“Spencer.” It was a warning. Stop now.
“Believe me, you think I want to feel this? I feel sick to my stomach. I’m so confused, but I can’t ignore it anymore. Today made me realize how fast life can be taken away and how much of my life is for others. I feel I’ve lost who I am and what I really want. I’m walking down this road that I don’t think I even want to be on.” I croaked, the admittance ash on my tongue, bitter and harsh. “I hate myself because I should be happy. I have what everyone wants, and I’m miserable.” The words wouldn’t stop flowing from my mouth. “This morning I found out my uncle has gambled away our entire fortune, my cousin was forced into military camp, my best friend pretty much doesn’t like me anymore, but you know what hurt the worst? When I saw Hazel come out of your room…”
Lennox leaned back on the wall, his hands scouring at his face, a low growl vibrating up his chest.
“You have every right to be with her, and I have no right to be upset.”
“Fuckin’ ironic.” A spiteful laugh juddered from him. “You know why I was even with her? Because of you.”
“Me?”
“After your little striptease…” he spat, stepping into me. “Fuck, do you know how hard it was to walk away? To not touch you? You were everything I couldn’t and shouldn’t want and everything I did. I needed to forget you, to do anything to not turn back around and crawl into bed with my mate’s girl. With my charge.” He growled through his teeth, pushing me back into the wall. “I can’t have you. So no, you don’t get to judge who I fuck so I don’t think of you.”
Desire bolted up my thighs like a firecracker, surging through me, my body curving into him, my hips brushing against his.
“Stop,” he snarled.
“I shouldn’t have these feelings. I shouldn’t be so aware when you enter a room. My heart shouldn’t beat like crazy, nor should my skin flush when you touch or look at me.”
“Spen-cer…”
“I thought you were all about being honest!” I dared, and I couldn’t seem to stop. Pushing. Forcing. “I’m being honest.”
“You just went through a life and death—”
“Don’t do that.” I pushed at his chest, but he didn’t move an inch. “Don’t belittle me or my feelings.”
“I’m not.” He pinned me harder against the wall, the outline of his cock pressing into me, flooding me with need. “I’m trying to save you.”
“Save me?” I snorted.
“From doing something you can’t take back.” His physique completely engulfed mine, creating a longing to be consumed entirely by him, the desire so strong, tears built up behind my lids.
It would be so easy. One zipper, one slip of fabric…
“Words are easy to brush away. To deny later because of the emotional circumstances.” He pulled back enough that my hips instantly reached out for him, craving his friction against me. “Actions are harder to ignore.”
He took another step away from me. I felt empty. Cold. He was trying to protect me. I understood that, but I no longer felt in control. I didn’t care what was right or wrong. Sensible or foolish. This felt more important than that. If I didn’t act, I never would. I’d become a robot in my own life.
My hand shoved into his chest, slamming him against the wall, my pulse thumping in my ears.
He huffed out of his nose, watching me as I went up on my toes. “Spencer,” he breathed. A final warning.
My mouth grazed his, nipping softly at his top lip. A deep rumble came from him, his hands gripping the back of my head, his fingers digging in roughly, igniting electricity through my blood. He held my face in place for a beat, his gaze hungry and severe.
His mouth crashed down on mine. Brutal. Demanding. Feral. Burning. Everything in me detonated. I wanted more. I wanted him to consume all of me. Destroy what was left.
Boomboomboom.
The sound jarred through the tiny space, and the door tore open, flooding the dark closet with harsh light. I flinched with the assault.
“Got them,” an emergency crew member holding a crowbar called behind him, smirking. “They’re fine.”
“My lady? Lennox?” Dalton popped up right behind the man. “You guys…” He stopped, his gaze racing between us, his mouth slamming shut.
Oh god.
Lennox yanked away from me in a blink, turning for the door, his shoulders expanding as he went into bodyguard mode.
It was too late. Dalton saw us.
