Page 48 of King of Lies
“Well, you told whomever that was that you’d be late to dinner and then you came back here and took the ring back …” I explain. “What else was I supposed to think?”
“That I was going to give you the proposal that you wanted and then after you agreed to marry me and swore to wear this ring always, I was going to make love to you again. Then we were going to shower and eventually make it downstairs by dessert.”
“Oh …”
“Yeah,” he smirks. “Oh …”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I keep messing things up.”
“Darling, you don’t mess anything up,” he says. “You make my life brighter.”
“I do?”
“You do,” he says. “Now do you mind if I go on and ask you to marry me?”
I nod my head. “Carry on.”
“That’s the English.”
“Well, whatever you say …”
He drops down to one knee in front of me and I hold my breath.
“I say that I’ve never met a woman like you before. I love everything about you, and I don’t want you to ever feel embarrassed or forced to change who you are, because this is the woman I love. I want to grow old with you and have you by my side while everything is falling apart because I know that I get to be with you at the end of the day. And I want that every day. I want to find you a cat and then a puppy. I want to honeymoon with you and to watch you sunbathe topless. I want to watch your belly grow round with my child and then another and another. I want all of it as long as I can have it with you. I don’t want anyone else. Say you’ll have me? Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Thank fuck,” he says as he slides his mother’s ring up my finger.
“Don’t be rude,” I snap. “This is my romantic moment.”
“I’m about to be a lot ruder, Hen,” he says as he pushes to his feet and then drops his pants to the floor. I swallow as I watch his cock bob against his belly.
“I see that,” I say, and I’m so distracted that I miss the hungry look he gives me and his hand reaching for the sheets, because he rips them away and then tosses me back to the middle of the bed.
Rhys covers my body with his and in a single breath, he fills me completely. He takes each of my hands in his and holds them as he slowly rocks our bodies together to the tune of our heartbeats. And together we come in each other’s arms.
“For always,” he whispers to me before placing a gentle kiss on my mouth.
“For always,” I repeat his vow, now knowing that when things get tough, we’ll always have this.
Too bad I was so very wrong.
• • •
“You have got to be kidding me,” the queen snaps from her seat at the head of the table as Rhys leads me by the hand to the two empty seats at the other end. It looks to me that they’re already through the salad and the soup courses and on some kind of fish when we finally make it to our places.
After Rhys made love to me, and after his romantic proposal, we quickly showered. I twisted my hair into a low chignon and touched up my makeup. Rhys retrieved his suit and his shaving kit from the sitting room and dressed while I pulled on another evening gown.
Then we slowly walked hand in hand down the hall to the dining room. A footman greeted us and then pulled open the door admitting us to the family dinner party, part two. Rhys led me to the end and pulled out a chair for me before seating himself. We are instantly served two plates.
The queen, furious that we arrived tardy, throws her fork down, halting the course.
Rhys does not bat an eye. He just sets the fork he picked up on the plate, as if there was nothing wrong. Everyone else around the table, including me, mostly because I have no idea what I’m doing here, follows suit.
The footmen bring in plates of beef wellington and roasted vegetables. My mouth waters and I’m internally begging, praying that she won’t skip this course as punishment.
Rhys glances at me. He must know that I’m ravenous, that he worked up quite an appetite in me. His face changes to the most proud and primal expression of male arrogance that I have ever seen, and I feel my face burn.
