King of Lies, page 1
Table of Contents
King of Lies
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Crown of Thorns
About the Author
Also by Jennifer
KING OF LIES
Copyright © 2021 Jennifer Rebecca
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover Design and Formatting by
Alyssa Garcia
Editing by
Karin Enders
Proofreading by
Karin Enders
For more information about Jennifer Rebecca & her books, visit:
www.jenniferrebeccaauthor.com
King of Lies
Once upon a time…there was a girl who worked in a bookstore and lived a happy but quiet life until a prince swept into her world.
It was as if all her dreams came true.
The perfect life with a happy home and a handsome prince.
Unfortunately, it was nothing more than that—a dream.
Because life is not all fairytales and there are no handsome princes, only dangerous secrets and the devil himself, the king of lies.
There are no Happily Ever Afters. At least not for Stella.
There are only monsters that live within these castle walls.
For Sean, always.
“Scotland is really like the Florida of Europe.” -Taylor
Prologue
And So It Goes
Run!
My brain is screaming at me to run. I have to go. I have to get out of here. I’m not safe here anymore.
I think, in my heart of hearts, I knew all along that I wasn’t safe here, but I was living in a dream. A beautiful dream where Prince Charming fell for a shy, mousy girl like me and swept her off her feet, straight into the pages of a fairytale.
I should have known that it was all a lie.
Guys like that don’t fall for girls like me. I wasn’t cut out to be a princess and I never will be. I should have kept my eyes open and not fallen for the fantasy.
Even with a viper in my bed, I should have run but I didn’t. I can only hope now, that it isn’t too late. He promised me long ago that if I ever wanted, I was free to go, but that I wouldn’t be welcome back. It was a quietly spoken threat with the intention to keep me in line. I know that now. I was so dumb and so blind, I wanted him to want me.
Now, I pray he keeps his promise.
I pack only what I need in a backpack and shove the stack of papers and photographs, the truth to his lies, on top. I zip it closed and sling one strap over my shoulder. He can keep the dresses and jewels; I don’t have any use for fancy things like that back home in my bookstore.
“Ma’am?” Leo, my personal security officer, asks when I open the door.
“I need to get to the airport,” I tell him. “Right away.”
He looks at me, his blue eyes watch and survey, and I know that they see the truth. I’m running and I’m not even going to try and hide it.
“Have you spoken to His Royal Highness about this urgent matter?”
“Not yet,” I reply.
“Maybe you should—” he starts.
“The car, Leo,” I interrupt him. It’s direct and a little rude, something they’ve been drilling into me since I’ve been here. Act like a royal, walk like a royal, talk like a royal. It was all so unlike me, so against the grain. Now, look at me go.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “I’ll get it straight away.”
“Thank you, Leo … for everything,” I tell him with the full weight of my meaning in my tone. Leo has been a friend when he didn’t have to be. He’s put his life on the line for me more than he ever should have had to, and I thank him for all of it because I am genuinely grateful to him.
“It’s been my pleasure, ma’am.” And then he heads down the hall to arrange the car.
I follow on his heels. There’s so much I will miss here, mostly people I have met. And there is also a lot that I won’t miss at all. Again, mostly people.
Harris, the driver assigned to me when I leave the castle without Rhys, pulls around the corner in one of the king’s BMW sedans and jumps out of the driver’s seat. He opens the rear door for me, and I slide inside.
Leo climbs in the front passenger seat with his phone to his ear. He might be tattling on me, but I don’t care.
Not anymore.
“Where to, Miss?”
“The airport.”
“Are you meeting His Royal Highness?” Harris asks me. “And should I return to the castle for the rest of your luggage, ma’am?”
“No,” I answer his questions softly. I can hear the catch in my voice and so can Harris and Leo. “I won’t be coming back.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says quietly before shutting my door.
Harris drives us through the castle gates and down the long and winding road that leads to the highway or whatever it is they call it here. It’s a two-lane road that twists and turns through the hills before it spreads out to four lanes under a huge bridge.
The piano strains of an old Billy Joel tune softly fill the car, reminding me that life isn’t sunshine and rainbows, and I need to remember that more hard knocks are handed down than not. I should have already learned this particular lesson long before Rhys Alexander crashed into my life and made me fall in love with him.
But that’s just how it goes.
My phone rings and I press my eyes closed. I know exactly who it is. I don’t want to answer but that’s not right. I owe him an ending. I slide my finger across the cool glass to unlock it.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Where are you?” he demands, his brogue deeper and thicker than normal. The refined tones have given way to something darker, edgier, and definitely dangerous.
