Ruthless King

“Do you think me a monster?” His voice was monotone, as if he didn’t care either way about the answer.

But she had the feeling he did.

“No. He was the monster. And I’ll never tell anyone. I promise. Thank you for killing him. You set me free. You saved me. You’re my hero.”

“I’m not a hero, baby. I’m the villain. But that just means that I can and will do whatever it takes to protect you.”

She believed him.

Regent frownedas he watch his girl sleep. She’d done a lot of sleeping today. He’d grown so worried he’d actually called Doctor Stanley’s nephew who’d told him that sleep was good for her.

But Regent had barely been able to tear himself away from her side. At least she hadn’t had any more nightmares.

His phone rang and he glanced down, seeing it was Lottie.

He moved out into the hallway. “Darling? Everything okay?”

“Everything is more than okay. Well, other than being nervous about this showing this weekend.”

He hated that she was nervous. Why weren’t her men doing something to reassure her?

“Why are you nervous?” he demanded. “You have no reason to be nervous.”

“What if I flop, Reggie?” she whispered. “What if I’m a complete failure? I’ll let everyone down.”

Outrage filled him at the sound of the wobble in her voice.

“You could never let anyone down. Not ever. No matter what you do.”

“You’d never be disappointed in me?”

“Never.”

He heard her take in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Something niggled at him.

“Lottie, darling, have I ever given you a reason to think you have disappointed me?”

“What? No. No, Reggie, you’ve always looked after me. You never gave up on me, even when you probably should have.”

He let out a low noise of disagreement at that remark.

“It’s just you’re so confident. You never fail at anything. I don’t want to let you down.”

“I’ve told you that you won’t. And you need to believe that,” he said firmly. Then he closed his eyes. That wouldn’t help her. Not fully. “I’m also not good at everything I do.”

She let out a soft laugh. “Yes, you are.”

He understood why she thought that. It wasn’t like he went around telling people about his failures. His father had taught him that admitting failure was weak. But he was trying his best not to be his father.

“I fail at plenty, darling.”

“Like what?”

“Well, right now, I think I’m failing Jilly.”

There was a beat of silence. “Jilly? From the tunnels?”

“Yes. That Jilly.”