Princess

Chapter 4: The Future

Damon

When Christian showed up to ride the next weekend, looking every bit the pretentious rich boy that he was, I mocked him relentlessly.

"Listen asshole," he retorted, swinging his foot over the black stallion's back. "I have rode horses since I was a kid. I'm a rich boy in New York. This is what we do. It's in my blood."

"It's not the riding I'm laughing at, it's how you look like a fucking Duke just to ride with a mob boss," I muttered under my breath. That awarded me with a smack on the head and we raced one another into the sunset like some insufferable romantic comedy, wind whipping through our hair, laughing and smiling as if we were kids again.

It was a couple hours before we finally slowed down when the horses were clearly exhausted and we were practically back at the stables, encouraging them softly to move on.

"Easy, Pheonix," Christian said softly. It didn't escape my notice that whenever we rode, he always chose Robyn's favorite horse. No one was ever allowed to touch her if it wasn't her.

Despite that, Christian's silence was notable today, complete with brooding eyes and a jaw set in stone. He did that a lot these days; I missed the playful friend I used to have before his father shipped him off to Stanford to change every single thing about himself.

"So, are you going to tell me what's bothering you?" I ask. He turned to me with an eyebrow raised.

Apart from my family, my best friends and Bella were the only people I would try to initiate conversation with and caring about what was wrong with people was certainly not something people saw from me often.

Cold, unfeeling brown eyes looked at me. "What makes you think something is bothering me?"

"Because you won in that last stretch and didn't say anything about it," I rolled my eyes.

"Bragging is ungentlemanly," he said flatly.

"Good thing you are not a gentleman, then," I shot back. "Spill, asshole."

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. "I'm taking over soon, there's a lot on my plate. Every time I do something that's not work, I feel almost guilty."

Christian's official transition as the head of his family business wasn't for a couple months but close and personals knew he had been running the business for the last year or so. Once Jackson officially stepped down, it would be all on Christian's shoulders.

Here, I somewhat understood my best friend's trials. Though my official takeover hadn't happened yet either, everyone knew I had been running the city for years. Anthony Hale loved power and was only too happy to let me postpone taking over so I could go to college and stay the more private leader. I was equally as happy to run things quietly while he remained at the face of things.

Education was important to me. I had always thought so and luckily had parents who vehemently supported this as well. My mother Maria was a nerd of the highest degree with a love for literature in particular. My father literally wooed her by letting her borrow books from the Hale library all the time which made sense because blackmail was the only way someone as sweet as my mom ended up with Anthony Hale.

I was the street kid who never spoke and people did not want to fuck with because I had a last name that shot fear through the heart of the city. 

Christian used to be the playful, handsome, athletic, rich kid with a violent temper who made girls go weak at the knees with a single glance.

Ariadne was the smart pretty girl who was normally quiet until she was challenged and then came roaring to life with a sharp tongue that questioned everything, no matter who said it.