Page 36 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

Rafe tried to turn his body to talk to Henry, but I realized he couldn’t because I was gripping his sleeves too tightly for him to move. I attempted to relax my fingers. They weren’t cooperating.

“She’s fine,” Rafe told him. “Can you do me a favor and go see if Miss Brady has a blanket we can use?”

I got a chance to collect myself before he returned. I even finally managed to let go of Rafe’s sleeves. Rafe took the blanket and put it over me. “I’m okay.” My voice sounded creaky. Fortunately, the only person who seemed to notice what had happened was Henry.

And Rafe.

“How did you know?”

Rafe cocked his head. “How did I know that when you stepped into a small, confined space things would go bad?” His voice had the slightest trace of sarcasm, which I probably deserved. He had been there the last time I freaked out like that, and he had been the one to comfort me.

That was also when I’d treated him like my own personal confessional and told him way more than I should have.

Henry kept pushing his glasses up, and I leaned in to whisper to Rafe. “I don’t want him to be scared.”

Nodding, Rafe stood up and went over to Henry, crouching down so they could be eye level. “I should have tested it first,” Henry said.

I pulled the edges of the blanket tightly around me, the cocooning pressure making me feel safer, for some reason. I was starting to feel ridiculous. I knew I had totally overreacted. I wished I didn’t have such horrible claustrophobia, and that I didn’t get totally hysterical and irrational because of it.

“Now you know. Maybe I can help you with it. I bet together we can fix whatever’s wrong with it,” Rafe said.

Henry visibly brightened. “Okay!”

Rafe looked back at me, over his shoulder. “Although we should probably find you a different assistant. Genesis is going to be very busy that night.”

“I didn’t think of that. You’re right.” Henry screwed up his face, like he was concentrating. “I can find somebody else.”

Watching Rafe talk to Henry and smooth over the situation, I could feel the ice around my heart starting to fracture. Little fissures were spreading all over the surface.

It didn’t matter if he was nice or rescued me or was good with children or saved the town’s economy.

What I had to remember and focus on were the lies.

Because the next time I let him in, those fissures would give way and I would fall in and drown.

We didn’t talk about what had happened. I didn’t want to relive it, and Rafe knew me well enough to back off. My days proceeded as normal—school, work, volunteering. Only he was there. All the time. At meals, driving Aunt Sylvia to doctor’s appointments while I was out, clearing our porches and driveway when it snowed, building scenery, sitting at the diner surrounded by people who wanted to talk to him and thank him.

He had pretty much won everybody over.

Except for me.

He was always around, but he didn’t try to have any serious conversations with me. That was the whole point of him coming to Iowa, wasn’t it? To explain why he had done what he did? Part of me was morbidly curious, but the other part didn’t want to think about his reasons or about him.

The second part was failing miserably.

Early Friday morning, there was a knock at my door. Which surprised me, because people didn’t typically just show up. They usually called or texted first. Laddie ran to the door, barking gleefully. He kept jumping up toward the knob, like he wanted to open it himself.

And I couldn’t have been more shocked to find Lemon and her best friend, Kat, standing on my porch.

I grabbed the knob tightly, my other hand flying to my chest. “Rafe’s not here,” I told them. What in the world did they want?

Laddie leapt against the screen door, paws up, tail wagging, tongue hanging out of his mouth.

“We know,” Kat told me. She had dark hair and brown eyes and a smirk that indicated she’d enjoyed surprising me. She was a bit taller than me, while Lemon was a dainty little thing in ridiculous high-heeled boots. “Our bodyguards talked to his bodyguards and we timed our visit for while he’s out running.”

It didn’t surprise me that his bodyguards could perfectly time him coming and going. Rafe’s running routine was common knowledge in our town. His route had become like his own personal mini-parade route, whether or not he realized it. All the women in town lined up at their front windows to watch as he went by.

“I don’t understand why you’re here.”

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