by Ella James
There is a dungeon in the castle. I find out from Pete, the high school student who also happens to be Mora’s nephew. I beg him to take me down there, but he tells me the main entrance was walled off a long time ago, and the only remaining one is in one of the “private rooms”—whatever that means.
I finish my amazing meal and then Pete shows me which areas I can wander through. I spend some time at the grand piano in one of the parlors, then looking at animal heads in the hunt room. I’m not sure if I’m appalled or intrigued to see a lion’s head, and what I’m pretty sure is a leopard head. Probably appalled.
I wander through a massive library I’ve never seen before, with such tall floor-to-ceiling shelves, you have to climb giant ladders to get to all the books. I wonder which rare books are housed here, but it’s impossible to tell at a glance.
In another of the office-looking rooms, I find a case of Liam’s sports trophies. Back upstairs, I linger outside his room for a few minutes before going into my own. I’d really love to go lie on his bed and smell the Liam smell, but I’m not going to invade his privacy.
In my own bed, I snuggle up with Grey and contemplate calling Amelia. In the end, I don’t. I’m not sure what I’d tell her.
I’m borderline obsessed with Liam, and I’m thinking of just dating him without saying a word about this child until I start to show. By then he’ll be in love with me and then we’ll all live happily ever.
Yeahhhh. I lost some marbles on Pirate Island.
In a moment of weakness, I follow the instructions scrawled on a sheet of paper on my nightstand and connect my iPhone to the castle’s internet network. Then I navigate the browser on my phone to TMZ. I can’t bear to read the articles with my name in the headline, but I’m there for long enough to note the absence of those pictures.
Good.
I wonder if the baby is a girl, what will I tell her about what happened between Bryce and me. The sad thing is, I know she’ll know. With the media the way it is, and my family in the spotlight, nothing can stay hidden. If the baby is a boy, it’s just as bad. I wish the story didn’t exist at all. That it had never happened.
I sigh, and Grey licks my arm.
“I need to tell Liam, don’t I?”
Grey licks his paws.
I get off the bed and walk out onto the balcony, smelling the fragrant ocean air and feeling lost and slightly scared.
It doesn’t matter what he says, I tell myself. He might run the other way, and that’s okay. I’ll do this on my own. I’m strong. I can handle the media. I can raise a child to be a good adult.
I should tell Liam tonight, I think. Just get it done.
In my anxiety, I paint my fingernails and toenails mint green, pluck my eyebrows, sip some ginger ale, and walk around the room noting details like the Buddhist books on Liam’s mom’s book shelf and the tiny construction paper card resting underneath a teacup on a table.
I open it, and in a child’s large, clumsy script, it reads: I LOVE YOU, MUMMY. You’ve my faforite!
By the time I make it outside to the castle lawn, my eyes are damp from crying. On the side lawn, I find a tire swing of all things, and test the rope before I sit inside and start to swing.
Liam
I’m not having Lucy go—not yet. I told Heath that, and eventually he let up, saying only, “I don’t know about you, bro.”
As we drive back onto castle grounds, I catch him staring at me.
“What?”
He shrugs.
“That’s what I thought.” I give him a glare, and Heath arches his brows.
“That girl…”
“You better treat her right.”
“Or?”
I grit my teeth, and my cousin chuckles. “Like I said—that girl. She’s got you all fucked up.”
“Says the asshole who almost got asked to leave the ball for cutting in on Kate Middleton three times last year.”
“Whatever, man. I didn’t cut in on Wills.”
I give him a damning stare, and Heath has the good grace to shut his pie-hole. When the car is quiet again—just filled with the Drake noise my cousin loves—I realize I feel almost good.
I’ve done my latest dirty deed, so I feel a little better. For now, anyway.
Health and I get out of the car and head in different directions. He’s going to get ready for the party he’s having here tonight. I’m off to find Lucy.