“We’re all right.” Lennox’s voice sounded firm. Formal. “How are the King and Prince?”
“They are fine.” Dalton’s gaze stayed on him. “Worried about Ms. Sutton, of course.”
“Of course.” Lennox motioned for me to exit first, not a bit of emotion in his face or voice. “My lady?”
A few crew members grabbed my arms, helping me through the rubble that used to be the kitchen. Blood and guts were smeared over debris, yellow tape, and body bags, while police and government officials crawled like ants over every inch. Staring at a body being zipped up in a morgue bag, I realized how lucky I was. Would I be one of those if Lennox hadn’t hidden us in a storage room?
EMT’s waited for me on the other side of the room to check me out.
“Glad to see you are all right,” Dalton said to me, his attention flashing to the tie wrapped around my head. “Theo was so worried about you. He wanted to be here. But as you know, he couldn’t. Protocol.”
“Of course.” Shame lodged in my throat, sticking me like a pin cushion, though I couldn’t fight the slight unreasonable irritation that he wasn’t here. I knew as the prince he couldn’t, but nothing would stop me from being there for him if he had almost been blown up into pieces. Protocol or not. “Thank you.”
A sadness pinched his mouth, but oddly it didn’t feel judgmental, which made me feel worse. “The EMTs are waiting to take you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s procedure. No matter how you feel, royals have to be cleared by a doctor.”
“I’m not royal.”
Dalton’s dipped his head. “You are to the house.”
Fuck. Just stab me in the heart.
I moved forward, numbly letting the EMT’s put me into an ambulance and rush me off to a hospital.
“Ma’am?” A woman in the back leaned over me, worry striking her face. “Why do you smell like bleach? Did you ingest any?”
“No.” I laughed, clutching the tie she had ripped off my head, needing the bit of comfort. A digital clock attached to one of the machines blinked at me: 12:02 PM. The next day.
Right now, I was supposed to be in Lord William’s office, begging for a reprieve for my family.
“Whatever you have to do, Spencer. Because if you don’t make it, or you try and go around me and tell your fiancé, I will not only tell the press about your family woes, and let me say not all actions of your family were legal, but I will also tell them about your affair with your bodyguard.”
I burst out laughing. Crazed. Wild. “There’s no affair!”
It was like William saw what was coming.
Predicted…
The cruel ironic twist.
Chapter 3
The IV rehydrating me dripped into my veins, the muffled sounds of staff and patients in the hall tapping at my semi-conscious mind. Exhaustion muffled Heidi’s incessant yammering on her mobile in the corner, her heels clicking over the tile back and forth as she juggled calls and emails.
I was in a fancy private room far away from “normal” civilians, located in the private section of the hospital, the Royal House sending my assistant and other PR staff to “manage” the situation. I understood Theo wouldn’t be able to come to the hospital either. It would be a logistical nightmare for everyone, but the hole in my chest didn’t seem to care. And Heidi’s treatment of me, as if my getting hurt was a huge nuisance to the house, didn’t help.
At first, I could do nothing but watch the news play on the large flat screen on the wall,
carnage looping over and over on the telly. The reports were exactly what Lennox said—suicide bombers trying to take out the cruel dictator ruling their land.
Did they succeed?
Karma seemed to protect the truly evil, plucking off the ones around. Their leader may be injured but well enough to already be on a private jet heading back to his country. He lived while almost everyone around him—innocent hotel staff and his own bodyguards—were killed.
Twenty-seven lives gone. And how easily Lennox and I could have been added to the list.
Just a few seconds, and we could be dead…
Tightness clutched my lungs, stirring me on the bed with terror.
The doctor said I seemed fine, in shock, but physically all right. He still wanted me to stay until all the results were back, not willing to take a chance on letting me go prematurely and then finding something wrong. The press would eat him alive for risking the Prince’s girlfriend.
