Page 33 of Striking
“Okay.” Joss clasps her hands and takes a step back. “Well, that’s my cue to leave. I’ll just let myself out.”
“Joss—” Rhys stops her. “I’m serious. She’s going to need your help.”
“Anything...” Joss offers with a warm smile. “My king.”
Rhys shakes his head as he watches her leave before pulling me against his chest and resting his chin on my head. “I have to be back at the palace in two hours. Have you eaten anything?”
“Not really,” I admit quietly. “I haven’t wanted to leave the rooms. Mrs. Smythe offered to bring me something, but I wasn’t hungry.”
Rhys opens the door and speaks with someone before closing it again, then shrugs out of his suit coat and loosens his tie. He shoves his sleeves up his forearms and sits down, pulling me with him. “Dinner will be brought up soon.”
“Rhys...” I start, not sure what I’m supposed to say.
“I know,” he reassures me. “I know how much I’m asking of you right now, and I know you don’t owe me anything, but please, Bellamy, give me a few days.”
“I have to go home.” The words are quiet as I fit myself into the corner of the couch and face him. I want to be able to look at him while we have this conversation. “I know none of this is great timing, considering... well everything you’re dealing with. But Rhys, I can’t stay here. You have a grandfather to mourn and a country to worry about. I’ll only be in your way. Maybe in six months when everything calms down, you could show me the foundation, and I could help you structure something. I could maybe even help you find the right person?—”
“And what if I’ve found the right person, love?” The breath he takes is palpable, and frustrating because when he says things like that, he looks at me like he might just believe it.
And worse, he makes me want to believe it too.
“You can’t seriously be saying you want to stay married?” And why does that question twist something in my gut? It makes no sense. None of this does.
“Bellamy...” He grabs my fuzzy-sock-covered feet and pulls them into his lap. His thumb works my arch, and damn, that feels good. “I’m telling you that as of about thirteen hours ago, I became head of the Church of Mornea, and it doesn’t recognize divorce.”
I yank my feet away and jump off the couch, then spin on him. “This is a joke, right? The one and only time I’ve ever done something impulsive cannot really have this kind of catastrophic consequences.” I pace in front of the couch, trying to wrap my head around the past forty-eight hours. My spiraling thoughts grow with each second. “I’m going to kill your brother.”
“Atticus?”
“Yes,” I snap. “Atticus. He just had to insist we play darts.”
Rhys stands and gets in my way. “You remember darts?”
I stop and spin, narrowing my eyes. “Yes, I remember darts. I remember everything. I didn’t have amnesia. I had a hangover and then sex-induced brain fog without the payoff of sex.”
Okay, that may not have been the nicest way to say any of that.
“I remember the whole night. I just needed to wake up and shake off the shock of seeing wedding rings on our fingers,” I snap. “Drunk. Not concussed. Though concussed would have been a way better excuse than drunk, horny, and impulsive.”
Rhys laughs, and his eyes go wide, like he didn’t expect that to happen.
Like maybe he thought it would be a long time before he laughed again, and the anger mixing with my hysteria lessens.
He reaches for me, but I step out of reach. “No. You touch me with your stupidly sexy hands, and I do dumb things.”
His lips tilt just a touch on one side, and his eyes crinkle. “My hands are sexy?”
That voice... After everything today, that voice shouldn’t sound like that. It shouldn’t affect me that way. But damn it, it does.
“You’re missing the point,” I argue, but I’m already losing my steam.
“What’s the point, love?”
“We’re married,” I half whisper, half cry. “We’re married, and we’ve only known each other for a few days. We’re married... and we barely know each other.”
I don’t bother saying we’re married and we’re not in love.
We both know that.
