His Majesty's Mistake

Makin was twenty when his father died. But in the years Makin had with him, he never heard his father complain or make excuses, even though Tahnoon lived with tremendous pain and suffered endless indignities. No, his father was a proud, fierce man and he’d taught Makin—not by words, but by example—that life required strength, courage and hard work.

“You don’t respect me because I wanted to be loved?” Hannah asked huskily, forcing his attention from the past to the present.

He glanced down, straight into her eyes, and felt that same uncomfortable twinge and steeled himself against the sensation. “I don’t respect you wanting to be loved by him.” He paused, wanting her to understand. “Ibanez is beneath you. He’s self-centered and vulgar and the women who chase him are fools.”

“That’s harsh.”

“But true. He’s always at the heart of a scandal. He prefers married women or women recently engaged like that ridiculous Princess Emmeline—”

“Ridiculous Princess Emmeline?” she interrupted. “Do you know her?”

“I know of her—”

“So you can’t say she’s ridiculous—”

“Oh, I can. I know her family well, and I attended her sixteenth birthday in Brabant years ago. She’s engaged to King Zale Patek, and I pity him. She’s turned him into a joke by chasing after Ibanez all year despite her engagement to Patek. No one respects her. The princess has the morals of an alley cat.”

“That’s a horrid thing to say.”

“I’m honest. Perhaps if others had been more honest with Her Royal Highness, she might have turned out differently.” He shrugged dismissively. “But I don’t care about her. I care about you and your ability to perform your job with clarity and efficiency. Don’t let Ibanez waste another moment of your time. Nor my time, for that matter. Everything about him bores me.” His gaze held hers. “Are we clear?”

“Yes,” she said huskily.

“Then pull yourself together and take a seat in the main cabin so we can depart.”

Using the vanity kit provided in the bathroom, Emmeline washed her face, brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her hair. The thick dark hair still looked strange to her. Emmeline missed her golden-blond color. Missed her wardrobe. Missed her life.

This is how Hannah must have felt when thrust into Emmeline’s life.

Lost. Confused. Angry. And Emmeline knew she was the one who’d put Hannah in that position. Changing places with Hannah had been Emmeline’s idea. There was no benefit for Hannah. Nothing to be gained by masquerading as a princess. It was Emmeline who’d benefited. She’d been able to slip away from her attendants to seek out Alejandro and tell him about the pregnancy. Only in the end, when she had confronted him, it hadn’t mattered. He’d still rejected her.

Emmeline sucked in a slow breath, sickeningly aware that her selfishness and foolishness had impacted so many people. Hannah. King Patek. Sheikh Al-Koury.

What she had to do was fix things. Not just for her, but for everyone.

Once tidy and outwardly calm, she took the seat the flight attendant led her to, a seat not far from Makin’s, although he was at work typing away on his laptop.

Emmeline tried to block him from her peripheral vision as the jet taxied down the runway, unnerved by the sheer size and shape of him.

He was tall, solid, muscular. As he typed, his arms flexed and she could see the distinct shape of his thick bicep press against the taut cotton of his shirt. His fine wool trousers silhouetted the hard cut of his quadriceps. Even his hands were strong, his fingers moving easily, confidently, across the laptop keyboard.

She watched his hands for a moment, fascinated by them. His skin was tan and his fingers were long and well-shaped. They reminded her of the hands on Greek statues—beautiful, classic, sculptural. She wondered what his touch would be like, and how his hands would move on a woman’s body. Would his touch be light and gentle, or heavy and rough? She wondered how he held a woman, and if he curved her to him or held himself aloof, using her like a piece of equipment.

Emmeline had never wondered about such things before, but her night with Alejandro had changed all that. It changed the way she viewed men and women, made her realize that sex had been romanticized in books and movies and the media.

Sex wasn’t warm or fun or intimate. It hadn’t been beautiful or something pleasurable.

She’d found it a soulless, empty act. It’d been Alejandro taking her body—no more, no less than that.

Emmeline knew now her expectations had been so silly, so girlish and immature. Why hadn’t she realized that Alejandro would pump away at her until he climaxed and roll off to shower and dress and leave?

Her eyes stung, hot, hot and gritty. Even seven weeks later she felt betrayed by her need for love and affection, and how she’d turned to Alejandro to give her that affection.

She’d imagined that sex would fill the hollow emptiness inside of her, but it had only made it worse.

Squeezing her eyes closed, she pulled the soft blanket even higher on her chest as her late grandmother’s voice echoed in her head, “Don’t cast pearls before swine.” But that’s what Emmeline had done out of desperation that no one would ever love her.

Emmeline shivered beneath the blanket, horrified all over again by her poor choices.

“Would you like me to turn the heat up?” Makin asked.

She opened her eyes and saw he was watching her. She didn’t know how long he’d been watching. “I’m fine,” she said unsteadily.

“I can get you another blanket.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated.

“You’re shivering.”

Heat crept into her cheeks. He was watching her closely, then. “Just my thoughts.”

“Ibanez isn’t worth your time. He’s a liar, a cheat, a scoundrel. You deserve a prince of a man. Nothing less.”

How ironic. Hannah deserved a prince of a man, but she, Emmeline, deserved only scorn.

Emmeline swallowed around the thick lump in her throat, wishing that she could be the smart, capable Hannah he admired instead of the useless spoiled princess he despised.

His disdain for her wounded. It shouldn’t. He didn’t know her, and she shouldn’t let one person’s opinion matter, but it did. He’d touched a nerve. A powerful nerve. It was as if he’d somehow seen through her elegant, polished exterior to the real Emmeline, the private Emmeline who felt so unworthy and impossible to love.

She’d always wondered why she felt so insecure, so alone, and then, on her sixteenth birthday, a half hour before her big party, she’d learned that her parents weren’t her birth parents after all. She’d been adopted. Her birth mother had been a young unmarried woman from Brabant, but no one knew who her birth father was.

She’d gone to her birthday party absolutely shell-shocked. She didn’t know why her adoptive father, King William, had felt compelled to break the news before her party but it had spoiled the night for her. Instead of dancing and celebrating with her guests, she’d found herself wondering about the mother who’d given her up, and if she looked like her, and if her mother ever thought of her.

It had been nine years since that revelation, and yet Emmeline still wondered about her birth parents. Could the fact that she’d been adopted have anything to do with her sense of emptiness and fear of abandonment? Could she have missed that mother who gave birth to her?

“What did you hope to accomplish tonight at the Mynt?” Makin suddenly asked.

She drew the blanket even closer to her chest, trying to capture more warmth. “He said he loved me—”

“Yes, I know,” he interrupted impatiently. “You already told me that.”

“—and I thought if he saw me tonight, he’d remember how he felt about me,” she pressed on as though he hadn’t spoken. “I thought he’d remember he’d asked me to marry him.”

“He asked you to marry him?” he repeated, incredulous.

Her chin tilted defiantly. Why did he find that so impossible to believe? “Yes.”

For a long moment Makin said nothing, absolutely nothing. He just sat there, looking at her as if he felt sorry for her. Just when Emmeline didn’t think she could take his pitying silence another moment, he spoke. “Alejandro’s already married. Not just married, but a father to five children. The oldest is twelve. The youngest just nine months old.”