Page 34 of King of Lies
“My fiancée,” he says and I feel my own eyes go wide with everyone else’s.Umm … what?
“Is this why you’ve been in America?” someone asks.
“Of course,” he smiles like the cat that got his cream, and continues. “Wouldn’t you?”
“If she’s your fiancée, then where’s the ring?” someone else calls out.
“Being resized by the royal jewelry,” Rhys answers, or I should say, lies through his teeth. “Stella is so dainty. It didn’t fit.”
“Will there be a royal announcement soon?”
“Of course,” he says before helping me into the SUV and then sliding in behind me. The security officer shuts the door before climbing in the front seat next to the driver.
I wait until we’re away from the airport before I turn to look at him and demand, “What the hell was that?”
“Hush, Stella,” Rhys warns. “There are ears everywhere.”
“I don’t care,” I reply. “Your fiancée?”
“There are a level of freedoms and protections that come with being my future wife,” he says coolly. “Such things are not afforded to my mistress.”
“Is that what I am?” I ask. “Your mistress?”
“No, because I just made you my fiancée,” he bites out.
“But surely, we’re not getting married …”
“And why the hell wouldn’t we?” he growls.
“I don’t know,” I answer quickly—too quickly. This Rhys isn’t one I’ve encountered before, and he scares me. “It just seems like everything’s happening so fast.”
“I know,” he says as he cups my face, tipping my chin up so that I’m looking him in the eyes. “I am sorry that I’ve made you uncomfortable. But I love you and I need you. I intend to marry you and I’m not sorry that things are moving along quickly.”
“What?” I whisper.
“I want you and I want this,” he says, and I can hear the determination in his voice.
“Okay.”
He crushes his mouth down on mine and pushes his tongue between my lips. I melt into his kiss like always. When he pulls back, I feel winded, dazed even, and without thinking, I reach up to wipe my lip-gloss from his lips with my thumb. The look he gives me is so heated, it sends a shiver down my spine.
“Might want to fix yourself,” he says with a smug expression on his face as he hands me my purse that holds my lipstick and compact.
“Thanks,” I reply, rolling my eyes as I take the bag and pull out my compact to fix what he’s messed up. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him give me his first real smile since the plane landed and I can’t help but feel like I’ve just won a huge battle.
We spend the rest of the ride to his home in silence but this time it’s not heated or angry. I’m no longer Rhys’s girlfriend or mistress, instead his fiancée. I make a mental note to call my uncles when I get the chance before they see anything on the news or their favorite gossip blogs.
What I don’t do, and I don’t think of until much, much later when I remember how angry Rhys got when I asked if I was his mistress, is to ask him if it’s not me, does he have another one?
Chapter 15
Don’t get too comfortable
Ispend the drive from the airstrip to … wherever it is we’re going silent, lost in my own thoughts. I chance a glance at Rhys from under my lashes and he looks pensive, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and I guess, he really does.
Even though we’re sitting next to each other on the bench seat in the rear of the SUV it feels like he’s miles away. I don’t know how to reach him, and the tension between us is mounting so high I’m not sure there’s any way out.
I have the overwhelming feeling that coming here was a huge mistake but now there’s no going back.
