Page 79 of The Heir

"My house manager. She oversees the staff, organizes our security manual, makes sure all the new edits and protocols are in place. I will need to have a talk with her."

"Oh," I say shortly. Drumming my fingers on the table I lower my voice. "King, why do we need so much staff-"

I cut myself off as when the door opens and Marianne walks back up, looking rather timid. "Mr. King, I am sorry but the chef said he only made enough for Mrs. King to have seconds and-"

"That's perfect!" I interrupt hurriedly, seeing the color coming back into King's face. I can't have him going and beating the Chef next. "Bring it here for Mr. King. And… do we have any dessert?" I throw my biggest, brightest smile at the two of them. King looks at me warily, but it's working, because the color in his face is now fading back to normal.

"Yes ma'am, I think Chef Gerard said there's peach cobbler."

"Oh myyyy…" I trill. "Is it homemade? Oh, please tell me it's homemade!"

Marianne gives me a little smile, the same as she did this morning when she helped me get a pitcher of water to throw on my husband. "I think it is, ma'am."

"Okay, wonderful." I turn my attention to King, seeing him watching me carefully. "Can we hurry up and eat our food so we can have dessert? I um… I really want it first… but…"

"We can have dessert first if you'd like," King says quietly, trapping my thumb with his fingers. "If that'd make you happy." He presses down and I feel it all the way in my clit. "Okay," I say shyly. "Um, Marianne, can you keep this warm while we eat our cobbler? And can we get some vanilla ice cream too?" I hand her my plate, feeling guilty. Back at home I would have just walked the few feet to the kitchen and done it myself.

Marianne nods. As she turns to walk away she pauses, squatting down to pick King's phone up off the floor. "Here, sir," she says, stepping forward with it in her hand, but King just holds his palm up and shakes his head without uttering a word. Marianne stops dead in her tracks with a confused look, her eyes flickering from me to King.

"Put it back," he says.

She frowns."On the floor, sir?"

"Yes, Marianne."

Marianne's brows raise and she bends, placing the phone back on the floor without another word, pivoting on her heel and disappearing through the door into the kitchen.

Only slightly appeased, I fold my arms on the table and look at him. "I'm going to make your life a living hell until you give me back my things and I can go back to work."

"You don't even have to tell me. I already know," he grunts, and I bite back a wave of irritation because I really, really want my belongings back. I won't even tell on him at this point. I just want to be able to scroll, and text. "So you like peach cobbler, huh?" He has a secretive smile on his face that he's failing to hide from me.

"Yes," I respond. "But something tells me it's not a coincidence that he made it to go with our dinner."

He winks at me, taking another sip of his whiskey, preferring not to reply.

I don't know how King knew this, or maybe he didn't and it was just a bit of good luck, but peach cobbler is my favorite dessert. Marianne quickly comes back out with two personalized dishes of the hot, bubbly, perfectly flaky crusted dessert.

My mouth waters at the prospect of the sweet treat, deciding that my irritation with King will be put on hold while I no doubt make myself sick with an entire slice. In the meantime, I decide to dig for more information.

Chapter seventeen

Your Majesty

Sitting back, I give him a couple minutes to talk to me about the plan. What all this is really about. Seeing he's not forthcoming, I throw my hands up an on exasperated groan before pinning him with a hard stare.

“Make me understand,”I say, scooping up a bit of cobbler and holding it aloft. “Make this make sense to me. How did all this get started? You said this is the King Dynasty way, so did your dad do this to your mom? Your siblings do this, too?” I put a bite in my mouth and fight like hell to not moan because this is the best dessert I’ve ever had.

King continues to pierce me with his gaze silently as he takes his own bite.

“Wait.” My eyes go wide as another thought hits me. “Do you evenhavesiblings, King?" I put my utensil down, pointing a finger at him. He continues to regard me quietly, patiently as he chews. "See? Yetanotherreason this shit makes no sense. I know nothing about you!” I tighten my lips, shaking my head as I turn back to my dessert.

He makes a soft sound in his throat before washing his dessert down with a swallow of whiskey. "It doesn't matter because you're not going to be living with my siblings, dealing with them on a day to day basis, or fucking them-"

Offended, my head recoils as I frown at him. "Jesus, why do you always have to be socrass?I never said anything about fucking anyone-"

“Are you done, my little demon?" he interrupts me. "Can I talk now?”King's smooth voice caresses over me like velvet and I glance at him out the side of my eye, not quite sure how I like my new nickname. Probably as much as he doesn't like being interrupted, which I continuously seem to do.

“Yes.” I take another bite and force myself to shut up.

---