Crown Jewels (Off-Limits Romance #1)(66)

I should tell Liam tonight, I think. Just get it done.

In my anxiety, I paint my fingernails and toenails mint green, pluck my eyebrows, sip some ginger ale, and walk around the room noting details like the Buddhist books on Liam’s mom’s book shelf and the tiny construction paper card resting underneath a teacup on a table.

I open it, and in a child’s large, clumsy script, it reads: I LOVE YOU, MUMMY. You’ve my faforite!

By the time I make it outside to the castle lawn, my eyes are damp from crying. On the side lawn, I find a tire swing of all things, and test the rope before I sit inside and start to swing.





*



Liam





I’m not having Lucy go—not yet. I told Heath that, and eventually he let up, saying only, “I don’t know about you, bro.”

As we drive back onto castle grounds, I catch him staring at me.

“What?”

He shrugs.

“That’s what I thought.” I give him a glare, and Heath arches his brows.

“That girl…”

“You better treat her right.”

“Or?”

I grit my teeth, and my cousin chuckles. “Like I said—that girl. She’s got you all fucked up.”

“Says the asshole who almost got asked to leave the ball for cutting in on Kate Middleton three times last year.”

“Whatever, man. I didn’t cut in on Wills.”

I give him a damning stare, and Heath has the good grace to shut his pie-hole. When the car is quiet again—just filled with the Drake noise my cousin loves—I realize I feel almost good.

I’ve done my latest dirty deed, so I feel a little better. For now, anyway.

Health and I get out of the car and head in different directions. He’s going to get ready for the party he’s having here tonight. I’m off to find Lucy.

I find her attacking my kick-boxing bag and watch her for a minute from the trees. She’s fierce. Fierce and beautiful. I step closer to her, watching her dark hair fly all around her shoulders.

“You’re really going at that.”

She jumps, then whirls, shrieking.

I duck, holding my hands up.

“Sorry!” She laughs. “I was in my zone.”

“I see that.” I grin, and she jumps playfully around me with her hands raised in fight stance. Then she straightens up and wipes her brow. “So… Did your thing go okay?”

“Okay.”

“Well welcome home.” She winks.

“I got a text from Pete. You want to see the castle dungeon?”

“YES! You know I do.”

Stacy, one of the attendants, brings a towel and some water for Lucy.

“I’m so gross and sweaty,” she complains as Stacy saunters off.

“Sweaty, yes. Gross, definitely no.”

I take Lucy’s hand and lead her inside. We go upstairs, into my rooms, into the study by the bathroom, then through the tiny wooden door and down two flights of thick, stone steps before we reach a massive, low-ceilinged space divided by partial walls dotted with manacles and chains.

“Oh my God!” Lucy’s jaw drops. “It really is a dungeon.”

“I thought of having it closed off.”

“Oh, no way.” She takes a few steps toward some rusty-looking chains. “This is historical.”

“The history of the place is terrible.”

“Do I dare to ask?”

I lift my eyebrows. “Do you?”

“I kind of want to know. It’s creepy, but it’s interesting. C’mon,” she prods. “Tell me.”

I sigh. “Remember how I told you the history of my family? How there were a few different clans? Well, there was a skirmish with another clan not long after my family became designated royal, and the king’s oldest son, Winston, a five year old, was killed. The king imprisoned five adult men from this other clan here and tortured them for five weeks, one week for each year of his dead son’s life.”

“Holy Hello Kitty.” Her eyes canvass the room. “Then he let them go?”

I look down before holding her gaze. “Of course not.”

“He killed them.”

“He did.”

“That’s pretty terrible.”

“I don’t like that it’s down here. As a kid I had dreams about it.”

“Geez, of course you did.”

I point at the nearest wall. “See these rivulets in the stone? Water would run down from the irrigation system upstairs, keeping the prisoners alive.”

She steps closer to the worn, stone wall. “Wow…”

“Have I scared you off yet?”

“No.” She grips my hand. “What kind of king do you think you would be, Liam?”

“Would be?”

“Will be. But would be, if you had all the power like those early kings.”

I shrug. “Probably a bored one. Have you ever heard of ennui?”

“I think I have, actually. It’s where rich people get bored, right? But I’m saying like, do you think you’d be good or bad: a good king or a bad one?”

I lift my shoulders. “What do you think?”