My dark horse prince, p.1
My Dark Horse Prince, page 1
My Dark Horse Prince
Bridget E. Baker
Copyright © 2023 by Bridget E. Baker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
To Tessa
The scrappiest fighter. The tiniest girl. The biggest heart. Even when things look dark, keep on riding.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
28. Adriana
Chapter 29
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Bridget E. Baker
1
I’ve been obsessed with horses my entire life.
It makes sense, really. Warmbloods—the type of horse I’ve spent the most time with—weigh between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred pounds, and yet their go-to move when they encounter danger is to run away.
A barking dog? They’re off.
Gunshot? They bolt.
A car backfires? Sayonara.
Windblown plastic bag? They’ll dead sprint the opposite direction.
In that regard, they’re just like me. Mom has always joked that when God made my twin sister Adriana and me, he gave her all the fight and I got all the flight.
She’s not really wrong.
Horses and I share the exact same reaction to danger.
My mom has always pulled an ostrich. She’d hide. . .kind of. Mostly she’d just try not to see whatever bad thing was happening. But me? I learned at an early age that if something terrible was going down, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.
It’s good that I’m not actually more like a horse, because if a horse’s leg stops working, you have to put it down. Horses can’t live with a leg they can’t stand on. They’ll develop laminitis in the other hooves and die miserably.
Meanwhile, I’ve been hobbling around for almost ten years on my train wreck of a limb. Unfortunately, it’s finally gotten bad enough that I can’t run. I can barely walk.
“You needed to talk to me?” Brigita already looks exceptionally annoyed. Then again, she always does.
I swallow. You can do this, Mirdza. I give myself pep talks sometimes. They don’t help, but they play in my bizarre brain anyway. “Yeah. So, you know I had to cancel a few lessons.”
She arches one eyebrow. That’s how I know she really is annoyed.
“Okay. You do know. The thing is, I finally got in to see a surgeon. It looks like that time Emilia and Vilks crashed into me, it dislodged some of the plates and screws that were holding my leg together.”
“And?” I didn’t think it was possible, but her eyebrow hikes up another centimeter.
“I’ll need a surgery to fix it.” I cough. “Maybe a series of surgeries, actually,” I say. “The reason I’ve been in such terrible pain is that—”
“Get to the point,” Brigita says.
I blink repeatedly. The point. Oh, no. This is where I have to ask her. “I’m going to need some time off, and I was hoping you might give me a loan to pay for the surgeries.” I cringe as I ask, which can’t possibly increase my chances of convincing her.
“You need time off?” She sighs. “How much do you need, exactly?”
“I’m not supposed to be on my feet at all afterward,” I say. “And if you can loan me the money, I’ll get the surgery set up right away. Then, if I need a second, which they think I could, that would be as soon as thirty days after. Really, it would be just about two months before I could be up and teaching again with a brace.”
I don’t mention that the surgeon said a minimum of three months. I’m sure I’ll be fine in two. Maybe less.
“How much money would you need to borrow?” Her lips are pressed into a tight line, and she’s picking dirt out from under her fingernails.
“Fifty thousand euros.” I close my eyes at the end, because I can’t stand to see her scowl at me.
But the sound she’s making almost sounds like. . .laughter.
I open my eyes, and I was right. She’s laughing.
“You’re not upset?” Have I been misreading her this entire time? Is she more understanding than I realized? Maybe Danils has told her good things. Maybe—
Her laughter abruptly stops. “You’re fired, of course.”
My heart stops. “I’m. . .I’m what?”
“You’re fired. Clean out your locker, if you can manage it with your bum leg.”
“But I brought so many new clients with me,” I say. “More than half the riders at this barn followed me here.”
She clucks. “Oh, Mirdza. You’re such a naive little thing. Did you really think I meant to keep you around? Even if you hadn’t given me such a beautiful excuse to fire you, this was always the plan.”
I swallow. “The plan?”
“I only hired a broke-down nag like you to teach here because—”
“You said Danils convinced you.”
She’s laughing again. “You believed that? That my boyfriend recommending his ex to me would be beneficial to you?”
“But you also said that even though we don’t show together any more, you had a fondness for me from when we were in the ring.”
“A fondness? You should never have beat me—not when all you ever had were hand-me-down horses your loser friend gave you out of pity. I hated you when we were in the ring together.” This time, her laughter’s high and light. Airy. Like the tinkling of demonic bells. “You do know that naive is just another word for stupid, don’t you?”
My leg’s throbbing like someone hit it with a poker from the fire. My head’s pounding now too. “You always meant to fire me?”
