Page 40 of The Bodyguard

Chapter Seventeen

Kayne

It’s been two days since I’ve seen her and touched her but her scent hasn't faded. She’s all around me. Inside me.

Two nights of sheer torture wanting her. How am I going to get through my whole life without her?

The image of her asleep in her bed after I took her virginity jolts my body. My soul.

I knew what I was going to do all along. When the king told me everything that day, I knew I was going to make her mine. Every inch of her. I was going to take her virginity. Brand her as mine and then leave. Part of me even wished she weren’t on the pill so I could tempt fate.

I don’t fucking care that I’m a selfish bastard. I don’t care that I took her and now she belongs to me and only me.

But she can’t be with me. I’m a fucking bodyguard. She’s going to be queen.

But that still doesn’t take away my selfishness. If I can’t have her then no other man can. I could have taken her anywhere else, but I wanted it to be in the palace, in her bedroom so she never forgets that she’s mine. She’ll always be mine.

I’m not sure yet if I’m going to kill any other men she takes an interest in or keep them imprisoned in dungeons in another part of the world.

I own her. Even if I can’t have her. She’s mine.

But now I’m sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the world from her talking to a man I’ve hated my whole life.

Benjamin Langley. Sixty-seven years. Over-weight. Heavy-smoker. Murderer. And I’m here to collect.

When King Ernst called me to his office, the man I looked at then had aged even more since the one I saw in his office ordering me to protect his daughter's virginity.

He had sat down heavily, his eyes sunken, his voice tired as he told me the truth of the state of Strohamden.

The princess’s beloved country would be in full-on economic crisis if she doesn’t marry the Duke of Burkings’ son.

The coffers of heirlooms and gifts the princess had thought were their ticket out of their fiscal deficit were no longer in the king’s possession.

Twelve years ago, Strohamden’s biggest and most important private petroleum company had pulled out of Strohamden. The absence of the company proved a massive blow to employment stats which had started a domino effect in every other area.

The king and his council had decided they would make the country’s gas and oil supply a government venture but, the king admitted they were not experienced enough, didn’t have the intelligence of manpower internally, and failed to procure efficient experts outside of the country. The newly repositioned government-industry started to lose money. Astronomical amounts and soon the rest of the world cut off their lending facilities.

The king was then prompted to dig into the coffers of jewels and heirlooms. What everyone believed was worth a hundred billion dollars was actually only worth fifty billion on full evaluation. An amount that would have been a lucrative injection into the economy if the king hadn’t thrown it away on the production of oil and gas.

Because of their shared history with the Thompsons, their forefathers had been friends and business associates, the king had struck an arrangement with the Duke of Burkings. He sold the heirlooms to the Duke, but the money wasn’t enough and the king admitted he refused to accept failure.

He started to borrow more and more money from the Duke. The sum of which now sits at over one hundred billion dollars. The energy crisis hadn’t been the only thing the king had to contend with. He had to lower taxes, which put up food prices and the cycle became vicious. The king eventually closed the failed oil and gas enterprise ten years ago and tried to recoup funds.

He had every intention of changing the law that would make Princess Sophia reigning queen. He believed in her. In her intelligence, her logic, her braveness. He had though put off telling her there were no coffers left and they would have to start from scratch.

Throughout it all the Duke had pretended to be his friend, his alley. Assuring the king he would never ask for the money, not until the king was able to pay him back. And then at the right time, he showed his true colors.

He gave the king an ultimatum. Princess Sophia marries his son and he becomes king, or Strohamden would become the ridicule of the world. The Duke of Burkings practically owned the palace and everything in it and still it wouldn’t cover half the debt.

The only thing I registered was that the duke had given the king an ultimatum. Pay back the money he owes or face destruction, or let his daughter marry the duke’s son and become king of Strohamden.

The king had made a hundred-billion-dollar mistake.

Which is why I’m here.

Giving my uncle his own ultimatum.

My father was a hard-working man, but he wasn’t entirely honest. My mother was a daughter of the Italian mafia. She had intrigued my father and soon he was implementing ways to make more money.

---