“I’m leaving,” I say quietly.
“Why?”
“We had a deal.”
“We did,” he says after a moment. “But I still want to you to tell me why.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I know it all.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he clips out.
“I know it was all fake,” I reply. “Every last bit of it.”
“Come back.” He changes the subject. It’s almost as if he can just brush away what he doesn’t like. Like batting away a fly. It’s a nuisance, an inconvenience, nothing more. “I’ll meet you at the castle.”
“I can’t do that.” The car lurches to the right but I ignore it.
“I’ll come to you,” he offers. “Just tell me where you are.”
“No,” I whisper with my heart clenching painfully in my chest. If he comes for me, it’ll all be for nothing. I won’t be able to say no to him when he lures me back to my demise like the piper and his lost children. “We had a deal.”
The car lurches again.
“Where are you?” Rhys asks and I look out the window and see that we’re almost to the big overpass just before the exit for the airport. “Hen, tell me.”
“Please don’t call me that.” That pet name used to warm my heart, now it makes me wonder if it was because he had a hard time remembering who I was. I wasn’t his fairytale; I was a means to an end. A pawn.
“Where are you?” he repeats.
“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper. “I’m already gone.”
“No.”
“Ma’am,” Leo says. “I need you to put your seatbelt on.”
“What’s happening?” Rhys demands.
I move as fast as I can to comply. I drop my phone down to the bench next to me as I click my belt into place and pull it tight. I hear Rhys’s voice yelling for me but I can’t understand what he’s saying.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Harris says.
“Watch out!” Leo yells and then the car is filled with the sounds of breaking glass and crunching metal as my screams fill the air.
My face smashes against the window next to me and an explosion of pain blasts through my face and rattles around in my brain, silencing me.
I should have known. I should have run when I had the chance. I was never safe here. Not in this country, or in his castle, and I was absolutely never safe with Rhys.
“Stella!” I hear him shout. “Hen! Answer me!”
When the car comes to rest, only the last bits of the song can be heard through the car and I sing the last line. A fitting end to my tragic tale. A life where if something awful can happen it will, and the losses compound one on top of another. I should have stayed hidden in my quiet life all alone.
I had thought that he was my Prince Charming. That he was whisking me off to a fairytale life in a faraway land. But he’s not Prince Charming; Rhys Alexander is the king of lies.
“And so, it goes … And so, it goes.”
“Hen!” he screams one last time. Or more, I don’t know.
And then the blackness overwhelms me and I fade into nothing.
Just like before.
I am nothing …
Chapter 1
Girls like me
I need that book.
I reach, reach, reach but it’s no use. Sometimes being short is a real pain in the patoot. If only this ladder was just a little bit taller, then I could reach the one that I need because, of course, the mysterious internet order that came in just after my lunch break was for the newest Emma Hart book. I had said she needed to be lower, what woman could find it way up there? Obviously, romance in general should be where women can see them and grab them. But I digress.
I pull the ladder closer and climb all the way up but it’s no use. Maybe if I climb up onto the top rung… I carefully place my feet, in my TOMS flats, on each rung until I’m balanced like an acrobat with my arms over my head and still… nothing.
Crap. I’m going to have to stand on my tip toes. I gingerly lift up on my toes just like Madame Dumé, my ballet instructor when I was little, taught me to do and I can just barely touch the spine of the book.
I wiggle my fingers until I can pinch the width of it and slide it from the shelf. I did it. I did it! I can’t believe I did it! I want to dance and jump and shout, even though that’s not like me at all, but some victories must be celebrated. I shimmy my shoulders a bit, this is my end zone dance after all, but the ladder wobbles and I grab onto the shelf to stay my balance, dropping the book.
“Fuck,” a deep voice with a heavy accent says from below me.
Oh no. I didn’t know that anyone was there. The store was pretty quiet when I came back from lunch, so I didn’t think anything of it.
My uncle is always reminding me to be more aware of my surroundings, but honestly, why bother? My surroundings aren’t aware of me. Most days it’s like I’m a ghost, haunting around town, and not a real live human being. And as sad as that is, that’s exactly the way that I want it.
I chance a look down to see how mad the customer is, but when I do, I see the most handsome man I have ever laid eyes on.
