Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(127)

I turn and bolt, running through the armory. I can find my way back, I have to.

“Penny, wait,” he says, but I don’t.





Chapter Six





I slam the heavy oak door closed, and scowl because I can’t lock it. It doesn’t even have a proper doorknob. It relies on its own weight to stay closed. I thump it against the frame in frustration and yank at my dress, popping buttons and tearing seams as I harshly reject it from covering my body. Like an angry teenager, I grab a nightgown from the wardrobe and crawl into the bed, yanking the covers up to my chin as if the blankets will keep the harsh reality around me at bay, like warding off a monster from the closet.

It’s a dumb, silly, immature little gesture but it gives me some comfort, comfort I quickly begin to hate as I realize how helpless I am. I’m completely at this man’s mercy. I don’t even have clothes to wear, other than what he provides. This bed is his, the roof over my head is his. The air is his. He could probably order one of his minions not to breathe, and they’d suffocate themselves through sheer willpower.

What the hell am I going to do?

When I close my eyes all I can see is myself, standing in the armory with him as he touches me. His bare hand was different from being carried as he wore that suit of armor. He has hard, rough hands, the hands of someone who does work, not soft and perfumed like I would expect. I don’t know why I keep thinking about that, but I can’t stop myself.

I snort. How silly. I’m a modern, liberated American woman and here I am with my head spinning because a man touched me with his hand, over my clothes. Maybe it’s the dry spell.

Or maybe it was the kiss, the way he tasted and smelled, the way I fear him and feel safe in his presence at the same time. Thoughts that aren’t mine creep into my head, like the nonsensical urge to jump when looking down from a great height, and the harder I push them away, the harder they push back until they throb in my head.

It’s the little things. The way I had to tilt my head back when he kissed me and he bent over me, overwhelming me with his height. The electric sensation I felt when his hands brushed my shoulder, the way he kept staring at my neck and collarbone all night. The pangs of sympathy I felt when he pried himself out of that damaged armor beat at my head like drums, jabbing me in time with the beating of my heart.

A breeze blows in from the balcony. How does it get so cold here when it’s hot down below the slopes of the mountain? I could get up and close the glass doors but I pull the blankets tighter instead, shivering to banish the cold.

I keep looking back at the door, expecting him to barge through any moment. I keep swinging back and forth, thinking about his lips and touch and his accent and the things he does. I can’t separate the handsome man who gave me sweet wine from the iron giant who struck off a man’s head in front of me…and Melissa.

Oh God, what are they doing to her?

I haven’t even been here a full day and my phone call isn’t for another week. After that, people back home will realize I’m gone and start asking after me. I have this sinking feeling, almost a certainty, that the church hasn’t reported my absence, or they’ve made up some excuse to keep everyone quiet.

Brad pops back into my head and I wonder how tied up the church was with whatever he’s doing, whether it’s all just a sham or he just uses it as a cover and they’re genuine. To me they all seemed fake-y and saccharine, but there’s an obvious reason for that.

I know why I came here. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. I see myself sitting on the couch in my home, holding a telephone in my hands, sobbing and staring, wondering why neither my brother nor my lover will answer me. I scrolled through the list of calls to make sure I wasn’t dreaming it. I called them both over thirty times.

When the knock came from the door at 5:46 in the morning, I knew. By then my parents were sitting in the room, waiting with me. They both reacted differently. Mom was staring and shaking, Dad sitting there like a statue, eyes fixed on nothing, like if he remained just still enough, it would all slide past him and go away.

It was he who did the talking when the police came. He opened the door and walked out onto the porch with them and talked, and after ten minutes he came in and they didn’t.

“Honey,” he said.

“They’re dead,” I said softly.

I don’t remember much more than that. He never said it out loud, he never said his son is dead. He just left it hanging in the air, confirmation by omission.

I felt so cold, like I’d been thrown into a pool of water on a hot day, but the water was oily, black, and thick and pulled me under with a savage icy grip, and invaded my lungs. I drowned in my own sobs. Somehow I ended up on the floor. I wept into my mother’s lap for hours, maybe days.

The funerals came two days later for David, my fiancé, and Perry, my brother.

My parents named him Perseus.

I was the only member of my family to attend David’s funeral. It was horrible. I was an outsider, like I wandered up to the wrong funeral and was too uncouth to leave. Everyone glared at me, his mother most of all. I’ve never seen someone look so devastated, and the hate that burned in her eyes seared my skin like a hot poker. I wanted to talk to her, to say something, but I couldn’t. I ran away before they finished, and cursed myself for making a spectacle. I couldn’t watch them put the casket in the ground, I couldn’t.