The Controversial Princess (The Smoke & Mirrors Duology #1)(29)

“Are you questioning me again?”

“No.” I reach around his shoulders and hug him, smiling into the crook of his neck. “It was fun.”

“Wasn’t it.” Lifting up, he blows a wisp of hair from my face and pushes my grandmother’s tiara to the side of the bed. “Let me get you a drink. Water?”

I frown around my smile, intrigued by his offer to wait on me. “I have staff who can fetch drinks if you would like one.”

“Of course. How could I forget? But surely you don’t want them to see me.” He plants a solid peck on my mouth and gets off the bed. “Besides, I’d like to get you a drink.”

“If you must. There are glasses and bottled water on the cabinet through there.” I roll over, wincing at the instant pull of every muscle I have, some of which I didn’t know I had. “Hurry up, now.”

Josh grabs his jeans and tugs them up his perfectly sculptured thighs, grinning. “Yes, ma’am.” He disappears out of my bedroom, and I’m unable to stop the satisfied smile from forming. I have never felt this before. So … sated. So looked after. Yet I was anything but, really.

I look at my wrists, where red welts are developing before my eyes, and I shift, flinching at the soreness rubbing on the covers. He really doesn’t give a stuff about my status. “Bloody hell,” I mutter, struggling to sit up. I have an official engagement in two days, opening a new art gallery that’s been set up by a charity that I’m a patron of. It looks like long sleeves will be in order.

I’m distracted from inspecting my injuries when Josh rushes back into the room, no water in sight. “You forget something?” I ask.

“Your boyfriend’s back.”

“What?”

Josh makes quick work of snatching up his shoes, T-shirt, and belt, before darting into the bathroom, just as Haydon marches into my room. I quickly grab my covers and pull them up my body. “Haydon, what on earth do you think you are doing?”

He scans the room, before his eyes land on me. “I was just checking if you are all right.”

What the hell? Annoyance replaces the amazing weightless feeling I had, which only serves to piss me off more. He’s not checking if I am all right. He’s checking if I am alone. “I’m fine, Haydon. Now, if you don’t mind, I was trying to get to sleep.”

His face screams regret, and I don’t feel in the least bit guilty that he is onto me, even if he thinks he has made a massive mistake. How dare he? How dare he barge into my suite unannounced like this? Where’s Damon? “I thought you left?”

“My car won’t start. Damon’s taking a look at it.”

So he used Damon’s distraction to sneak up here? “I suggest you leave right this minute before I call Damon and have you escorted off the grounds.”

“Adeline, I’m—

“I don’t want to hear it.” I flip myself onto my side and snuggle down, dismissing him. “Please leave.” I wait until the door closes before I look over my shoulder, checking he has gone. Then I cast my eyes across to my bathroom. Josh appears in the doorway, but he isn’t grinning in satisfaction like I would have expected. He looks pensive, and for the first time since he sprinted away to hide, I wonder why. He was more or less marking his territory in the foyer earlier when Haydon showed up. “Why did you hide?”

He pouts his lush lips, seeming to think really hard about it. “I don’t know,” he admits, making his way back to me. I eye him suspiciously, moving over when he nudges me to give him room. He lies next to me in his jeans, his bare back against the headboard. “All part of the game, right?”

“Right,” I agree slowly, a little injured for reasons I’m not willing to look into. We’re playing. Just playing.

“So, are you gonna marry him, then?”

I snort, patting down the covers around my body. “Did it sound like I want to marry him?”

“Do you have a choice?”

“Yes,” I reply adamantly. “Despite what my father thinks.”

“But your father is the King of England, Adeline,” Josh cruelly and unnecessarily reminds me. “No one gets away with saying no to him.”

“What can he do?” I ask. “Send me into exile? To the Tower of London to rot? Behead me?” Any iota of peace, any serenity I found, has been completely chased away with the reminder of who my father is and what my obligations are.

Josh crosses his ankles, his long jean-clad legs stretched to full length on my bed. I have to admit, he looks good on my bed, all roughed up and relaxed. “You sound resentful.” He looks at me, a little thoughtful. “Is life as a royal that bad?”

I shrug a lot more nonchalantly than I feel. “It is if you refuse to abide by the rules. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if I bowed to every order and expectation.”

“So why don’t you? For an easy life?”

“Easy doesn’t make me happy. It would be settling for second best. I don’t want to settle for anything.”

He holds my eyes, and I see compassion in their blue depths. “Then don’t,” he says quietly, taking my hand and toying with my fingers.

“I don’t plan to.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Why?”