The Kingmaker (All the King's Men, #1)(19)

“Maxim?” My voice squeaks like it needs WD-40.

“So you do remember,” he says, his smile so wide and white I’m dazzled.

“Of-of course. How could I forget?”

To my seventeen-year-old eyes, he was handsome. The most handsome guy I’d ever seen, but now? Oh, my damn.

Now, he’s devastating. Bigger. Like everything was carefully tended over the last four years—watered and given the perfect amount of sunlight. His dark hair is slightly longer. Dark, but with those russet strands woven throughout. His face is leaner, the bones and angles modeled into something even more bold than before. Those precious metal eyes gleam green in the dim light of the bar. And his body? Before he was lean and almost rangy, but no more. His biceps stretch a little at the sleeves, and his shirt pulls taut over the muscles of his chest. He’s filled out considerably in the last four years.

Beyond his physical appearance, there’s something else different about him. Something beneath the skin. A deeper confidence? Self-assurance? I can’t put my finger on it, but several women around us are watching him like they want to put their fingers all over it.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend, Lennix?” Vivienne asks, pointed and curious.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Vivienne, Aya, and Kimba, this is Maxim . . .” I falter and laugh up at him. “I just realized I never knew your last name.”

“Oh, Kingsman,” he says, spreading his smile to my friends. “Maxim Kingsman. Nice to meet you, ladies. And these guys are David, Oliver, and Hans.”

We all exchange smiles and pleasantries and move our newly formed party to a large booth at the back. The brown bar lives up to its name. The paneling, the floors, the bar—all brown. The walls are studded with stained glass, and kitschy signs introduce lightheartedness into the somber décor. It’s warm and perfect for hanging out and laughing with a group of friends. Or in our case, a horny group of people who barely know each other. I’m too focused on the man I’ve dreamed about since I was seventeen sitting at a table with me in Amsterdam, of all places, to pay the others much mind.

“What are the odds, huh?” Maxim asks after we’re all settled and have fresh drinks and bar food.

“I know, right? I can’t believe you’re here.” That sounds so wistful, like I’ve been some damsel waiting for her prince. “I mean, that we’d run into each other like this.”

“Yeah, crazy. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“Well,” I say, lowering my eyes to the drink in front of me, “I wish I could say our efforts that day paid off. Not sure if you heard—Cade Energy won and built that pipeline.”

“I’m sorry, Lennix.” When I glance up, the sad resignation in his eyes feels so sincere, it makes me smile despite the pang in my chest every time I remember those bulldozers scraping up and destroying our land.

“It’s okay. Not your fault. It would have taken a miracle, and they’re hard to come by with the government, corrupt politicians, and that bastard Warren Cade against you.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” He clears his throat and shifts in his seat, a frown bending his thick brows.

“Hey, sorry. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but it was just tough. We’ve been lied to and tricked so much. I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still hurts.”

“I understand.” He nods, looking down into his glass, too. “Well, I guess I can’t ever really understand, but I sympathize and I hate that it has been what it has and that it keeps being that so much.”

It was said perfectly, his sincere wish that things had been and could be different. It wasn’t condescending or defensive or any of the things people say when they aren’t sure what to do about pain they didn’t cause, but feel connected to.

“Yeah, it all sucks, but what are you gonna do, right?”

“What are you going to do?” he asks. “What have you been doing?”

We grin at each other like we’ve won the lottery and are splitting the ticket right down the middle. What fortune. What luck to have found each other again. This time, there’s no cell full of protestors. No watchful Mr. Paul. No prostitute.

“Oh my God, remember the lady who offered to blow you with Pop Rocks?” I ask, suddenly transported back to that strange night. Every second burned itself in my memory.

“Jesus.” His low-rumbled laughter coats my shoulders and arms with goosebumps. “That was awkward. I was hoping you’d forgotten that part.”

“I never forgot any part,” I say before I can stop myself.

Like we’re tied together, our smiles dissolve simultaneously, and something intense swallows the humor in his eyes. The air turns humid, heavy with possibility. There was energy between us years ago, but it was all potential energy. My age, the circumstances—things could only go so far. This energy, though—it’s kinetic. Already in motion. Now things between us can go as far as we want.

“What are you two crazy kids up to in a corner by yourselves?” Vivienne asks.

“We’re just catching up,” I offer with a small smile.

“Now how did you say you know each other?” Oliver asks.

“I was part of a protest Lennix’s tribe organized when a company planned to lay a gas pipeline,” Maxim answers.