Snippet #2080910

"I will bear that in mind. Do not get any funny ideas, girl. You are a client, and my ticket out of here without soldiers breathing down my neck. Nothing more." He hoped she wasn't romanticizing their little foray into the darkness. This wasn't some child's fairy tale where the princess falls in love with the pauper, and even if it were, he wanted no part of it. Women, love, politics. All of it was just...more trouble than it was worth. He had been down the path of love once before, and he had been stabbed in the back because of it, literally and figuratively. He wasn't about to do that again, especially not for some tart in a castle wrapped up entirely in politics and such. Usurping a kingdom didn't exactly come free of political fallout. It already bugged him that he felt guilty about leaving the girl down here. He would not let that feeling become anything more than mirror to his own past. He couldn't deny that she did have a certain beauty to her, but she was still a child. The precipice of childhood, perhaps, but a child no less. He shrugged a little, "I care about my coin purse and my life. By extension, I care about my clients."