A Royal World Apart

“Charming,” she said tightly.

“How do I know I can trust you, Mr. Nabatov, when you seem incapable of keeping an agent in my daughter’s presence?”

Makhail turned his focus to the king, his expression hard. Fierce. Almost frightening. “They were fools. I am not. And your options are limited, Your Highness. Typically, when we protect someone, they have the good sense to want that protection. Princess Evangelina does not.”

“That’s because I’m being protected from myself,” she said. “It’s insulting.”

“You behave like a child, and you shall be treated like one,” Stephanos said. “I am in the process of arranging a union for you that will benefit Kyonos, benefit your people. You disdain it.”

“I … I just want to have a bit of my own life … a bit of …”

“You are royal, Eva. It is not that simple,” the king said.

Eva bit back her response. Because, as much as she hated it, he was right. Every privilege, every ball, had a price. Every ounce of gold dust came with a twenty-pound iron weight attached to it. It didn’t matter whether she accepted it, it simply was.

Still, the outright refusal burned in her throat. Desperate to escape. Words she knew she could never speak.

“Am I dismissed?” she asked.

“You may go,” her father said, nodding his head.

She turned on her heel and walked out into the hall, covering her face with hands, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to keep tears from falling. She wasn’t weak. She didn’t have time for weakness. Even more importantly, she couldn’t afford to show it.

Not to her father, certainly not to the press. Least of all to Makhail, her brand-new jailer. The only person who understood her, even a little bit, was Stavros, her brother. And at the moment, he had his own problems.

She stalked down the long, empty corridor of the palace, making each step count, her high heels clicking loudly on the marble floor. If she had any idea what she wanted, things would be so much easier.

Making scandal, derailing her father’s plans to find her a suitable husband, that had kept her busy for the past few months, but she had no end plan with it.

What else could she do?

She knew what she wanted. She also knew she would probably never have it. A man who loved her, just her. A man she loved just as madly in return. A marriage that had nothing to do with politics or trade.

It was nothing more than a fantasy. Some little girls dreamed of being princesses. She’d just dreamed of being. Of living on her own terms, making her own goals, goals she could aspire to. It wasn’t possible, but she’d clung to the hope. For too long.

And any freedom she had had a timer ticking on it. The marriage was being arranged. And when she was married … it would all be gone, any hope squashed beneath the weight of it. She would go from being beneath her father’s control to being beneath her husband’s.

It was bleak.

“Princess.”

The deep, rich voice, flavored by a Russian accent, could only belong to one man. She turned and saw Makhail standing there, looking every inch the secret agent in his black suit.

“Yes?”

“I have finalized arrangements with your father.”

“Have you?” she asked, stiffly. “He says you have six months.”

She tried to ignore the sick, sinking feeling in her stomach. “So I’ve been sentenced, then?”

“Is that how you feel about it?”

She laughed, and she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t feel amused. Far from it. “How would you feel? Being offered as commodity to a total stranger? To bear his children and … sleep with him.”

“I imagine I would not enjoy it,” he said, his tone wry. “But then, I have never been interested in sleeping with men.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Listen, Princess …”

“Eva. Just Eva, please. If we have to deal with each other for the next few months it will be easier.”

“Then you can call me Mak.” It wasn’t a friendly offer. More like a prisoner exchange.

“I don’t want to,” she returned, keeping her tone intentionally tart.

He chuckled. “Why is that?”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “It humanizes you. I would prefer to stay angry with you for as long as possible.”

His lips curved into a smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He took a step, then another, slowly circling around her, like a predator who had found some very tempting prey. “I am certain I will find many ways to make you angry, Eva. You won’t need to manufacture reasons.”

“On that we can both agree.” She turned to face him as he moved to her side. “Stop circling me, I’m not a gazelle.”

He paused. “Excuse me?”

“You look like … like you’re stalking me or something. But I am no one’s prey.”

“I believe it.”

“Tell me then, Mak,” she said his name with as much disdain as she could muster. “What is on the agenda? Has my father lined out every single activity I’m approved for over the six months? Galas and tea parties?”

“Something like that.”

“Lovely,” she said dryly.

“Not for either of us and I see no reason to pretend otherwise. I am not a babysitter, so unless you want me to be incredibly irritable during our time together, I suggest you stop acting like a child.”

She stiffened, anger coursing through her veins, her temper, quick at the best of times, ready to snap. “I am not acting like a child. I’m being treated like one.”

“What do you think, Eva, that you’ll find the answers to life in a casino? In a bar? That somehow that sort of freedom means more than doing your duty to your country? If so, you really are a child.”

He turned his back to her and for some, strange reason, she felt compelled to ask him to stay. To make him stay. “Wait.”

He turned back to her. “Yes?”

“Where are you staying? Do you … do you have a home on Kyonos?”