The Controversial Princess (The Smoke & Mirrors Duology #1)(86)

“You mean this?” He collects his phone from his inside pocket and drops it onto my lap.

I look down and see an image on the screen. An image I have already seen. I grab his mobile and toss it onto the seat between us. “Well, thank you for refreshing my memory on what a massive arsehole you are.” I take the handle of the door again and pull in vain.

“Read it.” His phone lands back on my lap. “Now.”

“Fuck you,” I spit.

“You know, for a princess, your mouth is vulgar sometimes.”

Releasing the handle, I turn my body fully into him, leaning close. “Fuck. You,” I breathe, restraining my hand, which is dying to slap his face.

“And I love it,” he growls, grabbing my neck and yanking me forward.

Gone.

Our mouths smash together—fuse together—and our tongues connect like they’ve never been apart. And I’m back floating on air in that amazing place he takes me to like I never left. I’m in my own seat one second, on his lap the next. It’s a messy kiss, one of tangled tongues, smashing teeth, and constant cries and groans. It’s an angry kiss. There is no effort on my part to stop myself being swallowed whole by him. I don’t fight his fingers from crawling up my inside thigh and slipping past the seam of my knickers. Even mad and confused, I’m wet for him.

Then my mind’s eye quickly reminds me of his hotel suite. The knickers. The women. It’s a stark reminder of why I’m here in the back of the car with Josh, sparring with words. “No,” I gasp, prying myself away from him, short of breath. I fall back into my seat. “You are a liar and a cheat.”

His head drops back, his own breathing as labored as mine. “I don’t appreciate being accused of shit I haven’t done, Adeline.”

“I’m not accusing you. I have the evidence.”

Snatching up his phone that was knocked to the floor during my lapse of restraint, he shoves it into my chest. “No, what you have is a pile of fabricated trash, Your Highness. Read the fuckin’ date. Tell me when they claim I threw this wild party and fucked endless women.”

I recoil, searching his angry eyes.

“Read. It,” he grates, taking my hand and placing the phone there.

I look down, wincing at the headline and the images, quickly working my way to the main article. I’m forced to endure too many graphic details before I reach the bit I’ve been demanded to find. Bewilderment comes on strong. They are not claiming all these defiling activities happened the night of the after-party at all. They state quite clearly that this so-called wild party and orgy went down the night before the after-party. My hand quickly covers my mouth and I shoot my eyes to Josh. He’s looking at me expectantly, his eyebrows raised.

“But I was with you in your suite,” I exclaim, looking at all the images of Josh’s trashed room. “I was with you all night.”

“Yes, you were.” He takes his phone back. “I didn’t leave the after-party until four in the morning. When we got back to my suite, it had been ransacked, though I can assure you there were no panties on the bedroom floor. We assumed a robbery or a deranged fan and called the police. But nothing was stolen, not even a pair of my boxers or a bottle of cologne. It didn’t make sense.” He shakes his head, his jaw so tight. “Now it makes perfect fuckin’ sense.”

It does? “How?” I’m utterly confused. Yes, newspapers decorate stories, but completely fabricate them?

“They can’t claim all this happened on the night of the after-party because everyone knows I was at another venue until dawn. There are pictures in every fuckin’ magazine.” Josh looks at me gravely, his palm on his nape, massaging. “It seems someone’s out to discredit me, Your Highness. Why’d you think that is?”

I can’t help my recoil. “You think this has something to do with me?”

“Who else?”

“But no one knows,” I whisper as I search my frantic mind for another plausible explanation. I come up blank.

He’s right.

Who else could it be? Who else would want to tarnish Josh’s reputation? Just because I have had no indication that my father and his army know, doesn’t mean that they don’t. I come over a bit claustrophobic, my mind reeling. This is everything I dreaded. This is every reason why I should have stayed away from him. They will destroy him before they allow me to be involved with him. I swallow down the pain running riot through me, staring at the back of the driver’s seat. “You should leave me alone.” It physically pains me to say it. Hurts like nothing else has hurt me before. I can’t risk his reputation and career being sabotaged by the bastards that advise the King. I care too much for him. “They will ruin you.”

“Never.” Josh reaches across the back seat and manhandles me back onto his lap, pushing my bent legs to either side of his hips. I don’t fight him. “Do you hear me?” My face is cupped in his palms, his blue eyes daring me to deny him. “Never.” Bringing his nose close to mine, his soft gaze flutters across my face, taking it all in carefully, as if he could be photographing each and every piece of me to memory. A small smile ghosts his lips. “We were made for each other, Adeline. I’ll be damned if royal blood and fame get in the way of that.”

I feel overcome. “Really?”