Cheeky King Read online

  “You’re about to be the queen.”

  I held up my hand. “You know what? Maybe we should just have this conversation later. Right now, let’s figure out what that is.”

  He eyed my gun. “Don’t you think that’s a little bit overkill for what might amount to that mouse you set free in your apartment?”

  Our voices barely rose above whispers back and forth as we spoke. “Oh, you’re bringing that up now? Besides, I had to get your attention.”

  He shook his head. “Remind me to never piss off you and Ariel okay?”

  I nodded and then held up a hand. He immediately waved off my hand and tried to go ahead of me, completely not understanding. We’d have to work it all out, but at the end of the day, he was still the king, and I was still his guard, so I was going to first. I smacked him on the ass and he turned to me with a face that was all heat. “You will pay for that.”

  “I look forward to it. And until I am queen, I am still your guard, so me first.” I tiptoed around him, and I could feel the wave of his anger behind me. I crept forward through the narrow hallway that led to the bathroom and then made a sharp turn that led right into the living room, and I stopped short when I saw the shadow in the kitchen. “Whatever you think you want, you don’t want it here. I’ve already called the police, and I have a gun.” Okay, that was firm, right? My voice was firm. I sounded in control, right? I freaking hoped so.

  And then a familiar voice broke the taut silence. “Oh Penny, you being here makes this all that much better.” And then Robert flipped on the lights. I shoved Sebastian, who had foolishly followed me, in the direction of the bedroom and kept my gun trained on Robert.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I came here for the king, but killing you is going to be an added bonus.”

  Even though I’d attempted to shove Sebastian back into the room, he was huge. So he’d only moved about two inches, and before I knew it, he quickly rotated so I was behind him. Come to find out, he was also armed. When he stepped in front of me, I couldn’t help but note the gun at the small of his back, tucked into his pajama bottoms.

  When this was over, we were going to have a whole conversation about him not listening to his guard. It was going to be a lengthy conversation. We had to get on the same page about situations like this because he couldn’t keep risking his life for mine. “You have me right where you want me. It’s Robert, right? You work intelligence.”

  Robert scowled. “Oh, so you pretend you know me now?”

  “I do apologize if I don’t know the ins and outs of every single member of my team. The team is quite large, but I do know most of you by face.”

  “Shut up. You are going to make this nice and easy.”

  I grabbed Sebastian’s arm and tried to work my way around him, but he wouldn’t let me.

  “Hey now.” He spoke in low soothing tones. “Whatever you have planned, Penny doesn’t have anything to do with it. Let her go. Let her walk on out of here.”

  “I will do no such thing. And where the fuck is the guard?” I replied indignantly.

  Robert laughed as he waved his gun. “You mean, the two at the door, the two stationed at Penny’s little apartment next door, and then the two stationed outside the building? They’re all dead, although admittedly, the first one might merely be knocked out. I had to work fast and didn’t bother to check his pulse. You’ve got a stack of bodies lying around. It might make this whole building difficult to sell, Sebastian.”

  Sebastian’s voice was low. “I think you mean Your Majesty.”

  “Why would I call you Your Majesty? You’re not my ruler. You’re not even the rightful heir.”

  I jumped around Sebastian’s arm and stood right in front of him, planting myself nice and firm, so when he tried to move me, I didn’t budge. I could only hold that stance for so long though. The human shield thing was only going to work for one bullet. “Robert, what are you talking about? What are you doing here? Why are you doing this? Are you angry because I wouldn’t get you in with Sebastian? He picks his own guard, you know that. You are ending your life over some petty bullshit? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He waved the gun and took off the safety. “Shut up. Sit down and shut the fuck up.”

  “Okay then.” I glanced at Sebastian and he indicated we needed to sit. Luckily though, Robert still didn’t know he was armed. When I sat next to Sebastian, Robert motioned me to put my gun on the coffee table. I followed directions but glared at him the whole time. There was no way I was going down easy.

