“Then why did he marry Saoirse?” I ask. “Sorry, that was rude of me to ask.”
He hesitates before answering, and I want to pull the question out of the air and stuff it back in my mouth so it was never offered up. There’s a way about Rhys that makes me know with all of my being that I don’t want to hear the answer to my blurted out question.
“Sometimes, we have to make politically advantageous matches,” he says softly.
“Oh. Of course,” I whisper softly because how stupid can I be? I’m one of those politically advantageous matches. My chest aches and I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.
“We are no’ that,” he says firmly, gripping my chin between his thumb and finger so I’m forced to look at him. “We were for about two seconds and then you were mine and you know it.”
“Sure,” I reply because what else am I supposed to say? Rhys forced my hand and then forced me to love him. I knew what it was the whole time after Saoirse dropped the truth in my lap. I just forget in the tender moments.
“I’ll just let you guys change while I get security sorted for a search party,” Leo says awkwardly.
“Bring Dahlia here,” Rhys orders, never taking his eyes from mine. “I want them to be safe together. Then we can focus on the search.”
“Aye,” Leo replies before slipping from the door.
“Now let’s get changed,” he says. “We don’t have anything else on the schedule so casual dress for home like nothing is wrong.”
“Okay.”
“Can I trust that you’re all right now?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“I don’t have time to fuck you out of this mood,” he says, “so let’s getdressed.”
He presses a hard, closed mouth kiss to my lips before dragging me through our bedroom and into the dressing room. There, he unties the sash of my cloak and slides it from my shoulders before hanging it on a hanger. Then he slips the banner sash from my body and lays it across the island in the middle of the dressing room, adding the shield brooch and my family order to the pile.
Rhys moves away from me then, and pulls a pair of soft wide-legged lounge pants and a sweater out of drawers. He piles on a pair of panties, a tank top, and a bra—my favorite ones—and walks over to hand them to me.
“You’ll feel better when you’re more comfortable,” he says. “It’ll all be over soon.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I mutter as I strip off my dress and sweater, laying them over a padded bench in the corner.
I watch as he strips off his uniform, painstakingly making sure it’s perfectly hung on a hanger before he grabs jeans from a drawer and draws them up his muscular legs.
“If you do no’ stop looking at me like that,” he says, “my sister and your guard will see me fucking you over that bench.”
I let out a littleeepand turn away quickly to finish dressing myself while he does the same. When I turn back around, he’s topped his jeans with a navy blue V-neck sweater layered over a plain t-shirt. This is ascasual as a king can get, besides naked that is.
There’s a knock on the primary door and Rhys calls out, “Coming!”
Without looking back, he grabs me by the hand and leads me to the sitting room as the door opens admitting Leo and Dahlia. She’s dressed in a similar manner to me, as if we’re going to kick back and relax the night before the big ceremony—and we would if there wasn’t a woman pretending to be someone I think has been murdered.
“We’re going to join the team to search for Maeve and Suzanne,” Rhys says. “I want you two to stay here and lock the doors.”
“Fuck that.” Dahlia says what I’m thinking. “Why should we stay behind like sitting ducks?”
“Watch your tone,” Rhys warns.
“No,” she says, folding her arms across her chest.
“Be real,” Leo says. “You don’t know the first thing about a search. You’ll get yourselves killed.”
“Well, we’re dead anyway if we wait here for them to finish us off,” she snaps. “Well, Stella is. I’m probably fine since the murdering parties are my mother and grandfather. Sorry, babe,” she adds when she sees the shocked expression on my face.
“No need to apologize to me,” I tell her. “You haven’t tried to kill me. At least I don’t think you have.”