Page 30 of King of Lies
“I’ll hold my tongue.”
“Brilliant,” he bites out and I can’t help but flinch.
I don’t enjoy the sharp edge to his tone, and I hope it’s only worry for his father that has him acting so poorly because if it’s not, I’ve completely misjudged him. And now I’m on a private plane, headed to the other side of the Atlantic.
We taxi down the runway and take off, Rhys and I both sit and quietly, stewing over our fight until we reach cruising altitude. Then, without a word, he unbuckles his seat belt and mine, lifting me from the seat before he moves into a lush bedroom. My eyes flare and I hope I was well enough behaved that he doesn’t make good on his threat to fuck me so hard that everyone, including Fiona and Leo, hears it.
He puts me down to stand in front of him before pulling the covers back on the bed and pushing me into it. He tucks me in a little more forcefully than usual but, then again, he looks really angry. What he doesn’t do is climb in with me.
“Sleep,” he orders before turning to the door.
“Rhys,” I call out and he turns back to face me but does not move closer.
“What, Stella?” he asks using my name and I flinch.
“Where are you going?”
“I have important matters to see to,” he says with finality before turning back to the door and pulling it open.
He freezes when I whisper, “You said you’d never leave me,” but he doesn’t come back to me. Instead, he shakes his head and walks out the door muttering about important matters and I only hope that those matters aren’t Fiona in a broom closet.
It looks like everything has changed.
Chapter 13
Get dressed
“Stella,” Rhys’s deep voice penetrates the last layers of sleep. I’m not ready to wake up so I burrow further into his chest, trying to absorb his heat. “Wake up, Hen.”
I blink my eyes open and take in my unfamiliar surroundings. Rhys is fully dressed and so am I and then I remember …
The phone call that changed everything.
The news of his dad being ill.
Rhys asking me to come with him.
And then him dropping the bomb that he’d been lying to me the entire time, but only after I’d made my vow to go with him.
I jerk away from him, not sure how to proceed from his earlier cruelty. The fact that he smells like whiskey and perfume doesn’t help.
“You’re afraid of me,” he says, sounding surprised.
“No.”
“Then why did you jerk away from me like that?” he demands.
“You were so … mad at me,” I try to explain. “And then you left me.”
“I told you I had business to attend to,” he says tersely.
“Yes, but you didn’t say what and then you wake me up smelling like … smelling like …” I can’t make myself get the words out.
“Smelling like what, Hen?”
“Whiskey and a woman’s perfume,” I blurt out.
“Fuck,” he bites out. “It’s not what you think.”