  “You stupid bitch. You ruined every plan I’ve ever had.”

  I needed to keep him talking. With Sebastian in town, I knew Blake Security would at least do a check-in with his team every thirty minutes. So, when someone didn’t check in, they’d send some help. When they did, they’d find the bodies and come and save us. I glanced at the clock. Four minutes. That was all I needed. Four minutes. I just had to keep Robert talking. “Is this where you do your villain speech? Because that’s kind of played out.”

  He glowered at me then turned his attention to Sebastian. “If I were you, I’d tell your whore to shut the fuck up or I’ll shoot her, but not in a way where she will die quick. I’ll let her bleed out slowly.”

  I could feel the tension vibrating through Sebastian next to me. It was unadulterated ragen and everything I’d never really seen from him before. Sure he’d been mad at me, but never like this. I could tell he was still in protecting-me mode, so he simply asked, “What do you want?”

  “What I want is what’s rightfully mine.”

  “Robert, we don’t know what that is, and what does that have to do with Sebastian? Is it money? You would risk your existence for money?”

  “Are you daft?” He began to pace. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to be here. Every time I turn around, there you are ruining everything.”

  “Me?” I glance at the clock. Three more minutes. “I ruin everything? You started this whole thing by kissing my brother.”

  Robert ran his hands through his hair. “You weren’t supposed to see that. None of this worked out the way it was supposed to. Michael and I, we were supposed to be together. Do you know how long I’ve had feelings for him? Do you know how long I’d kept them to myself even though I knew he had feelings for me too? Forever trying to be the good son, hiding away, so that you all wouldn’t figure it out.”

  “How can that be true? We wouldn’t have shunned him. We would have loved him. And we would have accepted you too.”

  “I know how your parents are. They’re traditional. And they loved that insipid bitch he called a girlfriend.”

  “You’re seeing what you want to see. My mother never liked Emily. They think she’s boring. And at the end of the day, all they ever wanted was for Michael to be happy. If that was with you, they would have accepted that.”

  He kept waving his gun, and his finger kept running over the trigger. And he kept tugging on the explosive vest he was wearing.

  Stay calm. Stay cool. It will be fine. Blake Security is coming. But just in case they weren’t coming quickly enough, I had to figure out a way to get Sebastian out of there, or at the very least, into the bathtub. If I could get him into the bathtub, get him facedown, that would protect him from the majority of the blast.

  Think! Think! Think!

  When Sebastian spoke, his voice was nice and even, as if my ex didn’t have bombs strapped to him. “Why don’t you tell me what you want, and then I can see if I can give it to you?”

  “I want you dead. And then I can take my rightful place on the throne.”

  Sebastian and I exchanged glances. It was probably not a good idea, given that our shocked, confused expressions probably both said, ‘Yeah, you're cray cray.’

  “I can see how you’re looking at me. I am the rightful heir to the throne.”

  I did admire Sebastian for his complete and utter calm in this whole situation. I was the one trained
, and I was the one in a full-scale panic.

  “Okay, the only way you could be in line for the throne is if you’re a child of the king. And while it’s entirely possible that you are my brother, considering my father aired all his dirty laundry, I somehow think he would have mentioned you.”

  That was when it happened. The tenuous thread that Robert had on his control snapped. He got in Sebastian’s face. “Your father was not the rightful heir. I was born the year after your stupid uncle, my father, abdicated. I should have been king. But because my mother wasn’t royalty, I was just the bastard son of a would-be king.”

  Sebastian frowned. “Uncle Roland? You’re his son?”

  “It seems that our fathers had more than one thing in common.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve seen you with Prince Ashton. You’re saying he knows?”

  Robert scowled at me. “Don't be daft. He thinks I’ve been working on his behalf. I’ll just assume that his intelligence comes from his mother’s side. Not too bright, that one. But because he thinks that we’re in something together, he’s malleable, easy. Completely controllable. Just a few short words here and there, stoking the flames of an already violent mind. He was supposed to take care of you to the point that you wouldn’t be a problem anymore in that tunnel. But he couldn’t even do that right.”