“It was actually Danils’ idea all along. Did you really think he’d encourage me to hire his ex-girlfriend?” She rolls her eyes. “But now you can’t teach your students, so they won’t even have to feel bad for staying here with me.”
“What about my horses?” I ask. “You don’t have enough lesson horses without mine.”
“As if I can’t find some old, janky horses to replace them.” She sighs. “I’ll give you a month to find them a new barn,” she says. “And if you can’t find one, then they’ll become my horses and I won’t even need to find new ones, per the terms of our contract.” Her smile this time is wicked. Malicious. Pure evil.
“Oh, I’ll find them a new place.” And I don’t plan to roll over and let her steal my clients, either. After enduring a few weeks of her teaching, they’ll realize what a mistake it would be to stay, I’m sure of it. I hate how heavily I have to lean on my crutches as I limp toward the tack room to clear out my locker.
She starts to yell when I just walk away, but she shouldn’t be too surprised. Even dogs dodge when someone’s kicking at them.
It’s hard to manage all of my gear on the bus with my crutches, even though I left all my tack behind with my animals. Horses come with a lot of stuff.
When my phone bings, I almost ignore it. But on the off chance it’s Kristiana, finally returning one of my messages, I dig it out. If she has room for me back at her barn, that would solve a lot of my problems at the same time. While digging in my bag for my phone, I inadvertently drop my bag of grooming brushes, and the lady next to me kicks them away from her.
Sometimes it feels like there are no decent people left in this world.
By the time I finally recover all my belongings, my leg vehemently protesting the movements, my hand is shaking. It makes it hard to read my text. Once I do, my spirits sink even further. It’s from Danils. I should have expected that.
HEAR YOU’RE IN TROUBLE. CALL ME.
I may be in terrible pain without a solution in sight, and his girlfriend may think I’m an idiot, but I’m not even close to stupid enough to ask Danils for aid. I wouldn’t touch his help with a three-meter lunging crop.
I delete the text with a shudder.
By the time I get home, I still haven’t come up with a better solution. Adriana’s face in the front window is pressed against the glass. Her long blond hair and bright blue eyes look so similar to Kristiana’s that it’s almost startling. Adriana looks just like my mother, but high cheekbones and slender frames are the only things we share, in spite of being actual twins. My hair’s so dark it’s nearly black, and my eyes are a dark chocolate brown. Apparently I look just like my father, but I don’t even have a decent photo of him, so I have to take my mother’s word for it.
As if our looks reflect our insides, our personalities are entirely different as well. Adriana’s forever making sure I know how lacking I am, and how much better it would be if I were like her—brave, outspoken, and bitter. She’s standing by the time I finally hobble through the door. “ She laughed, didn’t she?”
My jaw drops. “How could you know that?”
“She’s a vindictive, nasty piece of trash,” Adriana says. “That’s how.” Her hair’s pulled back like it always is, and her muscular arms flex when she slaps a bug on the wall. “You never should have gone to work there.” There’s another one crawling up the wall behind her, but I don’t bother pointing it out. It’ll only make her more irritated than she already is.
“Not like I had much of a choice,” I say. “Kris had to sell up.”
“So that witch laughed at you and now you have to walk back in there and try and act professional.”
“Not exactly.” I wince. “She fired me for not being able to work, and she’s planning on keeping all my clients.”
Adriana’s string of expletives is actually impressive. When she finally calms down a little, she says, “I’ve had a bit of luck, so I can cover our rent this month, and you can borrow the money for the surgery from Danils. Do you know how pissed she’d be about that?”
I grit my teeth. “He told me to call him.”
“Great,” she says. “Do it.”
“Not if flesh-eating beetles were stripping the skin and muscle from my body,” I say.
Adriana rolls her eyes. “Always so melodramatic. Look, you said Kris still hasn’t called you back.”
“Her dad says she’s in Russia, and she just won the Grand National a few days ago. I’m sure the press is hounding her, so she’s turned off her phone. I should just wait for her to get back. Asking someone for money isn’t something you should do over the phone, anyway.”
“Well, maybe a few hundred,” Adriana says. “But not fifty thousand euros.” She flops onto the very worn, very dirty couch. “Do you think she even has it? Or will she have to call her rich little banker ex?”
“I wouldn’t even ask her to do that. I’m hoping that she can pay me out of the winnings from her race, but with her dad’s gambling, you never know.”
“You’re unemployed now, thanks to her selling her land. She owes you.”
“I only know how to ride thanks to her, and you’re the same. She’s given me countless horses over the years, and she brought me in as an instructor when no one else would have. I won’t have you saying anything nasty about her.”
“Fine.” Adriana rolls her eyes. “But don’t tell me it never bothers you when she complains. She was born with a silver spoon, and we got nothing, but we have to listen to how hard her life is.”
