The Fearless King (The Kings #2)(52)

Journey looked like some kind of avenging angel with that expression on her face, and he sat back. “You were worried about me.” Not worried. Terrified and furious. She’d wanted to protect him. Him. Frank fucking Evans. The one who took care of the others around him. The one who’d worked so damn hard never to need protection again. “Duchess, I have it handled.”

“You can lie to yourself, Frank, but you damn well better not lie to me. You don’t have this handled any more than I do.” She reached for her glass of wine. “And that is why we’re in the Hamptons.”





Chapter Fifteen



Journey had suffered through some awkward dinners in her life, but this one took the cake. Frank barely looked at her, as if her stating the obvious was some unforgivable sin he didn’t know what to do with. That was fine. She didn’t know what to do with their current situation, either. They were outgunned and outmanned and just flat-out outmaneuvered.

Again.

She picked at her food, but her chicken didn’t offer up a neat solution. Instead, she kept going back to the shock on his face when he realized she’d brought him here to protect him. Shock, and something like anger. Because her protection didn’t mean shit, and everyone knew it. She couldn’t even protect herself. How would someone as strong and composed as Frank ever believe that she could protect him?

I’m damaged goods.

No matter how hard I fight, I’m never going to escape that label. Even with Frank.

She drained her second glass of wine and poured another. Thank God for small favors—her stomach didn’t rebel at the alcohol. She glanced up to find Frank studying his plate as if it held the answers to the universe. I can’t do this right now.

“I’m going for a walk.” Journey shoved to her feet, considered her glass, and then grabbed the wine bottle. She held up a hand despite the fact that Frank had made no move to follow. “I just need some space.”

Still nothing.

Well, then, that was that. Journey remembered to deactivate the alarm at the last second, and then she pushed through the glass doors and out onto the patio. It wasn’t enough distance—not when she could feel Frank’s gaze on her back—so she charged forward to the path leading down to the beach. It was colder than Texas, and she welcomed the chill and the icy-feeling steps against her bare feet.

He didn’t trust her.

She let loose a helpless laugh and took a long pull of the wine. Of course he didn’t trust her. Even if she hadn’t been an enemy before this whole thing started, she’d proven time and time again that when her father pushed just the right pressure point, she’d crumble. She wasn’t trustworthy. Not to stand strong—sure as hell not strong enough to watch Frank’s back.

I want to be.

She was trying. She’d gone to therapy—real therapy, not that shit show her father required—and had done all the exercises, read all the books. The kicker was that Journey had been healing. Her black spirals were further and further apart, her needing to call on Anderson dwindling until they had something resembling a more normal sibling relationship.

Until Elliott came back and shoved his presence into her safe space at every available opportunity, causing the memories to erode her strength and threaten to suck her under—for good this time.

She used her free hand to rub her bare arm against the chill that was rapidly progressing to downright cold. The empty beach dulled the sharpest of edges as she started walking. It was only a couple hundred yards long—plenty for a single private property—but it gave her space to move.

Frank knows what Elliott did to us.

She could still picture her ex’s face when he realized the depth of what she’d suffered. Revulsion, anger, and pity all mixed up in what was a death knell for their relationship. The engagement hadn’t lasted another month. His words rolled through her, the memory of how he wouldn’t meet her gaze making her eyes burn even after all this time. I can’t fix you, Journey. I wouldn’t even know where to start. The thing I liked about us was how uncomplicated we were and this…This is complicated.

Complicated.

She snorted and took another, longer pull of wine. Complicated didn’t begin to cover it. At least Frank never looked at her with pity. Anger, yes. Boatloads of anger, though it was rarely directed at her. Frustration aplenty. A healthy dose of lust.

Too much to ask for him to look at me with respect, I suppose.

“Duchess.”

She startled and spun, sending sand flying. Frank stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. He eyed her as if trying to gauge her mood. Well, that makes two of us. Finally he shook his head and shrugged out of his jacket. Before she realized his intent, he wrapped it around her shoulders and zipped it up, cutting her bare arms off from the cold wind coming from the ocean. It also trapped her wine bottle within the jacket, but she managed to extract it and get her arms into the sleeves without making an ass of herself.

And still Frank didn’t say anything else.

Journey started to lift the bottle again but aborted the move halfway through. “I’m not going to walk into the ocean or anything stupid like that. You don’t have to babysit me.”

It was hard to see in the light of the crescent moon, but he might have raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think you’re suicidal, Duchess. I came out here to apologize.”