Page 72 of King of Lies
“Good,” he says. “I promise you; we’re going to have a beautiful life.”
Then he kisses me goodbye before he tucks me back in bed and, as I watch him walk away from me, I wonder how much of this is lies …
Chapter 27
Lies
Ilie in bed and watch the sun come up. I tried to come up with some conclusions, but I have nothing but a headache to show for it. So I call for breakfast to be brought up and I hit the shower.
I take my time under the hot water but still nothing comes through all of my tumbling thoughts. I pull on jeans and a sweater, not knowing what my day will look like yet. I could be traveling; I could be hiding from my thoughts in the garden. I don’t know what yet. But just in case, I take care blow drying my hair and applying my makeup.
When I walk into the sitting room, a breakfast tray is waiting on the table, and with it is a beige folder. Whatever could have been left for me with my meal? I’m not important and I don’t have any duties.
I reach for it immediately; you know what they say about curiosity and the cat. I should know better, but I can’t help myself. I pull it toward me and open it, instantly wishing that I hadn’t.
It’s not a file.
It’s a dossier.On me.
Everything about me from my birth to my parents’s deaths, my uncles, my college education. Only this doesn’t say my name is Stella Reyes. This says I’m Estrella Francesca Maria de la Reina, Princess of San Juan de Bautista.
This can’t be.
“Did you think it was all by chance? A fairytale?” a voice sounds from behind me and I see the queen lounging on the fainting couch in the corner. Damn. I loved that couch. It was great for reading. Now I’ll have to burn it.
She’s watching me closely for any reaction and it sends chills down my spine.
“What are you talking about?”
“He didn’t choose you,” she says smugly. “His father did. But you’re not the right choice. I know how to lead this country better than you.”
“Do you?” I challenge. What am I doing? This aggression isn’t me. Is this who these people are turning me into?
“I think you know as well as I do, that I’m the one he really wants,” she says. “You’re just a naïve child. You’ve had your play time and now it’s time for you to go home.”
“No,” I say defiantly. I still haven’t made up my mind about Rhys and me, but she is not going to be the one to make the final decision.
“Then keep looking …”
Again, chills skate down my spine like someone has stepped on my grave. She has that same cat-that-got-her-cream look on her face that I saw last night, and I know that it does not bode good things.
I continue to flip through the information in the dossier. It’s not all of me. Some of it is Rhys. Rhys with different women sneaking into cars and dark corners, slipping into apartments, and not one of them mine.
The last photo is of Rhys fucking a redheaded woman from behind, much like he took me the other morning, only he’s got his fist wrapped in her hair and her face is awash with both pain and ecstasy.
“Did you really think you could satisfy his …appetites?” she asks.
I know then, that she’s right. She’s won and we both know it. I’m not built for this life and, no matter how much I love him, I’m just a naïve girl from Virginia not a woman skilled in the type of seduction that Rhys really wants.
“No,” I whisper.
“I didn’t think so. I’ll leave you now.”
Not to mention, if what she says is true, we didn’t meet by chance. It was an orchestrated hit ordered by the late king. Why, I don’t know yet. And I don’t care.
It doesn’t matter now anyway.
It wasn’t a fairytale; it was nothing but lies.
