Page 47 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

Rafe got to his feet and started pacing. Whatever surprise or shock he’d initially felt had quickly turned to fury. “I know that I promised you I wouldn’t, but now I’m going to find him and report him to the authorities.”

“For what?” My voice broke. “He never technically abused me. I can’t prove the coal bin thing, and nobody will testify against him. He’ll say I made it up. And you can’t put him in prison for anything else. He hasn’t broken any laws.”

“That you know of.”

“Right.” I reached for the crocheted afghan on the back of the couch, wrapping it around me. “I know because he was always careful.”

“I want to punch something,” Rafe said, his hands clenched as he kept stalking the length of the room. It reminded me of when Aunt Sylvia had taken me to the zoo in Des Moines and there had been this cheetah at the bottom of his cage. He had watched us with intent as he walked from one end of the cage to the other, over and over again. I remembered thinking that keeping all that power and rage bottled up was not a good plan.

It still wasn’t. “Then punch something. But there’s nothing you can do.”

He stopped. “There is something I can do. I’m going to increase security. Have one of the guards move in here and follow you. I will protect you.”

“It’s just my name. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It doesn’t mean he will come after me.” Even as I said the words, they felt hollow and untrue. I was trying to convince myself just as much as I wanted to convince him. I wanted to pretend this had never happened. That it was meaningless and I was fine.

The pacing resumed. “It doesn’t mean he won’t.”

I was still letting John-Paul control me. That postcard was threatening to blow up my entire life. I wasn’t going to live like that. Even if he was planning on coming after me, I wasn’t the same little girl he’d known. I would protect myself.

I didn’t need Rafe to do it.

Remembering my sessions with Pastor Dave, I started breathing in and out slowly, concentrating on the air entering and exiting my lungs. I calmed myself down. I wasn’t doing myself any favors by being hysterical or panicked.

John-Paul wasn’t breaking down my door to get to me. He wasn’t outside lurking in the bushes. That was ridiculous. He just wanted to scare me.

And I didn’t plan on giving him the satisfaction.

I’d had to fight for years to feel safe again. I wasn’t going to let one postcard strip that away from me.

I wasn’t going to let Rafe take it away, either.

“No extra security,” I said. This postcard had just invaded my life in the worst way possible. I didn’t want to have his bodyguards doing the same thing on a daily basis. “And you already promised me you wouldn’t follow me and you wouldn’t have Marco follow me. That extends to all bodyguards.” That made him halt in his tracks.

He had an incredulous look. “You can’t expect me to sit here and do nothing when that man is out there and he knows where you are.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what I expect. It’s not your job to protect me. I can take care of myself. I have pepper spray and I’ve taken self-defense classes. Plus, people kind of know who I am now. Going on the show might have been the best protection for me. He’ll have a hard time trying to hide me away.”

Walking over, he snatched the postcard out of my hand. “Hey!” I protested.

“I’m going to have Gianni run this for prints.”

“You’re not listening to me,” I said. I let the afghan drop on the couch as I got up to retrieve the postcard. I wanted to show it to Aunt Sylvia and then turn it over to the sheriff. Another person I’d have to tell the truth. But Sheriff Stidd was a good man. He would keep it to himself.

I took the postcard back. “I can take care of it myself. You don’t need to involve your security team.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, grabbing it in clumps. “I do need to!”

“Do you know how long it took for me to feel safe? How I worried every minute of every day that he would kidnap me? Or how I was always watched at the commune? I had no privacy at all. Do you want to make me feel that way now, too?”

“No, but this isn’t the same.”

I went into the kitchen, intent on throwing him out so he could go back to his own house. All I wanted to do was go upstairs, climb under my covers, and sleep for about twelve hours. To have some period of time where I could hide and pretend that this hadn’t happened. He was hot on my heels. “Wait,” he said just as I put my hand on the kitchen doorknob.

At the same exact moment I whirled around to tell him off, Laddie decided he needed to be part of this conversation and get underfoot, pitching me forward into Rafe’s waiting arms.He has awesome reflexeswas my last thought before my mind went completely and blissfully blank. It didn’t feel like I had just tripped over my dog, but like I had stepped off a cliff and I was falling and falling while Rafe held me.

The anger was still there, but there was such tenderness in his expression, an overpowering affection that even I couldn’t deny. “Don’t you know what it would do to me if something ever happened to you?” His voice was low and heartfelt as he caressed the side of my face.

His earlier kiss still lingered on my lips. I wanted another. Any anger I’d felt quickly turned into want. That desire was driven by a frantic desperation. I wanted to forget everything else, especially that stupid postcard. I let it slip away from my fingers, not caring where it landed. There was something magical and heavy between us, something that bound me to him. Like we had been covered in shimmery pixie dust. I studied his warm, full mouth, wanting to feel it against mine. His pupils dilated and he sucked in a deep breath when he understood what I was about to do.

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