The news of the royal family being part of this terrorist attack was huge news, and even more so after they learned I was trapped inside. They even caught footage of me being put into the ambulance. They licked up the juicy drama of me entombed in the rubble of the hotel like cream. I suddenly became the hottest news around.
The media darling.
“No, she will not do a private interview with your paper when only the other day you called her the ‘Sham Princess!’” Heidi’s snotty tone clipped loudly in the room. “I guess this is a lesson for you guys to be careful what you write about the royal family.” She pulled the cell away from her ear, shaking her head. “Bastard.”
Instantly, it buzzed again with another call.
“Celina.” She chirped into the phone. “How are you, darling?” Her tone totally switched, oozing with arse-kissing fakeness. “I know. So heroic. What she went through was terrifying, epic, and heartbreaking. What a fabulous article for Harper’s Bazaar, don’t you think?
Ugh. I rolled onto my side away from her, trying to shut her out.
“Get the fuck out.” A deep voice thundered from the doorway behind me, my eyes bolting open, but I didn’t move, freezing at hearing Lennox’s demand race across the room.
“Celina, can you hold on a moment? Thank you.” Heidi spoke sweetly to her, then in a beat, her tone shifted. “You do not tell me what to do. You are a bodyguard, and you certainly do not give me orders.”
“I do if it has to do with her welfare.” I didn’t have to see him to know his expression was tight, anger humming in the air. “Take your phone call outside.” It was not a suggestion.
I heard her huff, heels clacking over the floor and out the door, her voice continuing on the cell down the hallway.
My heart thumped in my chest, not one muscle budging, while I tried to keep my breath even.
He moved farther into the room, and I could feel him looking at me, his gaze boring into my back, tingling my skin. It was impossible to ignore his presence, to try to deny what had happened between us. He was right. Words I could have waved off, saying the intense situation made me say things I didn’t mean, and he gave me every chance to stop. But I crashed forward. It was me who pushed.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dalton’s voice muttered quietly from the doorway, locking my jaw together.
“My job,” Lennox replied objectively. “She’s still my responsibility, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m protecting my charge.”
“Don’t give me your shite, Lennox,” Dalton said briskly. “You can lie to yourself, but not me.”
“What? You know me now?”
“Yeah, I do. I’ll admit I didn’t like you at first, but that changed. I respect you, Lennox…too much to let you do this to yourself.”
Silence.
“She’s with Theo.”
“I know.”
“Then let me ask again. What are you doing?”
A heavy sigh came from Lennox. “I don’t know.”
“Jesus, mate. She is not one you can fool around with.”
“I know that,” Lennox barked back. “Nothing is going on.”
“I know what I saw…and that wasn’t nothing.”
A frustrated growl rolled through the room. Through my lashes, I could see a hint of Lennox, leaning back against the wall, his hand scrubbing at his face and over his head.
“You need to get your head on straight. Get it together. Like you don’t already have enough problems to deal with.” Dalton said. “This one is off limits, Lennox. You know I care about you. I also care about her and Theo. Nothing good can come from this.”
“You think I want this?” he hissed. “This is the last thing I ever wanted.”
“I get it…believe me. I know what it’s like to want something you can’t have.” Dalton exhaled, a sadness in his declaration. I wondered if he was talking about Eloise. There was more between them than simply him guarding her. “But she’s not yours, and she won’t ever be. You need to come to terms with that now. Because I will take you off her security. She comes first. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
“Yes! And her protection has always come first. I resent you even questioning that.” Ire bounded from him. “This was a slip. A mistake. She was almost killed. Things get jumbled in situations like that. It will never happen again.”
“Make sure it doesn’t. She will soon be more than a girlfriend. She’ll be a princess. I need to trust you understand she is completely forbidden. This has no good ending for you. If even a hint of this gets out and with your situation and past…”
“I. Get. It.” Lennox seethed through his teeth.
There were a few beats of silence.
