The only place I felt safe from the world was my villa. I clicked on a lamp in my living room and made my way upstairs to shower and change. Sutton had my panties, and the evidence of what his mouth did to me still lingered on the inside of my thighs. I stood in the quiet, with nothing other than the steady stream of the shower running and my thoughts. Steam swirled through the air and began to fog up the mirror where I stared at soft red marks the size of Sutton’s fingerprints. They dotted the skin on my neck and hips, reminding me that I could wash his scent off my skin. I could force myself not to think of him. But his bruises were still there, on my skin and inside my soul. For a split second, I thought we could force the hands of fate.
I was wrong.
If there were any way for me to stay in pajamas and fuzzy slipper socks while hiding out in here reading books and wasting my days away living in someone else’s world, I would have been all over that.
After a steaming hot shower, I lit a candle and curled up in my favorite chair with a fresh cup of hot tea, letting the lavender and chamomile soothe me the way a mother calmed a sick child. For the longest time, I sat in silence. No television. No music. No books. Just me, a beige comfy chair, and walls the color of soft sand. They reminded me of my life. Everything felt like grains of sand slipping through my fingers. Everything I thought I knew seemed so far away now. Leaving Torryn always seemed like a fresh start, an escape. Now it felt like a death sentence.
The things he said about Dad couldn’t be true. My father was a simple farmer, not the leader of a rebellion. I knew him better than anyone—other than Mama. Surely, I would know if all that was going on under my own roof. Right? If Dad truly hated the king as much as everyone claimed, there had to be a good reason, and the only person who knew that reason was on his deathbed and out of his mind.
A light tap on the door pulled me from my thoughts. I set my tea on the end table, the ceramic mug clunking against the polished wood. The rubber grips on my slipper socks stuck to the hardwood floor as I moved to answer the door.
“You weren’t in the library…” Keaton stood in the doorway. His black V-neck T-shirt clung to his chest while his jeans hung low and sexy on his hips. He left his hair down today, so the chocolate brown curls wisped across his forehead and over one eye. Any other day, I would have taken my finger and brushed it out of the way. Today, I didn’t have the energy… or the right.
“I took the day off.”
The air between us was stiff and awkward, nothing like it used to be, and I felt to blame. I did this. I would apologize to Keaton but that would mean I was sorry for what I did. I wasn’t. I was only sorry he had to see it.
“Do you feel okay? Are you sick?” His gaze slid down my body, calculating, studying. I never walked around in my pajamas, and I hadn’t missed spending a day in the library since the king put me here. “Is it the prince? Did he hurt you? If he fucking hurt you, Katie I will—”
I held a hand in the air to cut him off. “I feel fine. I’m okay. And this has nothing to do with the prince.” My stomach tightened at the mention of Sutton.
I wish you could be just Sutton and I could be just Katie.
Keaton leaned against the door frame and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t know if I ever told you this, but…” He paused then his eyes glinted with a smirk. “I’m allergic to bullshit.”
“Good thing I’m not a bull.” I laughed, hoping it sounded genuine.
He stared at me for a second before speaking. A week ago, I would have known exactly what was going on behind his bright eyes. Now I didn’t have a clue. “Fine. If you say you’re good, I have to believe you.” He reached into his pocket to pull out a tiny piece of paper and held it in front of him. “I just came to give you this.”
The sun was starting to set, and the cool evening breeze floated in from the water. The piece of paper fluttered in the wind. “What is it?” I asked as I took the note.
He pushed off the door frame, standing over me while he tucked his hands back into his pockets. “I found out who sent the email.”
I’d almost completely forgotten about the email.
“I don’t think this concerns me anymore.” I held the paper out, offering for him to take it back.
Threats and rebellions and secrets were the last thing I wanted to think about right now.
He glanced down at it briefly, then back up at me, then tilted his head to the side. Something in his tone made my insides churn. “I think it does.”
I unfolded the paper and glanced at the name. “Jonathon Cirillo,” I read out loud. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“He’s the man who bought your farm.”
The wind breathed another breath, gentle, but this one sent a chill across my skin. “This can’t be right. I met him. He’s so peaceful and kind.” Just like my father was. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. Look, Katie. I know I told you to stay away from this, but I was wrong. I think…” He almost looked nervous. Keaton was never nervous. “I think you should talk to him. I’ll go with you if you want.”
What did I have to lose? If Sutton was telling the truth about my dad, if there was an army out there with my father’s name on it, maybe this guy could tell me why.
“Okay. Tomorrow. We’ll go see him first thing in the morning.”
His hard face softened, his eyes gleaming like I just told him the secret meaning of life. “Meet me in the East Garden. And Katie…” He pulled his hands from his pockets and turned to walk away. He looked out over the South Garden then threw a smug look over his shoulder. “You made the right choice. You’re better off without him.”
The next morning, I went to the kitchen hoping Mrs. Fletcher hadn’t tossed my brownies in the trash thinking I abandoned them. I tossed and turned all night. My mind was bruised and my heart was brittle, but I refused to break. I listened to the waves and pictured Sutton’s smile and the way we laughed and teased in the Billiards Room, the way he finally began to open up. I let the memory of his touch take me back to a place where my happiness and hope wasn’t poisoned by secrets.
