Page 87 of The Forgotten Queen
No.
He closed his door, leaving it a crack open. Just in case Sydria needed anything.
Neededhim.
The more time he spent with her, the more she took away all of his reasons not to care.
But caring was dangerous. Whenever Marx started to care about someone, he ended up letting them down.
He didn’t want to let Sydria down.
It was time to rein things in, make sure there wasn’t anything real behind their pretend game.
No problem.
Marx had spent his entire life not letting anyone in, not feeling anything. He could easily do that with Sydria.
Everything was under control.
26
Marx
Morning sunlight filled the king’s suite as Marx knocked on the door between their two rooms.
“Come in!” Sydria called.
Come in? Why wasn’t her door locked?
Marx twisted the handle and pushed the door open, examining the lock on his way through. Surely there must be something wrong with it.
“Good morning,” Sydria said. “Did you sleep well?”
He was still perplexed by the whole her-door-is-unlocked situation, but he looked up. Sydria sat in the middle of her bed, legs crossed, with her notebook in her hand. She had on a pair ofhisathletic shorts—rolled up at the top to fit her waist—and one ofhisoversized t-shirts. The neck of the shirt was too big, so it hung off the side of her shoulder. There was a lot of bare shoulder real estate being shown. The shorts exposed more leg than women typically showed. And to make everything worse, her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy but attractive way. Once again, she looked incredibly appealing. He brought his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. The kindness in her voice killed him.
So did her outfit.
And her hair.
And her smile.
And her innocence.
He was dead.
“Yes!” He looked up, trying to add a chipper tone to his voice that he definitely wasn’t feeling. “Everything is going as planned.”
It was going as planned.
Marx just hadn’t planned on his heart goingagainstthe plan.
“You know,” Marx said, scratching his head, “while I have you here, I should mention that there are a few things that I would appreciate you not wearing. You know, things that make it hard forusto keep this relationship fake.”
Sydria raised her dark brows. “Okay.”
“For example, what you’re wearing right now.”