He’s tall, so tall that if I were standing on the ground, he’d tower over me. He has a head full of thick black hair with a slight wave to it that he’s meticulously styled and combed. Moss green eyes stare at me in a way that makes me feel like someone sees me—I mean really sees me—and a muscular body covered in what has to be a very expensive suit.
“Well?” he asks, and I realize that he not only does see me, he’s actually talking to me and then I let go of the shelf in surprise and fall from the ladder, which clatters to the floor.
I close my eyes tight because if the fall doesn’t kill me it’s really going to hurt. Uncle Paul always says to be more careful and it turns out that he was right on all counts. Just when I think I’m about to hit the ground, I land in a pair of strong arms and swoon.
“Bloody hell.”
I slowly blink my eyes open, doing what I’m sure is my impression of an owl. The tall, dark, and handsome stranger is holding me, gently cradled in his arms like a bride, like I’m special. My heart beats faster when he smiles at me, flashing his neat rows of perfect teeth. It’s almost enough to make me swoon again. Worse, it’s almost enough to make me think that this is my real life, my fairytale to grab hold of but it’s not. I gave up lying to myself a long time ago.
This is the kind of thing that happens in fairytales. This isn’t the kind of thing that happens to boring girls like me.
Chapter 2
This isn’t me
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. It feels as if all the air has been knocked out of my lungs.
“Don’t worry about it,” this stranger says casually, even though he’s still holding me in his arms like a bride. Like he’s some kind of handsome prince and I’m a damsel in distress. But that’s utterly ridiculous.
I must have fallen harder than I realized. Did I even eat lunch? I know I went to the café down the road and got a chicken salad sandwich but the book I was reading was so good. There was this army officer and he met this kindergarten teacher. Sparks flew, condoms broke. I was both laughing and crying by the time my lunch break was over and most of my sandwich was still in the container.
When I got back to the store, I quickly wrote my name on it with a marker and tossed it in the breakroom fridge. I’ll eat it for dinner tonight when I get home. Crap. I can’t. I’m supposed to be having dinner with Francisco and Paul tonight. It was one of their conditions when I moved out on my own this year. Maybe I can save it for tomorrow’s lunch.
I look up and realize that I was wool-gathering while hanging in the strange man’s arms. Oh dear. Only I could manage such a thing. He must think I’m so weird.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“That’s quite all right. It’s not every day I find myself with a beautiful woman in my arms.”
“About that,” I start, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “You can put me down now.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Umm … then I’ll have to insist.”
“All right then,” he says as he carefully sets me on my feet.
“Thank you.”
I think he’ll move on, go about his business, something, anything away from me but he doesn’t. He just stands there, facing me. I’m such an idiot. Clearly, he needs help finding a book since he’s here, in a book shop, and I’m here working in said book shop. I could smack myself but then he’d really know what a dork I am and that would be terrible. Like life-alteringly bad. Like hope-the-earth-opens-up-and-swallows-me-whole bad.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask, nervously fidgeting with a lock of hair.
“Have dinner with me.”
“Anything but that,” I blurt out and snap my eyes closed. Why did I say that? I mean, I can’t go out with him. What would a man like that find remotely interesting in a book nerd like me? I don’t even know how to people all that well. Case in point right flipping now. But I could have said it better.
“So you’re seeing someone then?” he asks and it almost looks like he’s trying not to smile with the way his lush upper lip is twitching.
“Uh … no.”
How do I extricate myself from this conversation? It’s times like this I really miss my mom. She never thought my shyness, or my quirks, was weird. She’s been gone so long but I still remember the way she made me feel safe and loved no matter what. And then she died.
There’s something about this man that makes me feel safe, too, but then he makes me feel off balanced. Like the ground I’m standing on is being washed out from underneath me. Or the ladder I’m on is being knocked down.
He watches me and I want to fidget underneath his stare, but I force myself to stay still. I don’t want him to see what he does to me.
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I have plans.”
“A date?”
“Family,” I shrug.
“Then have coffee with me,” he suggests.
“What? No,” I say as my panic grows. If I don’t get out of here soon, he’s going to know what a mess I really am. There’s something about this man. I want him to keep looking at me like I’m a fairytale come true, like I’m beautiful, like I could be his. Even though we both know that isn’t me. My life isn’t a fairytale.
“At least tell me your name, Hen.”
“Stella,” I whisper.
“Stella,” he says, testing out my name on his lips. The sound of it coming from his mouth in his deep brogue sends a shiver down my spine. “Until next time, Stella.”
And then he leaves me without a backward glance.
• • •
