The King - S.R. Jones Page 0,6
had been terrible. The truth is much starker. I’m vulnerable to him … to Konstantin.
I was weirdly obsessed with him when he was a regular at the coffee shop. I lived for his regular coffee runs, and I thought about him all the time. I thought about him way more than I thought about my fiancé, which is all kinds of effed up.
“It’s okay. I love my grandparents, and I loved my mum and saw her loads. It wasn’t all bad.”
“Loved?” he asks.
I’m about to tell him that his stepson isn’t the only one to lose his mother, but his phone rings.
Konstantin moves around in his seat, pulling the cell out of his pocket and placing it on the holder attached to the dashboard.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Michael.”
“There’s a girl…” Michael says, sounding worried.
“I know. Your mistake is in the car with me right now. I’m dropping her off at home. We will talk later.” He hangs up the phone.
Oh. He’s such a dick! He hasn’t let his son tell him we didn’t have sex; instead, he hung up on him before he could explain. And now he’s calling me a mistake! Cheeky bastard. I was about to put him out of his misery and tell him I didn’t have sex with his stepson, but he can go screw himself.
All the warm, glowy feelings our little chat had engendered puff out of existence to be replaced by a simmering anger.
“Your mistake?” I tried to keep my mouth shut, I truly did, but come on. “The mistake is in the car? She can hear you. You’re an arsehole.”
He turns to me and lazily raises one shoulder. “Probably, I’ve been called a lot worse. You’re … disappointing.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He turns to me and reaches out to grab a lock of my hair before shaking his head. “You used to be golden, like sunshine, now you’re … dulled.”
Oh my god, he’s such a bastard. His words hurt. Burn.
“Oh, so because my hair is a bit darker, because I’m stuck inside so much, you think I’m all dull now?”
He huffs out a breath and let’s go of the lock. “It’s not merely your hair, it’s you. There’s no light in your eyes anymore. And you were … different. There was something inside you, Cassie, when you worked at the coffee shop. You had a light, and more. Something untamed. I saw it, but it’s gone. Now, you’re like all the others.”
All what others?
Thankfully, we’ve finally reached the city, and I sink into silence. It doesn’t take long before I spy the familiar sign of the coffee shop where I used to work. “You can drop me here.”
“You don’t work here anymore.”
“I know,” I snap. “But I only live around the corner, and I want a drink.” I need an iced tea to quench my raging thirst.
I’d rather do the walk of shame home from the coffee shop than spend another minute in the car with this man. He makes me feel too much when I’m already rubbed raw emotionally.
“Okay, if you insist.”
He pulls the car onto the side of the road.
Stupidly, I can feel tears threatening, and all I want to do is get an iced peach tea and go curl up on my sofa and cry.
“You know, Cassie…” Konstantin turns off the engine and leans right over me. I hold my breath, but he simply pops the seatbelt for me. “You were going to be lucky. The one who got away. But then you came back on my radar, unexpectedly, and now this.” He spits out the word this with barely controlled rage.
He raises his hand and tips my chin. “You’ll be seeing me again.”
Will I?
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to, jailbait. All will become clear. I’m disappointed you saw fit to jump into bed with my stepson when he’s about to be married, and now I must go and clean that mess up.”
He brushes his thumb over my lower lip. “It fucking cuts me up you slept with him,” he says.
It hits me then. Is his anger, his hostility, his general arseholeness, because he’s jealous?
Can I even hope for that?
I open my mouth, about to tell him he’s got it all wrong, but then he carries on speaking.
“It cuts me up you give yourself away so cheaply.”
Okay, I might want him more than the iced tea I’ve been craving, but I cannot stand double standards. Who does he think he is? If I had slept with his son, which I did not,