Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)(62)

Anyone could buy a diamond. No one except him could’ve drawn me the way he did, and it didn’t escape my notice this was the first time he’d ever shared his art with me.

“It’s all right.” He shrugged.

“It’s not all right, it’s beautiful,” I repeated. “Seriously, thank you. I’ll treasure this forever.”

I never thought I’d see the day, but Rhys blushed. Actually blushed.

I watched in fascination as the red spread across his neck and cheeks, and the desire to trace its path with my tongue gripped me.

But of course, I couldn’t do that.

I could tell he wanted to say something else, but whatever it was, he thought better of it. “It’s no security alarm, but I can save that for Christmas,” he said with a lopsided smile.

I grinned, giddy from the combination of his gift and his joke. There was nothing I loved better than seeing the normally serious Rhys joke around. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Good night, princess.”

“Good night, Mr. Larsen.”

That night, I lay in bed and stared at Rhys’s drawing in the moonlight filtering through the curtains. I wished I was that girl again. Not yet crown princess, soaking up the sun in a remote town where no one could find me. But I wasn’t.

Perhaps I loved Rhys’s drawing so much not only because he was the artist, but because it immortalized a version of myself I could never be again.

I gently rolled the sketch up and tucked it into a safe corner of my bedside drawer.

Part-Time Princess.

Being the monarch of Eldorra requires more than a pretty face.

Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker. I have no intention of abdicating, stepping aside, or handing my responsibilities to anyone else.

Until now, I’d been a passive participant in my own life, letting others make my decisions, the press run roughshod over me, and the likes of Erhall condescend to me.

Not anymore. It was time to take matters into my own hands.

The game of Eldorran politics was a battlefield, and this was war.





25





Rhys





Someone once said hell was other people.

They were right.

Specifically, hell was watching other people swan around an ice rink, drinking hot chocolate and making googly eyes at each other like they were in the middle of a goddamn Hallmark movie.

It wasn’t even Christmas season, for fuck’s sake. It was worse.

It was Valentine’s Day.

A muscle flexed in my jaw as Bridget’s laughter floated over, joined by Steffan’s deeper laugh, and the urge to murder someone—someone male with blond hair and a name that began with S—intensified.

What was so fucking hilarious, anyway?

I couldn’t imagine anything being that funny, least of all something Steffan the Saint said.

Bridget and Steffan shouldn’t even be on a date right now. It was only four days after her birthday ball. Who the hell went on a date with someone they met four days ago? There should be background checks. Red tape. Twenty-four-seven surveillance to make sure Steffan wasn’t secretly a psycho killer or adulterer.

Princesses shouldn’t go on a date until there was at least a year’s worth of data to comb through, in my opinion. Five years, to be on the safe side.

Unfortunately, my opinion meant jack shit to the royal family, which was how I found myself at Athenberg’s biggest ice-skating rink, watching Bridget smile up at Steffan like he’d cured world hunger.

He said something that made her laugh again, and his grin widened. He brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face, and my hand twitched toward my gun. Maybe I would’ve pulled it, had reporters not packed the rink, snapping pictures of Bridget and Steffan, recording on their cameras, and live-tweeting the date like it was an Olympic event.

“They make such a cute couple,” the reporter next to me, a curvy brunette in a bright pink suit that hurt my eyes, cooed. “Don’t you think so?”

“No.”

She blinked, clearly surprised by my curt response. “Why not? Do you have something against his lordship?”

I could practically see her salivating at the prospect of a juicy story.

“I’m staff,” I said. “I have no opinions about my employer’s personal life.”

“Everyone has opinions.” The reporter smiled, reminding me of a shark circling in the water. “I’m Jas.” She held out her hand. I didn’t take it, but that didn’t deter her. “If you think of an opinion…or anything else…” A suggestive note crept into her voice. “Give me a call.”

She pulled a business card out of her purse and tucked it into my hand. I almost let it fall to the floor, but I wasn’t that much of an asshole, so I merely pocketed it without looking at it.

Jas’s cameraman said something to her in German, and she turned away to answer him.

Good. I couldn’t stand nosy people or small talk. Besides, I was busy—busy trying not to kill Steffan.

I’d run a background check on him before today’s date, and on paper, he was fucking perfect. The son of the Duke of Holstein, one of the most powerful men in Eldorra, he was an accomplished equestrian who spoke six languages fluently and graduated top of his class from Harvard and Oxford, where he studied political science and economics. He had a well-established record of philanthropy and his last relationship with an Eldorran heiress ended on amicable terms after two years. Based on my interactions with him so far, he seemed friendly and genuine.