Page 13 of Slay King

I just sat there, staring straight ahead. Out into the yard that was lit with little lights buried in the ground. Was I understanding him correctly? Was he telling me that King was engaged to Scotlin? For a job? What kind of job was that?

“I’m gonna be his damn punching bag for this,” Sebastian muttered.

“I … I need to go inside,” I managed to say and grabbed my bag before getting down out of the truck.

I had to get away from him, from everyone, and think this through. Take a moment. Revaluate everything I thought I had known. Again.

“Rumor,” Sebastian called out. “Wait!”

I did not wait. I kept walking. I had to get to that door. Get to the blue room and close myself away.

“Rumor, please,” he added.

I heard him jog up behind me.

I shook my head. “I got enough information for one night.”

“I thought you knew. I’m sorry. This isn’t something he wants to do. He has to. It’s to keep her safe. There is shit going down, and she has a stalker. That’s why he’s having to stay the night at his house with her now.”

I stopped and placed a hand on my stomach as I inhaled sharply. That hit harder than I’d been ready for. They were together. At his house. Where his bed was. All night. He was protecting her. I’d seen her, and I knew without being told that she liked him. She hadn’t been able to keep her hands off him.

What about me? He didn’t want to protect me anymore? He was choosing to be her protector now?

“I’m making this worse,” he said.

“I, uh … good night,” I replied and bolted for the door before he could say anything more to me.

• Six •

The night couldn’t fix the reality of the next day.

Rumor

Maeme met me at the door, and her face instantly tensed as she took a good look at me. When she let out a sigh and reached for my hand to pull me inside, I felt myself start to crumble. If she tried to make me talk about this right now, I was going to fall apart. I needed some time to process it all.

“King’s gonna kill him,” she said with a shake of her head. “I need to go run interference. Go on up to the blue room and take a nice, long bubble bath. Don’t think about this.”

If it were only that easy to put all I had learned from my mind. But I wanted to be alone, so I just nodded.

She gave my hand a squeeze, then let it go. “I’ll bring you up something to eat soon.”

There was no point. I had no appetite. “I’m not hungry,” I told her, walking toward the stairs.

“Then, I’ll bring wine.”

I didn’t turn that down. Perhaps enough of it would numb this pain.

I was almost to the bedroom door when I heard Maeme’s voice demand, “What did you tell her?”

I didn’t wait to listen to any more of the conversation and closed myself off inside. As I stared at the bed, my thoughts went to last night and all that I’d done with King on that bed. The sheets would smell like him. I closed my eyes and winced at the idea of having to sleep there.

He was in a fake engagement to a gorgeous blonde he had history with. They were at his house, which I hadn’t even known about, and sleeping there. He was protecting her. Nothing about that could end well—at least for me. I had read this book before. Fake engagements, fake marriages, falling in love with the bodyguard. They had been some of my favorite romance tropes, but now … I hated them. All of them. Every single one.

My eyes stung as I walked through the room, dropping my bag on the bed and then heading to the en suite. Slipping my hand into the pocket of my shorts, I pulled out the phone and laid it on the counter, then stared at myself in the mirror.

The insults Hill had thrown at me all came rushing back. My top lip was too big, my hair too untamed, my skin too dark, my bottom teeth weren’t perfectly straight. I wasn’t stunning, like the women I’d seen with King. Like the woman in his house with him now. I knew I wasn’t ugly, but I had flaws. Enough that when put together, it made me very average.

Perhaps if I had a good sense of humor, then it would make up for where I was lacking, but my personality was lacking, at best. I’d had so many horrors in my past that I wasn’t friendly. I didn’t look on the bright side of things. I didn’t even have a high school diploma. I had a GED. Turning eighteen and being kicked out of state care halfway through my senior year had caused me to have to drop out. So, I didn’t even have a proper education and intelligence to fill in the gaps.

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