Page 18 of Hide Little Traitor

Placing the photo back in its place, I pick up the next one, and my heart does a little flip it has no right doing at the sight of Ryker.

He looks out of place in a suit, his tattoos peeking out from the neck and from beneath the sleeves, but there’s a smile on his lips. Kingston has his arm wrapped around the man I thought was my bodyguard, his own black suit fitting to perfection.

I try to imagine what the two of them are so dressed up for, but I realize I know so little about them, it could have been anything.

Reaching for the final photo frame, my heart stutters in my chest at my own face staring back at me, and this time I know exactly when it was taken.

Camilla’s graduation party.

The emerald dress I’d been saving for a special occasion fits better than I remember, and I look…happy. If the last few weeks are proof of anything, it’s that I took that happiness for granted, something I’ll never do again.

Shaking fingers glide across the glass, longing for that time in my life. It wasn’t perfect, but I had my freedom, and I’m coming to realize that’s all I’ve ever really wanted.

Someone clears their throat behind me, and I spin on my heel, coming face to face with the latest man to take that freedom.

“Find what you were looking for, Mama?”

“How do you have this?” I demand.

“John De Marco sent it to me,” he replies, stepping farther into the room and closing the distance between us.

“Why would he do that?”

“He used to give me updates on how you were doing. It was a shame when he died. He was a good man.”

I can’t find it in me to disagree, because although watching the barbaric ways he prepared Camilla to take the throne made me hate him some days, he was always kind to me, and everything he did, he did for a reason.

He didn’t force her to withstand torture because he wanted to. He did it to make her stronger, to make her the best leader she could be.

And without all that training, I’m not sure she would be where she is today, and I certainly don’t think she could have handled those men of hers without it.

“Why would he give you updates on me?”

“Because I asked him to.”

“Why?”

Kingston sighs and steps closer again, this time not pausing until the back of my legs hit the bed and his fingers brush along my jaw. “That should be obvious to you by now, Chloe.”

“Well, it isn’t, so I would appreciate you spelling it out for me.”

He chuckles, his breath whispering across my cheeks and making it hard to remember why I’m angry with him. “Because our story didn’t end the day I left you, Mama. It was just beginning. I had to get my world ready for you to take your place beside me, and although every day I spent without you was excruciating, it was necessary.”

I open my mouth to respond, to argue, but before I get a chance to utter a single word, his lips are on mine.

Kissing Kingston is nothing like my dreams. I expected his lips to be rough, for his kisses to be brutal, but neither of those things is true.

His fingers feed into the back of my hair, holding me in place as he deepens the kiss, his tongue sweeping along my lips, demanding entry I couldn’t deny him even if I wanted to.

A deep rumble climbs his throat as his other hand wraps around me and tugs me against him, leaving no space between us.

I’m too stunned to push him away with the hands I have braced on his chest, but even if I could, I’m not sure I would.

Because of the way he’s holding me, with a reverence I could only have dreamed of, I realize that I’m not as over him as I wanted to believe I was.

“Fuck, you taste like heaven, Chloe,” he murmurs against my lips. “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about how you would feel against me, how many nights I spent imagining what it would feel like to finally have you in my arms.”

For the first time since I woke up with my hand in his, I can’t help but wonder if, despite my reservations, I’ve finally found my way to where I’m meant to be.