This is not the conversation I thought we’d have. I imagined she’d first want to know why I’d kidnapped her, but she’s taken that as given. As though being snatched away from the life she built is simply what she expects from life.
I suppose it should be. She was due to be the wife of the heir to Camden before she disappeared. But there are so many questions she could ask.
“Henry was angry with her.” That’s the simple truth.
She rolls her eyes and sips her tea. I love seeing her wearing my shirt. It hangs loosely over her and allows me to fantasise she picked it casually up after I discarded it, so she’d be surrounded by my scent. She chose one of my favourites, and it’s even better to kid myself we have tastes in common. That maybe she’d like my life here, away from London.
“You need to talk more if you’re going to convince me not to kill you, King.”
“Says the woman who was begging me only an hour ago. You don’t bite the hand that makes you come.”
“Praying mantis.”
I laugh, because I believe it. She’d eat me alive, and I’d let her.
So, much as I don’t want to explain this, I do. “Henry thought Trudy was a whore. Told her so repeatedly. Simple misogyny.”
There’s a flicker of recognition in Olivia’s eyes. He’s said this to her, too.
“Because she and I worked closely, he assumed we were sleeping together. And he despised that she would be with anyone but his father.”
“But he was dead.”
I shrug. “Some men think a woman should throw herself onto a funeral pyre. Henry seems to be one.”
She shakes her head, but not in a way that says disbelief. More distaste.
It takes everything in me to walk away, back to the kitchen to finish preparing food for us. The stew is simple ingredients from the freezer and the garden. Living here before my brother’s death made me self-sufficient. And though I haven’t returned as often as I’d like, I’ve kept it up to scratch.
Olivia eyes the food warily when I place it before her.
“It’s not poisoned. That’s not my style.”
There is only one risky item in that kitchen, and it’s the large chef’s knife I used to chop up the vegetables. I cleaned it and slid it into its hiding spot when Olivia’s back was turned. No point in putting temptation in her hand. I guess she believes what I said about Trudy, but that doesn’t mean she won’t use any weapon she can find against me.
She seems to declare a ceasefire and compliments my food as she eats. If “not bad” is a compliment, which I think it is.
She’s too beautiful and vulnerable and all I want to do is wrap her in my arms and keep her safe and with me. Ravage her too. I want everything from this girl. And compared to me, she is a girl. I should be ashamed of not being able to control my lust for a fresh-faced ingenue. Forty years of almost perfect discipline, and then I meet Olivia and I’ve never felt the same since. I haven’t desired anyone like I do her.
It’s dark outside now. The pure velvet black of the Cornish hills, strewn with sparkles. It’s far from the dirty yellow of the city.
I’ve missed it, and being here, and being home with my Lia—
Fuck. She’s not mine. I have to remember that.
But my heart can’t. Being here with Lia by my side, however unwillingly, fills my heart to bursting.
She’s as lovely as the night, and as underrated. That chestnut brown hair, the rich colour of polished wood falling over her face. Those big blue eyes.
“What are we going to do?” She pushes her bowl away, empty.
I consider saying, “Get married, have as many children as you like and live here together, forever”.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning. You’re staying here until I return.”
“That is not happening.”
“It is. When the threat is eliminated, I’ll let you go.” I have to release my girl. I’m too old for her. Too dark. Too dirtied by all the things I’ve done.
“You’d leave me?” Her fingers trail down the open neck of my shirt she’s wearing.
Interesting. Seduction? I didn’t think Olivia would go in for that again. Yes, she tried it earlier, but she already succeeded, and it didn’t get her out.
“I’ll send you back to your life. And I’ll return to Camden.” Without her. My heart tugs painfully at the prospect.
“Who is this imaginary threat, then?”
“Henry.”
“The dead one or the one I was engaged to?” She clearly doesn’t believe me.
“The one who is angry you decided to leave, when he believed you were his by rights.”
“Henry doesn’t know where I am.”
“He did. And I found you.” I care a lot more than Henry and have resources he can only dream of. But he’s not without his ways.
“That was because I was following you.”
Her confession stills me. For a moment my stupid heart thinks she might have trailed me because she felt the same tug of connection between us as I do. Then I come to my senses.
“You were stalking me like a tigress follows a bison.”
Her smile is feral, her lips pink and her nipples pebbled through the fabric of my shirt.
It makes me painfully hard. I imagine having sex with her on this table. Sweeping away all the crockery from dinner onto the floor and bending her over. She’s naked under that shirt. It would be too easy…
“You really want to protect me?” She rises and saunters over, pausing almost within my reach.
“Yes.” I’d do anything for her.
She leans in. “Then will you tell me one thing? Truthfully this time?”
I catch her scent and it’s intoxicating. Not her perfume, but the essence of her skin is like wild roses over a mountain stream in summer. From here I can see the flecks of navy in her eyes again. I indulge in looking, and it fills me up. The sight of her.
“Yes.”
I feel the blade on my throat before my brain catches up.
Fuck.
Olivia’s knife. In a flash I realise why her rolled-up sleeves were so bulky. She found and hid it, ready.
I’d forgotten. I couldn’t risk leaving it anywhere in the palace in Camden, so I brought her little blade here, away from prying eyes. A stupid, sentimental impulse to keep the knife Lia tried to use to kill me.
I’ve let my guard down, and now I’m going to pay the price.
With my life.