I find her attacking my kick-boxing bag and watch her for a minute from the trees. She’s fierce. Fierce and beautiful. I step closer to her, watching her dark hair fly all around her shoulders.
“You’re really going at that.”
She jumps, then whirls, shrieking.
I duck, holding my hands up.
“Sorry!” She laughs. “I was in my zone.”
“I see that.” I grin, and she jumps playfully around me with her hands raised in fight stance. Then she straightens up and wipes her brow. “So… Did your thing go okay?”
“Okay.”
“Well welcome home.” She winks.
“I got a text from Pete. You want to see the castle dungeon?”
“YES! You know I do.”
Stacy, one of the attendants, brings a towel and some water for Lucy.
“I’m so gross and sweaty,” she complains as Stacy saunters off.
“Sweaty, yes. Gross, definitely no.”
I take Lucy’s hand and lead her inside. We go upstairs, into my rooms, into the study by the bathroom, then through the tiny wooden door and down two flights of thick, stone steps before we reach a massive, low-ceilinged space divided by partial walls dotted with manacles and chains.
“Oh my God!” Lucy’s jaw drops. “It really is a dungeon.”
“I thought of having it closed off.”
“Oh, no way.” She takes a few steps toward some rusty-looking chains. “This is historical.”
“The history of the place is terrible.”
“Do I dare to ask?”
I lift my eyebrows. “Do you?”
“I kind of want to know. It’s creepy, but it’s interesting. C’mon,” she prods. “Tell me.”
I sigh. “Remember how I told you the history of my family? How there were a few different clans? Well, there was a skirmish with another clan not long after my family became designated royal, and the king’s oldest son, Winston, a five year old, was killed. The king imprisoned five adult men from this other clan here and tortured them for five weeks, one week for each year of his dead son’s life.”
“Holy Hello Kitty.” Her eyes canvass the room. “Then he let them go?”
I look down before holding her gaze. “Of course not.”
“He killed them.”
“He did.”
“That’s pretty terrible.”
“I don’t like that it’s down here. As a kid I had dreams about it.”
“Geez, of course you did.”
I point at the nearest wall. “See these rivulets in the stone? Water would run down from the irrigation system upstairs, keeping the prisoners alive.”
She steps closer to the worn, stone wall. “Wow…”
“Have I scared you off yet?”
“No.” She grips my hand. “What kind of king do you think you would be, Liam?”
“Would be?”
“Will be. But would be, if you had all the power like those early kings.”
I shrug. “Probably a bored one. Have you ever heard of ennui?”
“I think I have, actually. It’s where rich people get bored, right? But I’m saying like, do you think you’d be good or bad: a good king or a bad one?”
I lift my shoulders. “What do you think?”
“You’d be good. I really think so.”
Her hand squeezes mine, then she lets me go and walks around behind me. I feel her fingers in my hair, and then she pulls the elastic band out. She runs her fingers through my too-long mane and steps around in front of me.
“Yep.”
“Y
ep what?”
She tilts her head. “I can tell you’re good at heart.”
“Because of my hair?” I’m smiling as I smash my hand over her face. Lucy takes it in her own small hands, then brings it to her mouth so she can kiss my palm. “You seem happier than earlier today,” she tells me as she looks into my eyes.
I want to ask her why she thought I wasn’t happy earlier, but it’s not smart to shift the conversation that way: to my unhappiness.
I make a mental note to practice better discretion, then I wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go back upstairs,” I murmur, pulling her against me.
“Sold.” Her arms encircle my waist for a small moment. Then she tips her forehead against my chest and nuzzles me.
I usher Lucy up the stairs first. As she moves, I’m not sure where to look. Her ass is perfect. Her back is so small and narrow. Her neck is soft and smooth, her nape begging for my teeth and tongue.
She spends a few minutes looking around the study, running her hand over the spines of ancient books and leaning lightly against the back of a gigantic leather arm chair before wandering into my room.
