Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)(37)

“You’ve said that already.”

“I’ll keep saying it until you get it in your head.”

“Trust me. It’s in my head. How can it not be when you keep nagging me?”

Despite my grumbles, I found a strange comfort in his nagging. In a world where everything else was changing, Rhys remained wonderfully, unrelentingly him, and I never wanted that to change.

His hand lingered on my forehead for another moment before he dropped it and pulled away, and oxygen returned to my lungs.

“So.” Rhys leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. He didn’t look at me as he asked, “Who do you usually bring up here?”

“What?” I cocked my head, confused. I never brought anyone up here.

“Two chairs.” He nodded at mine, then the one he was sitting in. “Who’s the second one for?” His tone was casual, but a tight current ran beneath it.

“No one. There are two chairs because…” I faltered. “I don’t know. I guess I hoped I’d find someone I wanted to bring up here one day.” I had silly, romantic notions of me and mystery guy sneaking up here to kiss and laugh and talk all night, but the chances of that were growing slimmer by the minute.

“Hmm.” Rhys was silent for a second before he said, “You want me to leave?”

“What?” I sounded like a broken record.

Maybe the hit to my head had scrambled my brains because I’d never been this inarticulate.

“Seems like this is your secret spot. Didn’t realize I was intruding when I came up here,” he said gruffly.

Something warm cascaded through my stomach. “You’re not intruding,” I said. “Stay. Please. I could use the company.”

“Okay.”

And that was that.

I couldn’t hold back a smile. I didn’t think I would enjoy sharing this space with anyone else, but I liked having Rhys here with me. He didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with unnecessary small talk, and his presence comforted me, even if he irritated me, too. When he was near, I was safe.

I stretched my legs out and accidentally knocked over the empty wine bottle, which rolled across the floor toward Rhys. I bent to pick it up at the same time he did, and our fingers brushed for a second.

No, not even a second. A millisecond. But it was enough to send electricity sizzling up my arm and down my spine.

I yanked my hand away, my skin hot, as he picked up the bottle and placed it on the other side of his chair, away from both our legs.

Our brief touch felt indecent, like we were doing something we weren’t supposed to do. Which was ridiculous. We hadn’t even planned it. It was an accident.

You’re overthinking.

The clouds shifted, unblocking part of the moon, and light spilled across the tower, illuminating part of Rhys’s face. It appeared grimmer than it had a moment ago.

Even so, he was beautiful. Not in a perfect, Greek god sculpture kind of way, but in a pure, unabashedly masculine way. The dark stubble, the small scar slashing through his eyebrow, the gunmetal eyes…

My stomach did a slow roll as I struggled not to focus on how alone we were up here. We could do anything, and no one would know.

No one except us.

“Heard we’re leaving next week,” Rhys said. I might’ve imagined it, but I thought he sounded strained, like he, too, was fighting back something he couldn’t quite control.

“Yes.” I hoped my voice didn’t come across as shaky as it did to my own ears. “My grandfather’s condition is steady for now, and I need to wrap up my affairs in New York before I move back.”

I realized my mistake before the words fully left my mouth.

I hadn’t told Rhys about Nikolai’s abdication yet, which meant he didn’t know about my plans to move back to Athenberg. Permanently.

Rhys stilled. “Move back?” He sounded calm, but the storm brewing in his eyes was anything but. “Here?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“You didn’t mention that, princess.” Still calm, still dangerous, like the eye of a hurricane. “Seems like an important thing for me to know.”

“It’s not finalized, but that’s the plan. I…want to be closer to my grandfather.” That was partly true. He’d recovered nicely from his hospital visit and he had people monitoring him around the clock, but I still worried about him and wanted to be close by should anything happen. However, as crown princess, I was also required to return to Athenberg for my queen training. I was already behind by decades.

Rhys’s nostrils flared. “When were you planning to tell me this?”

“Soon,” I whispered.

The palace was keeping Nikolai’s abdication under tight wraps, and I wasn’t supposed to talk about it until closer to the official announcement. I could’ve told Rhys I was moving back to Eldorra earlier using the excuse I just gave him, but I’d wanted to pretend everything was normal for a while longer.

It was stupid, but my mind had been all over the place lately, and I couldn’t make sense of my own actions.

Something flickered in Rhys’s eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was hurt. “Well, now you can finally be rid of me,” he said lightly, but his face might as well have been etched from stone. “I’ll talk to my boss on Monday, get the paperwork started for the transition.”