"You know."
"Say it."
"You're impossible."
"Say it, Bailey."
I'm blushing. I can feel it—the heat spreading across my cheeks, down my neck. And he's watching it happen with an intensity that makes my toes curl.
"You," I say, the word barely audible. "I don't want anyone except you. Obviously. As if that wasn't completely clear from the way I—mmph."
He's kissing me again.
I decide I don't mind being interrupted.
LATER, WHEN I'M ALONEin our chambers waiting for Devyn to finish whatever kingly business pulled him away, I curl up in the window seat with my phone.
Force of habit. My thumb hovers over the audiobook app—Olympus Bewitched,my old comfort, my door out when life gets too heavy.
But I'm smiling before I even open it.
Because I'm remembering breakfast yesterday. Devyn's jaw going tight when he saw the cover.Mr. Handsome,he'd repeated, like the words personally offended him.Book obsessions are unhealthy. You should find better coping mechanisms.
He was jealous.
Of a fictional character.
In anaudiobook.
The memory makes something warm bloom in my chest. Devyn Chaleur, mafia king, legendary temper, a man who makes barons cry with a raised eyebrow—threatened by a character named Paul Theodore who exists only in narrated chapters and my imagination.
I used to dream about men like Paul. Patient. Gentle. The kind who'd never make a woman feel small. Safe, I'd thought. That's what I wanted. Someone safe.
But Devyn isn't safe.
Devyn is impatient and demanding and possessive and probably a little bit dangerous. He doesn't make me feel protected from the world.
He makes me feelseenby it.
And maybe—maybe that's better.
I close the app without pressing play.
For the first time in years, I don't need a door out.
I'm exactly where I want to be.
AMOS KARP WALKS TOhis car alone.
The evening air is cool. The Chaleur estate looms behind him, all stone and shadow and centuries of secrets. He'd smiled his way through the interview, played his part, said all the right things.
But his jaw is tight as he slides into the driver's seat.
The new queen is a problem.
Problems can be solved.
Chapter Twelve