“Have you gotten checked out yet? That cut looks bad.”
“I’m fine. Not the first bombing I’ve gone through.”
“If you need to go talk to someone…”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Dalton replied, not sounding like he believed him. “Theo wanted me here, anyway. I’ll watch her. Why don’t you take a walk?”
Lennox started to speak.
“That isn’t an option,” Dalton sternly cut in. “Take a walk. Go see her. Get your priorities and head on straight.”
See her?
Lennox sighed, muttering under his breath. “Call me if anything changes.”
“Yeah.”
“Even if they find a scratch they didn’t see before.”
“I get it. Now, go.”
Lennox grunted under his breath, his shoes hitting the tile, slowly fading away.
Slip. Mistake. Stabs of rejection and hurt twisted in my chest, squeezing my lids together. Did I regret kissing him now we were out and back in the real world? I wanted to. I mean, I really, really wanted to. Guilt consumed me, but I couldn’t deny if the situation happened all over again, I would do it again. I hoped my feelings would change once we were out, but like most truths, once this came to light, it wouldn’t go away.
I had feelings for Lennox, feelings that couldn’t be brushed aside.
I loved Theo, but something had woken up inside me, and I didn’t think I could go back. As if I lived years in that storage closet, I came out a different person, realizing my feelings for Theo might not be enough.
What I had to give up might be too steep a price for me.
“Spencer!” My name was howled through the evening like a war chant, lodging fear deep into my chest. The house PR gave me talking points, encouraging me to speak to the press and show how amazing and strong I was.
I felt anything but.
Weak and shaky, my legs wobbled on the heels Heidi had brought me to wear, rubbing against the torn skin on the pads of my feet. The PR team had sent a whole outfit for me to wear leaving the hospital, so I would look put together for the cameras crowding the other side of the street, snapping and taping my every move.
Dalton took one look at me and got me into the car instead, leaving Heidi bubbling with i
rritation on the sidelines to deal with the paparazzi.
“Thank you,” I whispered when he got me settled in, his empathic coffee brown eyes finding mine.
“You don’t need to deal with that. What you’ve been through…you need to be home and feel safe. Plus, he’d kill me if I let any of those bloodsuckers get near you. He told me to bring straight home.”
“Who’d kill you? Theo?”
“No.” Dalton looked away. “Not Theo.”
“Oh.”
I didn’t ask where Lennox went, but I was constantly looking for him, wanting to see him, which was exactly why I didn’t ask. Dalton was right, this had no good ending. For either of us.
On the entire drive home, cars and motorcycles chased us, trying to get pictures of me, hounding the car until we pulled into the private drive, the pursuit over.
Theo ran down the steps the moment Dalton opened the car door, helping me out of the SUV.
“I am so glad you are all right.” Theo’s arms wrapped tightly around me. “I was going crazy here, not able to get to you.” He clutched my face, tipping it back. I cringed as his palms rubbed at my tender flesh. The blast had caused a burn over my skin, which was really starting to register. “You know I wanted to be there, right? But protocol—”
I was starting to hate that word. “I understand.” I nodded, taking his hands off my face and stepping back.
“You don’t know scared I was, knowing you were back there when the bomb went off. The thought of anything happening to you…” He drew me back in, crushing me to his chest, his lips brushing my hair. “I love you so much, Spencer.”
My stomach burned at his declaration. I thought seeing him would make me feel better. Set everything right in my head. My heart.
Back to normal.
Back in love.
I knew we needed to talk, but right then, the demand to close my eyes and sleep for days took over everything. The trauma my body had gone through had really set in, the adrenaline wearing off. My bones ached, my head throbbed, my skin burned, and my muscles screamed in agony.
The doctor released me with heavy painkillers and his personal number to call him if I started feeling worse. He wanted to keep me overnight, but Heidi said the palace wanted me home. Their personal doctor would be on call for me.
Royal Command (Royal Watch Book 2) Page 3