Page 191 of Lethal King

“I lead by example,” I snip.

“A king can’t always do that. Sometimes, he just needs to prove himself to be a man worth fighting for.”

“I can do all the fighting myself,” I grumble. But at this point, it’s just stubborn instinct.

Dad is right. He always is.

“Clearly, that’s not true,” he harshly points out.

“If I had been there, there would have been no explosion.”

“Oh, then why weren’t you there? What kept you, the almighty king, from being in all places at once?”

“I was busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Retrieving my crown.”

“Fuck that crown,” Dad barks, a splinter of anger lashing through the speakers.

“I agree,” I fume back.

Hell, I hardly even made an effort to get it taken care of before I pulled Rozalia into that dark room…

My pants tighten at the recent memory, no matter how hard I try not to think about it.

“I knew you would,” Dad says, easily calming himself. “But that’s because none of this was ever really about the crown, was it?”

My heart freezes.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

Staring out into the night, I spot another red light ahead. It flickers through the darkness like a flowing dress.

Rozalia.

My frozen heart starts to pound. I can taste her on my lips.

I can feel her in my chest.

“It means I understand,” Dad sighs. “Loving an enemy isn’t—”

“Who said anything about love?” I furiously interrupt.

“You don’t seem like the type to marry someone out of spite,” Dad chuckles.

The sudden levity in his voice is surprising. And I hesitate to fight back.

He still doesn’t know that my proposal was a sham.

… Or does he?

“I did what I thought was right.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.”