Page 31 of King of Lies

“What am I supposed to think?” I ask. “Because you made me make a promise, which I’ve held to. You tell me you’ve been lying the whole time I’ve known you, and again, I understand why, but still. Then, before I can wrap my head around it, you toss me into a luxury tin can—which by the way, I try to avoid because my parents died in one—with a former lover. Then you’re mean to me and you leave me. Fast forward to now. So I’ll ask you again, what am I supposed to think, Rhys?”

“Your parents died in one?” he asks me, his voice deceptively low and quiet.

“What?”

“You said your parents died in one?”

“Well, yes,” I answer. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“No, Hen,” he says gently. “You didn’t. You said they died when you were a little girl, but that was it.”

“They were archeologists,” I tell him.

“Yes, you said that.”

“They were flying to South America for a dig when their plane crashed in a jungle.”

“Bloody hell,” he bites out. “I’m sorry. I forgot that was how they died. I’m an insensitive cur.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” He lets out a heavy breath. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yes. There’s nothing to forgive.”

I don’t want to talk about my parents anymore—never, really. I can still remember the smell of my mom’s perfume and my dad’s shaving cream. I remember them hugging me and telling me they’d be home soon before leaving me with Paul and Fran. I asked them to bring me a present and they laughed and told me no, but they always brought me a present. In fact, that was the only time they left me that I didn’t get one. And that was because they did not come home.

The pain of their loss slices through my chest and in this moment, I’d do anything to change the subject, including picking a fight with an angry prince.

“Now, would you like to tell me why you smell like some other woman’s perfume?” I ask.

He narrows his eyes on me. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work,” he says.

“Try me.”

“I did have important things to see to,” he says. “But I couldn’t think. I could still smell you on me and even though I was pissed as hell at you, the smell of sex and your pussy juices had me hard, so I took a shower.”

“You … took a shower?”

“Aye,” he bites out. “The only soap in there must belong to Dahlia.”

“Dahlia?” I ask, hoping she’s not yet another lover of Christmas Past.

“My sister.”

“Oh …”

“Aye, ‘Oh,’” he says.

I laugh. “So you didn’t fuck the flight attendant with the boobs?”

“Not presently.”

“Good.”

“Now, are you done?” he asks.

“Maybe. Probably,” I say before finishing with, “But I reserve the right to freak out again later because this is all so overwhelming.”