Page 76 of Reluctant Heir

“No romantic honeymoon?” I ask, the sarcastic words hanging in the air around us.

I’m perched on the bench on the side. I have it all to myself, and I consider lying down, staring up at the soft lights that line the ceiling. Connor sits in the middle of the back bench seat. We don’t touch, not since we left everyone’s sight.

Connor doesn’t bother to answer me, but I feel his eyes on me. Brooding. He’s a different person. Closed off, hate emanating from his body.

“I have work to do,” he finally says, and I look at the file in his lap.

“You should really enter the twenty-first century,” I tell him. “They could’ve emailed that to you.” I know I’m goading him, trying to get a rise. I’m angry, and I want him angry too. “Is that the oh-so important information that you married me for?” I raise my eyebrows, but he doesn’t give me anything to go on. “Cat got your tongue?”

“You’ve done your part. You don’t need to know anything else,” he says.

I sit up straighter, glad that he’s finally engaged me.

“I do when I’m being threatened. Don’t you think I should be aware of the dangers I will face as your ‘wife’?” I throw up the quotation marks, letting him no I’m under no illusions when it comes to our relationship now.

“That’s my job,” he says, his voice low.

I frown at him. “What, to keep me safe? To protect me?” I ask.

“Yes.” He takes one finger and fiddles with the top of the file in his hand.

“Oh, my knight in shining armor,” I say with a laugh. “Forgive me if I don’t feel safe with someone who promised to murder me.”

“If you talked,” he points out.

“That makes me feel better,” I quip, and he sets the file to his side.

“What the fuck do you want me to say, Wryn? I was clear about what this was from the beginning.”

“That was before you fucked me twice and muddied the waters.”

“We are back to that?” he asks with a sigh, as if I were a child who exasperates him.

“No, I’m not some lovesick fool. I know what I signed up for,” I tell him, only half-truthful.

“Good. Then, we shouldn’t have any problems. Do you want the proverbial wedding night? Would you like me to visit you later and stick my cock in you?”

“Don’t be crass,” I say, fuming.

Connor barks out a laugh. “Crass. What do you want, Wryn?”

“Nothing,” I say, crossing my arms over my stomach and staring at the wall opposite me.

I don’t know what I want anymore. My head feels fuzzy, off-kilter, and he seems to have no issues with going back to business as usual.

Why am I thrown off and he is calm?

“No, I do want something. I want you to help me find Ruby.”

He quietly sucks in a breath, but I still hear it.

“Did you forget about her?”

“I haven’t forgotten about her since she went missing,” he says, softer this time, and it’s like we have found common ground—something to distract us, consume us.

“Did you love her?” I ask him.

His eyes meet mine then, his finger wiggling the corner of the file again.

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