“I lost my job because of my leg, and that had nothing to do with her. She’s only ever helped us both.”
Adriana scowls. “But she knew you were stuck working for the devil herself, and meanwhile she’s doing what in Russia? Sightseeing?”
“Her dad says she’s there with her boyfriend.” I shrug.
“Hiding from the press with some hot, penniless Russian horse trainer?” Adriana rolls her eyes. “I swear that girl’s a pampered princess if I ever saw one. It’s not your fault you can’t ask her for the loan in person. She’s the one hiding out in another country. If you won’t call and ask her for the money, I’ll call Danils for you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
She picks up her phone.
The idea strikes like lightning, fast and quick. “I’ll go visit her,” I say. “Her dad gave me the address that she sent him in an email.”
“With your bad leg and no car, how do you plan to get there?”
“The train, of course,” I say. “Since I can’t work, I have nothing better to do. And once I’m there, I can ask for the money.”
“You can’t even afford to get there,” Adriana says.
“You just said—”
She stands up and presses a wad of bills into my hand. “This should cover your train ticket.” She smiles. “Iron Cross won today.” She shrugs. “You know if I don’t hide it, Mom’ll just give it to Mārtinš.”
We may not like Danils, and after today, I loathe Brigita, but neither of them hold the title of the World’s Worst Human. The long-time winner of that is our stepdad, who also happens to be our uncle. The whole thing is disgusting.
I don’t really want to borrow money from Adriana either, but she’s right. I need the surgery, and I need it soon. The surgeon said the longer I wait, the worse things will get, and the higher my risk of infection will rise.
“Fine.”
“Ask her for fifty-one thousand so you can pay me back.”
I open my hand and examine the wad of bills. “This is barely more than five hundred.”
She shrugs. “Compound interest is the worst, isn’t it?”
2
I used to dream that the hottest, richest, smartest guy in school fell for me. Sometimes, I’d slip and he’d catch me. Other times, it would be raining and he’d offer to share his umbrella with me. Still another time, I was walking home—which happened often—and he’d stop to give me a ride, shocking everyone else around.
When it happened, it was just like a fairy tale. The day started out warm, but somehow, during class, the temperature dropped. When school let out, I walked outside into an almost arctic wind. I stopped, shivering, and wrapped my arms around myself, preparing for the long walk to the bus stop.
I barely went two steps before a nice, warm leather jacket dropped around my shoulders. Nearly every eye was on me, all the girls jealous, all the guys curious, as Danils Ozols steered me away from the crowds and toward his beautiful imported Mustang. “I hear you like horses,” he said. “This is my favorite kind.”
It was a pretty cheesy line, but it made my heart race. For weeks, I was perpetually on cloud nine, as all my classmates watched in envy. The only person who was truly happy for me was my best friend Kristiana. Even my sister Adriana seemed to be some strange mix of jealous and leery of Danils.
Every girl may dream of Prince Charming, and in Daugavpils, Danils was about as close as it got. His dad owned half the town and his uncle owned the other half. He was good looking, confident, connected, and fairly smart. And he knew it. Over time, I discovered that while he might have loved me forever, it wasn’t the kind of love I wanted. His love wasn’t unconditional. It was fraught with conditions—I had to do what he wanted, when he wanted to do it, and if I ever said no, I was disciplined.
It was after I refused to sleep with him that he decided to find another girlfriend. After all, we had been together for a ‘long time.’ He had been patient.
That was around the same time that my mother decided to remarry. . . my uncle. That’s right. My dad’s older brother, whom we had never heard from a single time after my dad died and left us penniless, came through town and needed a place to stay. He flirted with my mother shamelessly.
Then he found a job in town and moved here.
On top of it being super gross that he married his little brother’s widow, he’s also a supersize bag of garbage. He forced my mom to leave the barn apartment at Kristiana’s family estate, where she’d been the cleaning lady for our entire life almost, and move into an apartment he found. He spent all his time telling us how lucky we were that he would provide for us.
Mārtinš was the reason I quit living with my mom before I was even done with school. If Kris hadn’t offered to let me use the barn apartment again—her stable has several different groom’s quarters, but she saved the best one for me, always—I’d have really been in trouble.
But no matter what my lousy uncle says or does, Mom won’t leave him. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I see guys like him everywhere. Most of them are alcoholics like Mārtinš, but that’s just an excuse. The drinking didn’t make them horrible people. They chose their lives, every step of the way.
I used to think I could do something about the evils of the world. We’re taught when we’re kids that if we’re brave, strong, and loud enough, we can make a difference. In some things, sure, but when we’re going up against men who are holding all the cards? No way.