  “You sent him after me?” I started to get up and Sebastian shook his head at me. I knew I needed to sit, stay calm, and be quiet, but I couldn’t listen to it. Somebody I thought I’d once cared about had set forth a chain of events that was meant to deliberately harm me. There was no way I could sit calmly for that. “You fucking bastard.”

  “Oh relax. You’re still mostly in one piece. Still a whore though, sleeping with the king.”

  “I have sat here silently and let you talk. You will not call her a whore again.” Sebastian’s voice was quiet, soft, and all deadly.

  “Well that’s what she is. I had to endure her for a year, and years before that, I could see her eyes watching me. I hated every moment I was with her. But then she walked in on me and Michael. Poor Penny, always needing to prove herself. I never intended for her to find you. I was already on the hunt. But this one got lucky. She was the one.”

  Sebastian threw up his hands. “That is enough. Either kill us or don’t. So you’re Uncle Roland’s kid. With the new succession law, you’re still out of it. And the succession law wasn’t in place then. If you had just stayed quiet, you would have had a real claim to the throne. You would have been in line even before Ashton. But instead, you killed my father. You tried to kill me.”

  “How was I supposed to know you’d manage to change the law? It was something Ashton was going to pull off once you were removed. The plan was to kill your father, declare you unfit to rule, and run the country through Ashton from the background. He would have changed the succession laws eventually, and then I would have taken my place. Who knew that Penny would actually end up being good at her job? And then you showed up with your fucking brother.”

  “The bodies are already piling up, Robert. You thought what? That when succession laws were changed you’d challenge him, or did you think maybe you’d kill him once the laws were changed?”

  “The plan was to kill him after the laws were changed. It would have been easy sailing. Ashton would have thought he was next in line, but then I would have exposed all his sins and crimes, and I would have stepped forward as the true and rightful heir. But you keep ruining everything.”

  “You know what, Robert? I think this was always your problem. You were never willing to accept any responsibility for your own wrongdoing,” I said.

  “Shut up you stupid slut. I would have disproven Lucas’s parentage, but then the blood was stolen, and I couldn’t do that. Besides, Prince Fucks a Lot here already been established as the heir apparent the day he were born. So I had no choice.” He turned his attention to Sebastian. “You were once again a threat. Everything changes when you die. I can still recover this. I kill you, and I step forward and the throne is mine.”

  Sebastian stared at him. “What good is the throne if the king isn’t worthy?”

  “I am fucking worthy. And there are those who stand with me, those who will fight to see the rightful heirs on the throne.” Suddenly, there was a pop, and then the glass window leading to the balcony shattered and something whizzed by.

  Hell. Was that gunfire? I wasted no time. I climbed on top of Sebastian and rolled him off the back of the couch with me, covering him with my full body. This time, he didn’t fight me. Instead, he pressed something to my palm, something cool and metallic, and I realized it was his gun. Once he was down, my body straddling his, I sat up, took aim, and fired, hitting my target as Robert attempted to scramble behind the bookcase. All I could think of at that moment was how odd it was that he made not a single sound as he went down.

  There was banging at the front door. “Ms. Marsh, are you in there?”

  It was a voice I recognized. “Noah?” I scooted off Sebastian and ran to the door. When I threw it open, Noah was standing in front of me in full tactical gear.

  “Are you okay? Where’s the prince?”

  From the floor behind the couch, Sebastian called out, “I’m the king now.”

  From somewhere in the hallway, someone muttered, “Well, la-di-da.”

  I ignored them all. “We’re fine. I shot the intruder. He’s down, but I see him moving so pretty sure I didn’t kill him.”

  Noah nodded once. “We’ll take him for medical attention and put him on a plane back to the Isles. I’m sorry my shooter missed. My other two sharpshooters are on another assignment. We came as soon as your men didn’t check in.”

