The King (The Original Sinners: White Years, #2)(79)

He woke with a cough that wrenched his lungs and his stomach. He gasped for air and couldn’t get enough of it. Finally the coughing fit ended, and on shaking legs he got out of bed. It was midnight according to his clock. He’d slept an hour and a half, and yet it seemed like days as his nightmares had been so vivid and brutal. The images stayed with him even as he dragged on his pants. He tried to banish them with other thoughts, but the panic stayed with him. He almost called S?ren to reassure himself the dream of S?ren’s captivity and imminent death had been nothing but a dream.

Alcohol. That’s what he needed. He hadn’t had more than a glass of wine or two a day since meeting Felicia. He’d been drunk on her body and her pain for a month. But he should drink now—heavily.

He pulled on a shirt but didn’t bother buttoning it. He walked down the back servants’ staircase to the wine cellar behind the kitchen. Wine might not be strong enough tonight, but he discovered all the hard liquor in the house had disappeared. S?ren’s doing? Or Sam’s? Both of them treated him like a f*cking child these days. He wouldn’t put it past either of them to hide the liquor. Fine. He’d drink wine. A bottle of pinot would put him to sleep and subdue his restless mind.

With the bottle in his hand he headed back through the dark kitchen. He f linched when light suddenly infiltrated the room.

“Ah, merde,” he said, raising a hand to his eyes. “Who is it?”

“Me,” Sam said. She quickly came into focus. “I heard footsteps and… Oh, my God.”

Fuck. Kingsley sat the bottle on the kitchen table and started to button his shirt. But it was too late. Sam had already seen him, seen the bruises and welts Felicia had left on him.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “What are you still doing here?”

“It’s not nothing. Who the hell did that to you?”

Sam reached for his shirt, and he caught her wrist in his hand. His head had cleared completely now, and he saw the look of fear on Sam’s face. Fear? Of him? Or for him?

“Nobody,” he said. “And you didn’t answer me. What are you doing here?”

“Still working,” she said. “I got the financials from your friend The Barber. I’ve been digging.”

“Find anything?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you until you tell me why you look like someone beat the shit out of you,” Sam demanded. She looked tired, too, as tired as he probably looked.

“Non,” he said. “Forget you saw anything.”

“Okay, maybe you’ll answer this—where have you been for the past month?”

“Staying with Blaise,” he said.

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“Nothing is interesting.” He took his wine bottle and pushed past her.

“It’s very interesting because Blaise has been in DC for the past two weeks with the NOW,” Sam said, following him out of the kitchen and down the hall. “You want to tell me another lie?”

“You accuse me of lying?” Kingsley asked as he started up the stairs. “Very amusing accusation coming from you.”

“What the f*ck do you mean, coming from me?” She took two stairs at a time to keep up with him. “I have never lied to you. Do I want to talk about my past? No. But not talking about something isn’t the same as lying about it. Don’t you dare call me a liar when you can look me in the face and tell me you were with Blaise when we both know you weren’t.”

On the second landing, Kingsley turned to face her so fast she took a step back from him.

“You want to talk about lying to someone’s face. You told me the night of the party that if you were going to be with any man it would be me.”

“Yeah, I said that. So what?”

“So what? So I went to find you the morning after the party, and I saw you with a man. You were kissing, the bed was a wreck, and I saw it all.”

Sam turned her back to him. Her shoulders shook. Then she laughed—a big, loud, shocked laugh that filled the whole house.

“What? You think this is funny?”

“Hilarious,” she said, turning back around. “Hysterical. So that’s why you’re so pissed at me? Why you’ve been avoiding me for a month? You think I had a sex with a man?”

“I know you did.” He turned and strode up the last set of steps to the third f loor. “And S?ren was right about you.”

“Wait one f*cking second here.” Sam raced after him. “What do you mean S?ren was right about me? What’s he got to do with this?”

“He told me not to trust you. I should have listened to him.”

“I have given you no reason not to trust me.”

“Here’s a reason. You pretend I mean something to you when…” Pain choked him with unforgiving hands. He wanted to the throw the wine bottle against the wall and watch the red liquid f low like blood. “When I don’t.”

Sam followed him all the way down the hall.

“Kingsley, stop. Please, stop. I have to tell you something.”

He stopped outside his bedroom door.

“What?” he asked, ready to be done with this conversation.

“Yes, I had sex with someone the night of the party. But no, it wasn’t a man.”