Morning dew glinted off the grass as I walked through the garden. The sun smiled at the earth and the clean sweet scent of freshly bloomed flowers mixed and blended with the salty aroma of the sea. All the darkness from yesterday splintered away. Maybe today I would get answers. Maybe those answers could help me move on, help us move on.
Mrs. Fletcher’s eyes caught mine the minute I walked into the kitchen. The benevolence in her gaze made my heart hammer in my chest. Madeline stopped humming and looked up at me like she found out my dog just died—only I didn’t have a dog. The sudden hushed conversations and careful glances of the rest of the staff did nothing to calm my racing heart.
Maybe I looked like crap. I ran a hand through my hair then tucked a lock behind my ear. Did I look like crap? Or did they know? Had someone seen us yesterday? Panic gripped my chest. Oh God. They knew.
“Good morning. I came to salvage my brownies.” I walked through the kitchen to the counter where I left the pan yesterday only to find it had been moved. “That is if you haven’t chalked them up to a lost cause and thrown them away.” I laughed but it sounded more like a dying cat, not at all convincing.
“Oh no, dear. They’re right over here. I cut them and wrapped them in plastic wrap for you. Just as fresh as they were out of the oven.” She smiled but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Madeline silently collected shavings from a bar of dark chocolate in a plastic bowl. No snarky comments about my nonexistent love life or fairy tale endings. What was going on?
Three men with broad shoulders and arms the size of tree trunks carried a round table from the storeroom in back of the kitchen. They stopped just before the door, one of them turning to Mrs. Fletcher.
“Where does the prince want this again?” he questioned, his bicep bulging as he perched one side of the table on a broad shoulder.
“In his antechamber. Next to the grand piano.”
She glanced straight from him to me, a world of understanding in her eyes.
I grabbed a handful of plastic wrap covered brownies and turned to the staff. “Why does everyone keep looking at me like that? What is going on?”
Madeline finally looked up from shaving her chocolate. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
She set the shaver down on the countertop next to the bowl full of strips of curled chocolate. “Prince Sutton requested an intimate dinner in his private chambers.” Her face twisted. “With Julianna Bellarosa.”
My stomach fell.
My heart felt as though it were beating outside of my body, a thundering drum for the entire room to hear.
The temperature in the room fell to rigid at best.
Intimate dinner. Next to the grand piano.
The words tore through me like a gust of wind through a pile of leaves.
The girl from the other day who peeled potatoes gave me a shy smile. “If it means anything, we were all really rooting for you.”
Rooting for me?
“He was different with you,” she continued. “It would’ve been nice to have a friendly face on the throne.”
There were so many things wrong with that statement. For starters, it meant they didn’t hate me, which was the complete opposite of what I spent way too many sleepless nights worrying about. Second, Mama loved the queen, which meant she had to be decent. Right? And yes, Sutton gave me butterflies, except you know, in my vagina. But queen? That was a stretch. Even if he didn’t have a date. An intimate date. In his private chambers. The same chambers where he took possession of my body… and my soul.
A pot of tea whistled, and I flinched. My eyes moved from the potato girl to Madeline to Mrs. Fletcher. “Thank you for wrapping these. I really need to go. I’m going to be late for a meeting.”
When I was little, Dad used to take me to the pier. The first time we rode the Ferris wheel, we got stuck at the top. I later learned that all the cars got stuck at the top. How else would they let other riders on at the bottom? I remember clenching Dad’s hand in mine and tucking my head against his side while he promised me it would be okay. I hated being stuck at the top. After that, I never rode the Ferris wheel again.
This felt a lot like that. I never had a real boyfriend. I kept Keaton at arm’s length. I used fate as a reason to run from Sutton. I realized now that it wasn’t the Ferris wheel that I was afraid of.
It was the fall.
Twenty-Three
Just as he promised, Keaton waited outside the east gate. His typical confident smile greeted me as I walked up to him and handed him a brownie. He eyed my bright blue, knee-length sundress, and his smile widened.
“You know what they say about chocolate,” he said with a wink.
Chocolate is an aphrodisiac.
And Madeline filled a bowl full of it this morning… for Sutton’s intimate dinner. Something sharp curled in my chest, and I tried to put a label on it, on this biting, tearing ache. Thorns. It felt like thorns wrapped around my lungs and ripping me open from the inside out.
Last night, I kept waiting for Sutton to show up at my door with his penetrating gaze and crude words. He never did. And that hurt more than I wanted to admit. Deep down, I knew I probably wouldn’t see him today either. I’d gotten used to his inconvenient interruptions, his broody eyes, and smooth voice. I missed him.
He’s not yours to miss.
Keaton took the brownie, unwrapping it from the plastic wrap and popping half of it into his mouth with one bite. He moaned around the chocolate as he chewed.
