Unwrapping Mr. Roth by Holley Trent Page B

wouldn’t, even if it made her life more difficult than it had to be.
    “Have you stopped to think that perhaps you not being like me is the ideal scenario?”
    Gillian furrowed her brow. “How?”
    Nick pulled his gaze from her and turned to the girls.
    No answer, but she was starting to expect that.
    “Let’s make a list of guards you like and I’ll have Agnes vet them. Maybe you could shop tomorrow.”
    “Are you going to go with us?” one of the girls asked.
    “What good would I do you, love? I’m a waste of space as far as domestic chores go. All I can do is give you money.”
    The girls actually looked a bit sad about it, and oddly, Gillian thought she understood why they might be. They felt safe when he was around and it was obvious he cared.
    He was overbearing as hell—sure—but they were safe and had to feel mostly provided for.
    It had been a long time since Gillian could say the same about herself. Likes those girls, Gillian was on her own.
     
    ***
     
    For the second time in their short acquaintance, Nick found Gillian asleep on a sofa with a blanket pulled over her head. And again, he sat on the edge of a coffee table and nudged back the cover.
    She slept with her delectable lips parted and all that dark hair covering her eyes. He nudged that back, too, and trailed his fingers down the line of her neck.
    In her sleep, she nuzzled his hand like a cat, and her eyes slowly opened.
    After a moment, she pulled away and sat up abruptly. “God.”
    “Would you have preferred the touch to have been from some stranger?”
    “You are a stranger.” She adjusted her blanket and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it? Can’t tell here because the damn sun doesn’t come up.”
    “It’s around seven. I want to show you something.”
    She whimpered. “Nick, it’s cold outside.”
    “Not walking. Teleporting. Where we’re going isn’t close.”
    “That’s even worse.”
    He took her hand, pushed his power out to encircle her, and teleported her with him to the magic realm.
    They landed in a dim room with cold stone floors and walls covered by faded ancient tapestries.
    Gillian turned in a full circle and wide-eyed, seemed to be absorbing the sights.
    Several long wooden tables each flanked by heavy cushioned benches. The tables were still set with dusty china, fine utensils and overturned goblets. On the other end of the room, up on a high, wide platform, was a throne.
    Gillian stepped up onto the dais and drew in startled breath at the transfer of dust onto her hand from touching the chair’s wooden back.
    “It hasn’t been occupied in quite some time, pet,” he said before she could ask the obvious question.
    “Nick, where are we? Is this a castle?”
    “A palace,” he said dryly. “The word ‘castle’ implies that there is more fortification than we have here.” He stepped up onto the platform and used the cuff of his shirt to clear some of the film off the chair’s broad arms. “When there’s a king fit for this chair, this compound—located in the realm of magic folk—is the safest place people like Kori can be.”
    “If you’re the supposed king, then why don’t you live here?”
    He cleared dust from the top of the chair back where an intricate carving of holly was inlaid. “Yes, it’s supposed to be my chair,” he said quietly, and then hooked his arm around hers and led her down the dais toward one of the doors at the side of the massive room. “When my father died, the throne was supposed to pass to my brother, but my sisters got in the way. When Peter died, I couldn’t take it either.”
    “So, you and the girls weren’t joking? You are a king?”
    “You hoped we’d said it in jest? Why?”
    She let out a dry laugh and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. “Put yourself in my shoes. This entire situation is bananas.”
    “In what way?” Nick led her toward a torch-lit corridor that led to a staircase covered with worn carpet. Everything about the place was