  Sebastian came up behind me and pulled me into his embrace. “Noah, I don’t know how to say thank you.”

  “Something tells me you aren’t in any danger. Not with this one beside you. I’ll follow the protocol on the books for the prisoner.”

  “Thank you.” Sebastian then gazed into my eyes. “Don’t I know it? I guess that makes three times you saved my life.”

  I finally relaxed into his embrace, and then all the tension rolled out of me. It was over. It was finally over. “Actually, it’s probably more than that. But who’s counting? Maybe you can promise me that when we get married, we can live a much calmer life?”

  “Yeah, something tells me with you around, life is going to stay interesting.”

  34

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  I stopped halfway in the window. Busted. “Nowhere.”

  Ariel raised her brow and tapped her foot as she folded her arms over the white satin of her corset. “You did not have me sweating in this Caribbean heat in satin, no less, just so you could make off without me. If we are initiating plan Condor, you need to fucking tell me. You’re not leaving me behind to answer questions.”

  “Condor?”

  Ariel threw her hands up. “Condor, our escape plan? I feel like you’re not listening when I say things.”

  “Oh, Condor! Right. Except, I’m not escaping. I’m going to see Sebastian. Or I was, then I remembered I had no clothes on under the robe, except the corset and a thong, so I was climbing back in, to put on yoga pants or something, but then I got stuck because the stupid window won’t open any wider.”

  Ariel wasn’t buying it. “Sweetheart, you’re going to see him in no less than an hour, so why don’t you crawl your ass back inside the window and no one has to hear about how you tried to leave me behind…again”

  “I’m not leaving you. I just –“ God damn it. This was not comfortable. I’m pretty sure my robe was flapping behind me. Anyone who walked by the side entrance of the house, would clearly see my ass. “I just – I just want to see him, you know. Everything has been crazy and I just–" I sighed. “I just want a moment when it’s just us, you know. With everyone arriving from America and London, it has been just go, go, go, and I just need a minute with my fiancé.”

  Ariel stopped with th
e frowning and crossed arms then marched over to the window and took my hands. “Are you freaking out? You do not want do this? Because for real, we could initiate Condor now. And I will stay behind and answer all the questions.”

  I shook my head even as I tried to get myself either an inch further inside the window or inch back, because God, that was cutting my ribs. My stupid robe was caught. “No, I’m not having any second thoughts. I want to marry Sebastian. He’s everything. I just – it’s everything else. When he says everything is okay, I believe him. But he can’t hold my hand every two minutes when everything else starts to zoom in.” I inhaled deep. “Every step I take, I have everyone telling me what a queen can and cannot do, and I’m just –“

  Ariel nodded. “Okay, I’ll bring him to you, okay? Just climb back in the window. I’ll bring him. Just come in.”

  I tried to pull myself forward, and I couldn’t.

  “Come on, any second now. Come on in.”

  “I can’t Ariel, I’m fucking stuck.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Oh shit. Let me go get your Dad.”

  “No! He’ll think I tried to run just like you did.”

  “Well, just tell him what you told me.”

  “I really don’t want anyone else to know. It’s been a while since I’ve been Calamity Penny, okay?”

  Ariel nodded. “Okay, just stay put. I’ll get Sebastian. We’ll fix that problem first, and then we’ll get people to hoist you into the window, okay?”

  “Thank you. I love you. And hurry.”

  She was gone maybe three minutes, maybe five. But in that time, I had no choice but to sit there. This window wouldn’t open any further than this. Security measure.

  Dad had done it to keep me, well, in, from the years he thought I might run away. Also to keep others out. Although, no thieves would dare cross the palace walls to where the Royal Guard stayed. But, just in case. Dad was always a bit uneasy with the sheer number of men in the Royal Guard with his teenage daughter around. But now, I tried to be smart and just scoot out the window. The French doors were tied to the alarm system. If I had opened those, someone would know that I was going somewhere. The window had seemed safer.