Pretender to the Throne

And it took a lot to wipe his mind and emotions free of it all again. A lot of drinking. A lot of women. Things that made him feel like a different man than the one he’d once thought he was, than the one he was trained to be. Things that created happiness. Before they created a gigantic headache.

One thing he’d never thought to look for had been the fate of the woman he’d left behind. But obviously, something had happened.

“Layna,” he said.

“No one calls me that,” she said, her tone hard, her expression flat.

“I did.”

“You do not now, your highness. You don’t have that right. Do you even have the right to a title?”

That burned. Deeper than he’d imagined it could. Because she was edging close to a pain he’d rather forget.

“I do,” he growled. “And I will continue to.” His decision was made. Whether or not it made sense to anyone, including himself, his decision was made. He had come back, and he would stay. Though, no one knew it yet.

He’d felt compelled to come and see the state of things first. And then...and then he’d felt compelled to find Layna. Because if there was one thing he knew, it was that he had grown unsuitable to the task of ruling. And if he knew anything else, it was that no one was more suited to be queen than Layna.

He had thought it unlikely she would still be unmarried. He hadn’t counted on her being both unmarried and at a convent, but he supposed it wasn’t any less likely than what he’d been doing with his time for the past fifteen years.

No, he took that back. It was unlikely. Everything about this was unlikely. Layna Xenakos, the toast of Kyonosian society, renowned beauty and bubbly hostess, shut away in a convent, wearing a drab dress. With scars that made her mostly unrecognizable.

“I should like you to go,” she said, walking toward him with purpose. He could tell she meant to go right on past him.

He stepped in front of her, blocking her way. She froze, those eyes, so familiar, like a shot straight out of the past, locked with his. “I would like for you to unhand me as well, then leave.”

“So unhospitable, Sister, and to your future ruler.”

“Hospitality is one thing, allowing a man to touch me as though he owns me is another thing entirely.” She stepped away from him, her expression fierce. “You might rule the country, you might own the land, but you do not own me, or anyone else here.”

“You belong to God now then, is that it?”

“Less worrisome than belonging to you.”

“You did once.”

She shook her head. “I never did.”

“You wore my ring.”

“But we hadn’t taken vows yet. And you left.”

“I let you keep the ring,” he said, looking down at her hands and noticing they were bare.

“An engagement ring isn’t very useful when there is no fiancé attached to it. And anyway, I’ve changed. My life has changed. I suppose you thought you could come back here and pick up where we left off.”

He had. And why not? It would be the story of the decade. The heir’s return and his reunion with the woman the nation had always been so fond of. Except, for some reason, a very large part of him had assumed she’d simply been here in Kyonos, frozen in time, waiting for his return.

A large part of him had assumed that all of Kyonos had done so. But he had been mistaken.

There were casinos now. An electric strip by the beach. His brother Stavros’s doing. The old town had been renewed. No longer simply a quarter where old men sat and played chess, it was now a place for hipsters and artists to hang out and “be inspired” by the beach and the architecture.

His sister was not the same. Not a dark-haired, mischievous girl, but a woman now. Married and expecting a child. His brother had become a man, instead of a rail-thin teenage boy.

His father was old. And dying. His father...

And Layna Xenakos had joined a convent.

“I will be straight with you,” he said. “I am not the favored son of the Drakos family.”

She nodded once but remained silent, so he continued.

“But I have decided that I will rule. For the next generation even more than for this one.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Stavros’s children cannot inherit. And that would leave my sister’s child. The changes it would require...it was never her cross to bear. I have done a great many selfish things in my life, Layna, and I intend to keep doing many of them. But what I cannot do, when it comes down to it, is condemn my brother to a life he never wanted. Or give to my sister’s child a responsibility it was never meant to take on.” He had ruined things for his siblings already. Their childhoods had passed by while he was gone. Children who’d had no mother.

Especially Eva. She’d been so young then. It was unfair. He couldn’t continue to hurt her. He wouldn’t.

“You speak of the crown as though it’s a poison cup,” she said, her words muted.

“It is in many ways. But it is mine. And I have spent too many years trying to pass it off to others.” Yes, his. As far as anyone knew, it was his. It was the expectation. What he had trained for until he was twenty-one.

The truth, was another matter. But it didn’t change Stavros’s reality. It didn’t change Eva’s.

It didn’t change what had to be done.

“A conscience, Xander?” she asked, using his first name, the sound sending a shiver through him. A ripple of memory.

“I’m not so certain I’d go that far. Maybe a bit of forgotten honor bred into me. Thanks to all that royal blood,” he said, his tone dripping sarcasm. “Imagine my disappointment when I realized I hadn’t replaced it all with alcohol.”

“A disappointment for many,” she said. She sounded more like her old self now. He’d officially destroyed her serenity. Perhaps a lightning bolt would be in the offing after all.

“I’m sure. But I had thought there might be a way of softening the blow.”

“And that is?”

“You,” he said. “I’m going to need you, Layna.”

CHAPTER TWO

LAYNA FELT LIKE the world had just inverted beneath her feet, and only the wooden gate was keeping her from folding. “Excuse me?”

“I need you.”

“I can’t imagine why you think that, but trust me, you don’t.”

“The people love you. They don’t love me, Layna.”