With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(158)

When he settled, it occurred to her that he had nothing to be pissed about.

She wasn’t sneaking off at night for liaisons with whoever (or multiple whoevers).

She wasn’t pretending to be his devoted queen when she wasn’t attracted to him.

She was just doing the best she could in a really bad situation.

However, she didn’t feel like getting into these subjects at that particular juncture either.

Or, ever, really.

So she forced her body to relax and she listened to his deep breathing, smelled his heady scent and wished she could go back to a time when she could, at least, pretend this was real.

But she could not.

* * * * *

It was the morning after and Sonia was curled in the little oval alcove trying to concentrate on her book but she couldn’t because she knew that day was the day of reckoning.

She’d woken alone, showered, dressed, had a quick breakfast and ran back upstairs before anyone could catch her.

She had no idea why she woke up alone because Callum always woke her if he was leaving her even if just to give her a kiss and tell her he was going.

She didn’t take that as a good sign.

When she heard him approaching, she didn’t take hearing that he alighted the stairs at least two at a time as a good sign either.

When he hit the room and slammed the door so hard that the sound it made seemed to undulate through the room like a shockwave, she didn’t take that as a good sign either.

The instant she saw the look on his face she realized that today was not the day of reckoning.

Today was the day of the apocalypse.

Without hesitating, he walked right up to her, jerked the book out of her frozen-with-fear hands and tossed it across the room with such force, the sound it made when it hit the doors of the wardrobe all the way across the room was like a gunshot.

She stared at her book on the floor for a second, lips parted in shock then she looked back at him. What she saw terrified her to such an extreme, the only thing she could think to do was flee.

So she tried.

She shot out of the alcove and ran past him as fast as her feet would carry her, her heart beating a mile a minute and her mind totally blank.

She wasn’t fast enough.

He hooked an arm across her waist and lifted her up, her back to his chest, her legs kicking out and her hands pushing at his arm.

“Let me go!” she squealed but he just turned, took three long strides and tossed her on the bed.

She instantly rolled and kept rolling until she rolled over the other side, got to her feet and glared at him standing opposite the bed to her. His chest was heaving and he was visibly having difficulty controlling his anger.

Sonia was panting with fear but that fear was replaced by fury on the spot.

“What’s the matter with you?” she shrieked.

“You didn’t come to the study after breakfast,” he replied, his deep voice even but far from calm.

He was enraged. His voice said it. His face said it. Every line of his big, tall body said it.

But Sonia didn’t care.

“You just slammed the door, accosted my book and tossed me across the room because I didn’t come to the study?” she shouted.

“I didn’t toss you across the room but I did tell you we were talking this morning and you didn’t come to my goddamned study!” he shouted back.

“Don’t you yell at me, King Callum,” she yelled.

He put his hands to his h*ps and leaned forward, yelling back, “I’ll yell until I find out what in the f**k is wrong with you, Queen Sonia!”

“There’s nothing wrong!” she screamed her lie, leaning toward him too.

“There isn’t?” He leaned back. “Then my wife is denying me her affections because…?”

He let the last hang but Sonia didn’t.

She lied again, “I’m not denying you my affections!”

“Really?” he asked mockingly. “Have you been f**king me in the night and I haven’t felt it?”

Her hands clenched into fists, so angry she couldn’t have stopped herself even if she’d tried.

Which she didn’t, she’d been holding onto this long enough.

So she just let loose.

“Well, I figured, since you’re out f**king whoever at night, you wouldn’t need me!”

His body jerked but he scowled at her through the movement, muttering angrily, “What the f**k?”

“You’re cheating on me, Callum. I know it. Remember? I have gifts! I can smell it! You go off in the middle of the night, come home and you reek of it!” she screamed.

He stared at her looking both stunned and furious and shouted, “Fucking hell, are you mad?”

“No!” she shouted back. “I’m not mad!” She shook her head and threw out an arm, looking away and talking mostly to herself but still doing it heatedly. “I shouldn’t care. I keep telling myself I shouldn’t care. Why do I care?”

“You shouldn’t care?” Callum muttered, low and dangerous, his tone making Sonia’s eyes go back to him and if she thought he was angry before, she was wrong.

Now he was incensed.

But she was too far gone.

“No, I shouldn’t care,” she hurled at him.

“You shouldn’t care that you think I’m f**king around on you?” he asked, still in that low tone.