We end up kissing, with her perched on the side of my bed and me standing between her legs. When she draws back to get her breath, I step in closer and pull her slender torso her up against me. “God, you’re beautiful.” My eyes close as I inhale near her neck. “I love having you close.”
I pause when the words come out. Did I really fucking say that?
“I like being close.” She kisses my throat. “Better to do this…” She kisses my cheek, and then my lips. I can feel myself reacting. Getting hard for her.
She rubs her hand over me. “Crown jewels,” she murmurs, smirking.
“Just me.”
“I like that better.”
We wind up tangled in my linens, Lucy’s hand in my pants, my eyes shut as I try to fuck her fingers.
“Oh shit…”
“I want to make you come like this,” she whispers. “Just a hand job…”
So that’s what she does.
I come in her hand and lie there with my eyes shut, feeling…strange. She’s in the wash room when I realize why.
It’s been a while since I fucked around with the same woman more than once or twice in a row. All summer, I avoided repeats. Because I knew I didn’t need entanglement.
But here I am, lying on my own bed, comfortable and sated, listening to the water run inside my bathroom, looking forward to seeing her step out of it.
I push myself up on my elbows, as if changing positions will make me feel less…off.
Lucy emerges from the bathroom at that moment, looking smug and happy.
“I haven’t had that much fun with my hands in quite a while.”
I can’t help smiling back at her. “Come here…”
She climbs up on my bed and sits cross-legged in front of me. I lean forward, reaching into her shirt so I can tease her nipple.
“Liam,” she gasps.
“Lie down, Lucille.”
Her breasts are perfect. Creamy and full, with sensitive nipples that peak as I run my tongue over them. I take my time sucking them both, then slide my hand inside her pants.
“Liam…” Her hand closes around my wrist. “I just worked out.”
“And?”
She can’t say more, because she’s panting when my fingers find her soft, slick folds.
I rub my thumb over her clit and push one finger, then another, into her hot cunt. I love the way her knees draw up and press against me, how she groans and lifts her hips.
“Oh God…”
“That’s right.”
I see the color rising in her cheeks… The way she tips her head back. God, I want to kiss her throat. Instead I give her what I know she really needs, pumping in and out while Lucy thrusts against me, then comes as she screams my name.
She sits up, laughing, before I draw my hand out of her pants.
“What’s funny?”
She grins, looking radiant. “I’ve never been so loud! You make me crazy.”
“I like you that way.”
I move off her and she clamps her legs together. “God. It’s so true.” She shuts her eyes and curls up on her side. She yawns. “I need to get up…”
Instead she falls asleep. I run a bath for her and drape a sheet over her body, buzzing downstairs for some bath salts before I text Heath.
Still having people over?
Hell yea
What time?
8 or 9
Usual suspects?
Yeah. Don’t worry, I got the staff prepped.
Ha, not worried.
It’s been for fucking ever since Heath threw a big bash. He gets into these modes where he likes being around people all the damn time, and it takes him forever to run himself into the ground. After the polo wins, he wants to cut loose. More so than his usual. Our usual. Because it’s usually me too, isn’t it?
It doesn’t seem as appealing with Lucy here.
I think over the guest list, from the polo team to the many women who will flock here later tonight, trying to think if anyone will cause trouble. Not just for me, but for Lucy, too.
I wonder if I should take her somewhere else for the night. Somewhere it can be just the two of us. I pull on my robe just as Beth knocks on my door, handing me the bath salts when I answer. I see her gaze flit to the bed, and Lucy, still curled up asleep. I’m surprised when she looks back at me with a knowing smile. I can’t help scowling.
What does she know?
“Lucy…” I shake her shoulder.
She jumps up with a gasp.
“Hey…” I smile. “It’s just me.”
“Holy hell!” She covers her eyes. “I was dreaming about prairie dogs.”
I can’t help a roar of laughter. “Prairie dogs?”
