplugged it, and dialed 911 with my back to the wall so I could keep him in sight.

It rang once.

“HEA, please state your situation.”

I blinked. Maybe I’d misheard. “Yes. Hi. There’s a man in my house and he will not leave.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Keys clicked. A warm voice, the kind that called everyone sweetheart. “Let me see who we have out tonight… is it Charles? Chip? Chaz? Oh—maybe Cillian.”

I hung up.

My heart was going like a hummingbird. Fine. Fine. A wrong number. A prank. A crossed line. If it had really been 911, they’d call back. They always call back.

At the table, Cillian rose, opened my cabinet—the right cabinet, on the first try—and took down two wine glasses. Then he took a bottle of red from his backpack, and while I watched, a crystal decanter appeared on my counter. It hadn’t been there. Now it was.

My phone rang.

I answered it so fast I nearly dropped it.

“Hello, this is emergency services. We just had a call from this number.”

“Yes. Yes, you did.” I pressed my free hand flat against the counter. “There is a man in my house and he refuses to leave.”

“I understand. What is he currently doing?”

I looked at him. He was tilting the bottle with great care, watching the wine slide down the inside of the glass decanter.

“Decanting my wine.”

“Not yours, Daph,” he said, without looking up. “I had it pulled for us.”

“Do not call me that, and there is no us.” I turned my shoulder to him and lowered my voice. “Please hurry. This is getting weirder by the second.”

“Yes, of course. Now, are you Daphne Hughes?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, wonderful, I have you pulled up right here. You’re talking with Cillian. Oh—and I see Ryker on the file, and Brood. Oh, and Susan! I’ll let them all know you called.”

My mouth went dry.

“Wait,” I said. “Those are characters in my books.”

“Yes!” She sounded delighted. “And they cannot wait to meet you.”

The line clicked. Dial tone.

I lowered the phone. Slowly, very slowly, I turned around.

Cillian set a glass of wine at the empty place across from him. Then he looked up at me with that same patient, infuriating calm.

“Please,” he said. “Sit.”

Someone knocked.

We both looked toward the front of the house. I got there first. A kid in a hoodie held out a paper bag that smelled like heaven and peanuts.

“Pad thai for Daphne?”

“Yes. Hi. Wait.” I grabbed a pen from the bowl by the door and a crumpled receipt from my pocket and wrote on the back as fast as I could: MAN IN MY HOUSE. PLEASE CALL 911. THE REAL ONE. I folded it in half, pressed it into his hand and gave him a very meaningful look.

He unfolded it.

It was a hundred-dollar bill.

Crisp. New. Benjamin Franklin looking directly at me like he was in on it.

The kid’s eyes went huge. ”Wicked." He pocketed it and jogged back to his car before I could say a word.

I stood in the doorway holding my pad thai and watched his taillights disappear.

Slowly, I closed the door. Slowly, I walked back into the kitchen.

Cillian hadn’t moved, except to pour the second glass.

“Okay, Cillian,” I said. “What the heck is going on?”

He slid the wine across the table toward the empty chair.

“Sit down,” he said. “You’re in serious trouble.”