Reign of a King (Kingdom Duet 1)

“Aurora,” Jonathan muses. “That’s not the right name, though, is it?”

Shit.

Fuck.

Damn it!

I feel as if I’m about to vomit my guts out as I peek up at him. He’s watching me with a cool, almost manic expression that betrays nothing of his thoughts. But I can feel it loud and clear.

He knows.

He remembers.

My fingers shake around the flute and it takes everything in me to place it on the table without spilling it and making a fool out of myself.

“Did you not hear the part where you should excuse us?” Ethan raises a brow.

“I did. Though, as it happens, I don’t take orders.” Jonathan is speaking to Ethan, but his entire attention falls on me.

Impenetrable.

Unemotional.

Unmoving.

With each passing second, his focus hones, turning harsher and darker. If anything, it becomes lethal with the intention of destruction.

A god about to unleash his wrath.

I need out of here. Now.

Plastering on a smile, I face Ethan. “I’ll go search for Agnus. I have your card, so is it okay

if I call you?”

“I have yours. I’ll be the one to call.”

“Thank you.” I barely acknowledge Jonathan with an unintelligible nod as I turn around and stride out of the scene.

It takes everything in me not to run and give away my discomfort or the sense of how royally I fucked up.

This is bad. No. It can be disastrous to everything I’ve spent years building while I carefully stayed in the shadows so I didn’t get noticed.

I’ve ruined everything in one night.

As soon as I’m in the pool area, I avoid Aiden, which isn’t super hard. He’s slowly dancing with his bride, her head hidden by his shoulder as he rests his chin on top of her hair.

For a second, I stop and stare at the scene, at how serene and happy they both appear. It’s similar to Alicia and Jonathan’s wedding day twenty years ago. Although…Jonathan didn’t dance. I suspect whether the tyrant even knows how.

I pull myself out of my stupor and sneak to the car park.

So I lied.

I wasn’t going to find Agnus. That meant I would’ve had to linger around, and there’s no way in hell I was spending a minute longer in Jonathan’s vicinity.

As for my other side of the plan? Now that I broke the ice with Ethan, we can have a meeting at his company, and hopefully, I won’t have to see Jonathan again in this lifetime.

He’ll be on his throne and I’ll go back to my small corner of London that he doesn’t focus on. Being a ruler means he doesn’t care to look at insignificant presences, and that’s exactly where I plan to stay.