“Yes! They’re so cute and little but they have these teeth…” She shudders, draws the sheet around herself.
I pinch her arm. “Little biting teeth?”
“Yes.” She draws up in a ball. “Don’t bite me with prairie dog teeth.” I chuckle, and she yawns.
I throw her over my shoulder and carry her into the bathroom.
“You think I’m dirty?”
“Oh, I know you are.”
I set her down in the tub, and Lucy sinks into the bubbles, stirring tendrils of steam. With her dark hair waving around her shoulders, she looks like a goddess—or a witch.
I hand her the bath salts, and she pours some in the water.
“Mmmm.” She inhales slowly. “These smell amazing. Lavender?” She picks the bottle up and squints at its label. “Lavender vanilla. Even better.”
I swallow, forcing a smile. “So—tonight. My cousin is having the party here tonight. You want to go somewhere else?”
“Do you?”
“It’s your choice. You’re my guest.”
She splashes me. “Get in the tub with me. We’ll both keep our hands to ourselves. We’ll just talk like we’re friends.”
I arch a brow at her, not sure if I believe we can manage. I know I shouldn’t get in, but of course, I do. I step out of my boxer-briefs, set my robe aside, and sink into the giant tub across from her.
“I think this is the first request I’ve gotten to get into a bath with a woman.”
She splashes me. And then she wants to wash my hair. When she’s finished, and I’m feeling hot and drunk from relaxation, she asks questions. Lots of questions.
How old was I when I threw my first party? (Thirteen—at boarding school).
How old was I when I lost my virginity? (Also thirteen—and also at school).
What’s my favorite food? (Lamb chops).
Favorite candy? (Butterscotch).
Favorite band? (Rolling Stones).
Favorite season? (Fall).
Favorite high school memory? (Covert whiskey shots in my room at school with Dec and a few other guys).
Favorite animal? (Elephant).
&
nbsp; “Wow, really?”
I smile. “Really. Why?”
“I don’t know. I thought you’d say the cheetah or a tiger or something.”
“Elephants are smart. They’re empathetic.”
“Are they?” she asks.
“Yeah. They’re really beautiful animals. You should meet one sometime.”
Lucy gets a good laugh out of that. By the time we get out of the bath, my hands and feet look like prunes, and I’ve told Lucy what feels like almost everything about myself—except the one thing that I can’t.
Twenty-Five
Lucy
“Favorite book?”
I started this massive question and answer session as a way of working my way toward asking if he’s ever had a pregnancy scare. So I can learn how best to bring up our pregnancy reality.
I don’t think before I ask his favorite book.
His eyes are on mine, but when I ask the question, he shifts his gaze down to the surface of the water.
“I don’t really know,” he says, looking up into my eyes after a moment. “I recently started using Audible. I like political thrillers I think. And books about space.”
“Space?”
He nods. “Like outer space and space ships.”
“Oh—nonfiction?”
“Yeah.”
That makes me grin. “That’s pretty dorky, party boy.”
He lifts his brows. “And what do you like, Lucille?”
As he asks, he stretches his leg out so he can rub the outside of my thigh with his foot.
“I like romance. Sometimes mystery. Women’s fiction. Sometimes even sci-fi or spec fiction. I’ve been reading as an escape since I was little. Concord is so tiny, there wasn’t much to do.”
He nods, and I feel comfortable enough to ask something I’ve been wondering. “Is dyslexia genetic? Like…does your father have it?”
He shakes his head.
“Did your mom?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t really…know that much about her,” he says with obvious difficulty.
“Damn. I’m sorry, Liam.”
He inhales slowly. Lets his breath out. “At boarding school, I had tutors. I did math and science with everyone else, but they had a bullshit story why for English and history and things, I studied alone, or with Dec. I got accepted into Oxford because of who I am. I didn’t really have the grades. I stayed there two semesters before…” He shakes his head. “There aren’t enough tutors in the world.”
