Page 29 of King of Lies
What the hell is happening?
Rhys holds my hand and helps me up into the SUV before sliding in behind me and gently pushing me across the bench. Leo shuts the door behind us and rounds the car before climbing in the driver’s seat and taking off.
“What about our bags?” I ask because we left them on the bed.
“The others will bring them,” Rhys answers.
“The others?”
“My guards.”
“You have guards?” I ask and feel stupid, because of course a crowned prince would have guards. I’ve just not seen them.
“Aye, love,” he says gently.
“They’ve been with you the whole time?”
“Aye.”
“But I didn’t see them,” I blurt out.
He looks at me and then says cautiously, “Because I didn’t want you to.”
“Of course,” I reply, feeling like a little girl who just got in trouble.
“It’ll be okay,” he says, and I just nod as Leo drives us through the night.
Shortly after, he pulls into the private lot of a small airport and flashes his credentials. Security lets us through instantly, and he pulls up to a small, luxury plane with the same crest on the tail as the one on the top of Rhys’s gold pinky ring. I mentally berate myself for being so stupid as to not do an image search.
Leo stops the car and I move to open the door but Rhys grabs my hand to get my attention. I look at him and he quickly shakes his head no and I let go of the door just before his is thrown open. Leo stands there, waiting.
Rhys slides gracefully from the SUV and then holds his hand out for me to follow him before leading me up the exposed stairs to the jet. A very attractive blonde in a tight uniform, more buttons undone than done, greets him immediately and very familiarly, making me feel like I’m the outsider here. I shrink back.
“We’d like some privacy, Fiona,” he says to her and her eyes flash cold to me. I shiver, but it’s gone just as quickly as it was there, making me wonder if I imagined the whole thing.
“Yes, Your Highness,” she says as she bobs a curtsey. “We’re scheduled for departure soon.”
“Thank you.”
She flits away and Rhys leads me to a private sitting room toward the back, and buckles me into the plush leather seat before taking the one next to me. As soon as the others are on board, Fiona practically skips in to tell Rhys herself that we’re preparing to taxi down the runway. I bristle at the way she interacts with him.
“Let it go,” he whispers in my ear when she’s gone.
“Let what go?” I deny.
“You’re spoiling for a fight and I can see it plain as day on your face,” he says. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know but I think there are some questions you shouldn’t ask, because once you do you can no’ unknow the answers. I’ll tell you this now, I’m not only a bit older than you but I also did no’ lead the life of a monk before I met you.”
There it is. The truth without telling me directly that the flight attendant had been a previous bedmate. I wonder how many more are going to be flaunted in front of me before I return to the states. It makes me question what else I don’t know. That maybe Rhys isn’t the man I thought him to be.
“I didn’t think that you had,” I reply. “I just didn’t expect to have it thrown in my face the second I’m on an airplane that I did not plan to be on when I went to sleep last night.”
“I did no’ expect to be traveling home so soon either,” he says. “And I also did no’ expect to you throw my sexual past in my face at every fucking turn the minute I asked you to come with me, because I figured you, of all people, would understand that my asking you to accompany me means a great deal to me.”
I open my mouth to say something, what, I don’t know, because I definitely don’t feel ready to apologize. While I might be acting a touch childish and perhaps need to consider his feelings, my own feelings also have value.
He stops me with a hard hand on my thigh and I look up at his face awash with anger.
“I’ll ask you now to hold your tongue unless you want the whole crew to hear me fuck the sweet back into you,” he warns.