“So good, Katie. Always so fucking good.” Words that used to make me feel warm inside now made me feel empty. Because they came from the wrong lips. “Shall we?” he asked, holding out an arm.
I started to answer, but my words got stuck in my throat. So, I silently hooked my arm around his, and we headed for the train.
When we got to the farm, I stopped as we reached the beginning of the long gravel road that led to the house. I’d gone to the farm a few times since I moved to the castle but always as a spectator, never as a visitor. I always stood at the train stop and stared out over the green fields in silence. I never found the courage to cross the road.
“You ready?” Keaton asked.
I sucked in a breath and stared at the dirt road path to the two-story brick home—the only home I’d known since birth.
“Ready.”
The light, spring breeze swept over the fields of green and red, making the crops look as though they were waving at us as we walked by. The sun was already hot enough to warm my skin, and it was barely past breakfast. Every second felt like an eternity and each step seemed like a mile. We never even removed the furniture. All we took was our clothes and personal belongings. Would it still look the same? When we went inside, would it still feel like all those times I flew through the front door after being at Chelsea’s for a weekend?
I looked beyond the crops to the top of a rolling hill where the barn used to sit, and my heart lurched to my throat. I saw the house in the distance standing tall and proud, and none of it felt familiar at all. It only felt like a shrine.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked as we walked.
Keaton chuckled. The sound was easy and light, and it immediately put me at ease. “If you’re going to beg for me to take you back, you should know the answer is yes.”
I laughed, thankful for the interruption in my regularly scheduled program of self-pity. Then I bumped my shoulder against his arm. “I was going to ask if all the guys in the barracks walked around like they just got laid. Or if I just caught them on a good day.”
“Depends on if you call seeing a four-inch dick in a pair of cotton briefs a good day…”
“I don’t even want to know how you know that.”
He laughed again as we rounded the final curve, finally coming face-to-face with my childhood home. The small rose garden in the front that Mama had planted and loved welcomed us with full blooms. It was a house, like any other house. There were rooms and walls and chairs and tables, except this house held my memories, my childhood, my heart. This one was the glue of my very existence. Maybe that was why ever since we left, it felt like I was falling apart. My pulse throbbed, and I struggled to find my breath.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
Keaton’s eyes met mine. His fingers gripped my biceps as he held my gaze. “You can do this.” He moved to stroke my cheek with the back of his fingers. “I got you.”
Before we could knock, the front door swung open. The man I met at the farmer’s market stood on the other side, his smile welcoming and his eyes kind. “Katarina, I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
He used my full name. I didn’t want to be Katarina. Katarina was haunted by the ghosts of her father’s choices. Katie baked brownies in kitchens and tasted the lips of a prince. I just wanted to be Katie.
I held out the rest of the brownies. “They’re nowhere as delicious as the strawberries you gave me, but it was the best I could do.” He accepted the gift with a polite thank you, and an uncomfortable heat crept up my neck when his hand brushed mine—the kind that made me want to curl up and hide inside my own skin.
Wait. Did he say he wasn’t sure I would come?
My eyes narrowed in on him. “How did you know I was coming?”
He paused and for a moment, his jaw tight as he searched my eyes. “I invited you at the farmer’s market, remember?” he said finally. That was true. He did invite me to visit any time, but something about the way he looked at me triggered my Spidey senses. He opened the door all the way and stepped to the side. “Why don’t you come in? We have so much to talk about.”
We can start with why you’re sending anonymous threats to the king.
A strange awareness washed over me the minute I stepped inside the house. It looked the same, had the same Tuscan gold painted walls and rich brown floors. The same antiqued bronze light fixtures lit the open sp
ace. The wide staircase led to the same loft that overlooked the large living area. I’d walked through this door a thousand times, but this one felt different. This time I felt like a stranger.
Jonathon walked past me and across the living room to a wooden bar on the other side of the room. That’s new. Dad never drank. Neither did Mama. And the only time I did was when Chelsea and I cleansed our souls with a bottle of wine.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked as he reached for a bottle of whiskey and a glass. I shook my head, and he smiled. This one was nowhere near as comforting as the one he offered when I met him the first time. “Have a seat,” he continued, nodding toward the sofa.
I ignored his request. A million questions hovered at the tip of my tongue, so I plucked one out of the air and prayed for answers. “Why did you buy this farm?”
Jonathon and Keaton locked eyes. My heart rate picked up speed as some sort of private conversation bounced between them. The muscles in Keaton’s jaw flexed, but he remained silent.
My gaze bounced from Keaton to Jonathon then back to Keaton as they spoke in their silent code language. “Wait. Do the two of you know each other? Is that how he knew I was coming? Did you tell him? Are we even here about the email or was that all a lie?” I tried to control my breathing, but my questions flew out in frantic bursts anyway.
Please be wrong. Listen to him. He’ll tell you it’s a weird coincidence, that’s all.
Tension flooded the air, skittering across my skin and leaving a trail of goosebumps on my flesh. I rubbed my hand over my bare arms then up to my collarbone, where my fingertips fidgeted with the silver cross.
Crown of Thornes : a modern day royal romance Page 17