Page 25 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy (Spies and Royals #4)
Her brows drew together in a scowl that would have been intimidating if she weren’t so much smaller than him. He noticed her golden eyes were alive like molten lava—had the Earl sparked that dangerous light? Jealousy scraped against his insides. “I could say the same thing about you,” she said.
He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound—it felt harsh and bitter.
He owed Charisse an explanation for his sudden marriage, but she wasn’t about to sprout wings like a harpy and carry him away to Hades, not like the Earl might do to Bris.
“So, that’s it, huh?” He could just imagine her wounded pride driving her to the first man at the party that would invite his wrath, like a teenager acting out at a school dance.
“You were out for revenge?” Typical Bris—all fire and fury when her feelings got hurt.
She bristled, her whole body going taut. “Revenge? I can’t see why you’d care if I was alone with another man! You said so yourself that you—you don’t see me that way. And anyway, the conversation was… enlightening if anything.”
“Really?” He didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
He could just imagine Dimitri’s smarmy false charm, those predatory blue eyes roaming over his wife’s body, and the thought sent a storm of rage through him that surprised him with its intensity.
“Well, rest easy. I’m not working with the Myrdons, just trying to dry my ex-girlfriend’s tears. Happy?”
Something shuttered in her expression, those expressive walls slamming down to shut him out completely, and it was driving him crazy that he couldn’t read her anymore—not like before, when every emotion was his for the taking.
“I’m sorry that this is happening to you.
” Her voice turned softer, contrite, and somehow that was worse than her anger. “If you want to see her… discreetly…”
“No!” The word exploded from him with more force than he’d intended.
He’d never been surer of anything in his life.
He’d entertained fleeting thoughts of how miserable life would be stuck in this loveless marriage; but feeling Bris’s fingers trembling against his arm and seeing the flush in her cheeks after meeting with that earl, his mind was crystal clear.
This woman needed his full attention. “You’re not trying to start something… discreet, are you?”
“Never!” A flood of relief filled him at the way she recoiled from the very suggestion.
“But he’s not entirely convinced that I have what it takes to be queen, possibly because I won’t support his business…
practices. But I have a feeling that he will block my ascension if I don’t…
convince him that I can still be useful. ”
The thought of Dimitri talking to Bris again, touching her, sent a shiver of revulsion and rage through him. His hands clenched into fists. “I’ll convince him.” He’d start by rearranging that pretty-boy face of his.
“No… let’s not do anything drastic!”
“Drastic? You mean like getting married?” His voice cracked with a bitter chuckle. “I think we’re already past drastic.”
“I don’t like this either, okay!” Those beautiful Tyndarian eyes were bright with unshed tears, the same ones that should’ve told him exactly what he was getting into from the beginning of all this.
She always got her way with him with those eyes, and he was helpless against them, even now.
“Being tied to you isn’t a picnic for me either, Killiefish!
” she raged at him, surprising him with the raw emotion in her voice.
“I’ll always be surrounded by rumors of who you love and who you’re seeing and—and I want to trust that you’ll do the right thing when it comes to the Myrdons, but how?
How can I after what happened on Scheria Island? ”
How long was she going to hold his past mistakes against him? The guilt was a constant weight on his shoulders.
“The Earl of Alexopoulos is just as nasty as you said,” she continued, her voice breaking slightly, “but he’s right that people will always view you with distrust, and you don’t have the sense to leave the women alone, even on the first day we’re seen together at a formal function!
You go off with Charisse! I don’t know what my father was thinking making you my husband! ”
He glared down at her, his own anger rising to match hers. “Oh, there you are! I was beginning to wonder where the old Bris had gone. You sound just like a queen now. Your father would be proud!”
She recoiled as if he’d slapped her, her jaw tightening as she fought for control. “We have to be careful, or we’ll plunge this country back into civil war again.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Starting with us?” he asked.
She turned silent, her chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths. “Nothing would’ve convinced me to talk to Dimitri alone… it just kind of happened. Phoenix threw me in his company and disappeared.”
That traitor! Raw anger burned through him like acid, and he found himself storming back toward the golden lights of the palace. “That’s it—we’re letting him go.”
“Don’t you dare!” She grabbed at his arm with both hands, her nails digging into the expensive fabric of his jacket.
“I was fine!” He glanced back at her, and she lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug as if unaffected by whatever had happened in that library—she wasn’t fooling him.
He could feel her shaking through her grip.
“My father was behind it. I guess he wanted me to know what I was dealing with, or maybe he thought I could handle the negotiations—baptism by fire, right?”
Achilles froze at the implications of such a dangerous game.
Chises Mnon didn’t care about his daughter’s safety, only that she proved her loyalty and value.
What else would he sacrifice for power? His best friend from long ago?
Achilles was sure of it. There was only one way to stop him from doing more damage.
“If you don’t fire Phoenix, then I will. ”
“No!” Bris planted her heels in the gravel, her white dress gleaming under the moonlight. “That’s not your call. We just play it cool and don’t rock the boat. I’ve got it handled.”
“I don’t have a say?” Everything that Charisse had accused his marriage of being came to his mind in all its stark, humiliating reality—puppet, decoration, joke. “Is that how this is going to be?”
She froze, her eyes widening with something like panic. “Of course you have a say in our personal lives, but we’re dealing with my… father.”
Even if Bris handed him his liberty on a silver platter, as she seemed more than willing to do at every opportunity, the true holder of their puppet strings would always be there, controlling them from the shadows.
“How long will you let your father rule this land through you? And what about me? Am I just meant to be your consort—a loyal puppy sent to provide him with an heir?”
“No!” she squeaked out. Her cheeks paled. “I mean… your title is consort, but I wouldn’t do that to you… Venice and his wife love each other, let their child rule someday!”
He took a deep breath, wondering why he’d just felt like she’d punched him in the gut, leaving him hollow and aching. He grasped at the first coherent thought he could form: “You’d let your father take your brother’s child?”
“My father isn’t immortal! We’ll get our independence soon and then you can go back to picking up chicks and passing out on yacht decks!”
A stinging summation of his life—was that what she truly thought of him?
His drunken escapades had all stemmed from trying to forget his troubles and thumb his nose at authority, but now Bris only saw him as a shallow playboy.
The words cut deeper than they should have.
He took a deep breath to summon his unraveling patience.
“I’m not waiting for your father to die to get my life back, Bris.
There will always be someone willing to step into his shoes to control us. ”
She laughed at the thought, but it sounded forced and brittle. “Control you? Ha! I pity anyone who tries!” More of that luxurious dark hair had escaped from her tight bun, making her look wild and beautiful in this immaculate garden.
The fiery imp was coming out, but why was her anger never directed against her father? Against Phoenix? And now against that predatory earl? Just him!
“All I’m asking is that you don’t drag me into your trouble with you!” she said. “You think you can do that?”
Quite honestly, after that speech, he had every intention of doing that and more, even if he had to throw her over his shoulder to do it.
He’d start with cutting those invisible strings tying her to her father’s will.
He drew closer, knowing that the unfair advantage of his height was nothing to her explosive temper.
“And tell me how I become the perfect mate, Your Royal Highness?”
Her stomping foot sounded sharp against the gravel path.
“How about not calling me that for starters!” She made a sound of pure frustration and whirled away from him, her skirts sliding over a curvaceous leg.
Her emotions had reached that familiar boiling point where she was past coherent speech.
She rushed across the moonlit grass, back toward the party they’d both abandoned.
Talk about the rumors that would incite. And now that he knew his reputation, he’d have to live up to it. He might even enjoy what that entailed if it involved his sweet, furious little wife.
He watched her fluid movements, admiring how all of that glorious dark hair had finally escaped its tight confines to cascade down her back.
His resolve to keep his promise to Venice was getting stronger.
Who cared about gaining the High Consortium’s approval anymore?
He’d protect Bris, but definitely not in the way she wanted him to.
He took his time returning to the ballroom. When he finally entered through the terrace doors, Bris immediately turned away from him to catch another socialite in animated conversation, though he’d caught her watching for him, her eyes bright with unshed tears and fury.
He didn’t go to her. Let her sweat, the viperous little beauty.
Instead, he searched the glittering crowd for Charisse Oshear. Catch that with your camera phone, Deedeelicious! Who cared what the gossips thought anymore? He needed allies in this war of shadows, and his ex acted like she knew the truth about his father’s assassination.
He had a feeling that solving this mystery would set him and Bris free once and for all—one way or another.