A Royal World Apart

“I shall be staying here.” He smiled slowly. “All the better to protect you.”

“Are you supposed to remind me of the big bad wolf?”

He arched one dark eyebrow. “Do I?”

Come to think of it, he did. “What big teeth you have,” she said, forcing her voice to stay in a monotone.

His dark eyebrow arched. “I won’t say the rest. It would hardly be appropriate.”

A little thrill zinged through her. It certainly would not. And what was happening? Had he … flirted with her? Had she just flirted with her bodyguard?

He was gorgeous. In a very understated sort of way. He certainly wasn’t pretty, he was far too rugged for that. But he was … masculine. And somehow, just being near him, made her feel very, very aware of her own femininity. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw and she imagined it would feel rough beneath her palm.

She found herself brushing her fingertips lightly over her own cheek in response to the thought, feeling the smooth skin there. Craving its opposite.

She dropped her hand to her side, flexing her fingers, trying to get rid of the phantom impression of his scruff, and took a deep breath, attempting to clear her head.

“Hardly,” she said, trying to swallow. Her throat felt tight. Too tight.

“This doesn’t have to be hard, Eva,” he said, his accent shaping her name differently than she’d ever heard it before. It was … intriguing.

“It can’t be anything but. You and I have opposing goals, Mak.”

“What is your goal, Princess?” he asked, his eyes hard on her. Far too perceptive. He made her want to wrap her arms around herself, to try and cover as much as she could. Because she felt as though he could see beneath her filmy dress. More disturbing, she felt that he could see inside of her. See her fears, her desires. Things she’d never shared with anyone. “And be honest. None of this talk about you not telling me. Do you intend to take yourself out of the running for a dynastic marriage by ruining your image?”

“It had crossed my mind. Or perhaps, I simply wanted to start as I intend to go on.”

“Meaning?”

“The lucky royal who takes me as a wife should have an idea of what he’s getting into. He should know I’m not simply some docile piece of arm candy.”

He treated her to that look again. Cool. Assessing. Penetrating. He spoke slowly, as though each word was chosen carefully. For the purpose of irritating her, she imagined. “I doubt anyone could possibly believe you’re docile.”

“Then my job is at least half done,” she said, trying to play it a whole lot cooler than she felt. “I’m tired now. I think I’ll go to my quarters.” She turned away from him and started walking back down the hall.

She could hear heavy footfalls behind her. She turned and saw Mak following behind her. “I said I’m going to my quarters. You aren’t invited,” she said, even as her stomach tightened, thinking of inviting him in.

“I’m simply ensuring you arrive as you should,” he said, completely unperturbed by her prickly responses. She was usually very good at putting her guards off. The palace guards had given up on her, Makhail’s guards hadn’t been able to keep up with her.

And Makhail was … calm. Maddeningly so. As though he felt nothing. Nothing more than a mild amusement over the disaster area that was her life. As though the idea of her being sold into marriage was nothing.

“Think I’m going to knot the bedsheets together and rappel out the window?”

“You’ve done it before.”

Heat rushed into her cheeks. “Once. And I was fourteen. Did you read my file? Oh, theos, have I got a file?” She’d never, ever felt more like one of her father’s assets in her life. Not a person, a thing. A thing that was catalogued, like the antiquities, like the artifacts from the temples of Kyonos. She was another item from the royal collection.

“Of course you have a file. And considering you burn through guards at such an accelerated rate, it’s a good thing too. It made it much easier for me to know you.”

She gritted her teeth, tightening her hands into fists. “You can study that file all you like, read it cover to cover. You still won’t know me.” She turned her back on him and took short, quick steps down the hall, ignoring the sound of him still behind her.

When she reached the door to her quarters, her hands shook as she entered the code that would unlock the door.

“I make it my business to know people,” Mak said. “I profile them. It makes it easier in this business if I understand human nature. You think you’re so special that I can’t figure you out?”

She turned to him, her heart raging in her chest. “I’m not a list of characteristics. I am a person. I …”

“You are spoiled. Selfish. Characteristics brought on by a life with every amenity you could possibly imagine—and some most people can not—at your fingertips. You feel persecuted while surrounded by luxury, because you know nothing else. Because you don’t know what it is to go without food or shelter. Oh, I think I know you, Eva. Better than you know yourself, quite possibly.”

His assessment made her feel ill. Made her tremble from the inside out. Was it so wrong to want more out of her life than being an object? She wasn’t an artifact, which made being wrapped in silk and put on display boring and unsatisfying.

She sucked in a breath and met Mak’s eyes, ignored the shiver that worked its way through her as she did. “You can continue to think all of that if you wish. Frankly, you underestimating me works to my benefit.”

He chuckled, low and slow. “Perhaps you are simply overestimating yourself.” He moved closer to her and her heart kicked into high gear. He leaned in, his palm pressed flat against the door to her rooms, his face so near hers she could hardly breathe. For one moment, it all stopped. There was only Mak, his face filling her vision, his scent teasing her. “Sleep well, printzyessa.”

He pushed back from the door and turned away from her, walking down the hall, his abandonment leaving her cold. His recent nearness leaving her shaking.

“Bastard,” she said, loud enough for him to hear.

He didn’t turn. He just laughed.

She pushed the door open and closed it firmly behind her. This was a disaster. A nightmare. She’d been downgraded to a maximum-security playpen.

She hated that man. That ridiculous, gorgeous, awful man.

Eva toyed with the idea of climbing out the window. For all of two seconds. She didn’t have anywhere she wanted to be, and frankly, it would be rebellion for rebellion’s sake and that was just stupid.

The casino stuff, that night she’d gotten into one of Kyonos’s most exclusive and racy nightclubs, that had been for the benefit of the press. And even though she’d lost her bodyguard detail, she’d been sure she was safe.

Sneaking out in the dead of night didn’t have the same benefit.

She sank into the sofa that stretched across the entryway to her quarters, which was structured very much like a luxury apartment without a kitchen. It was a way for her to have privacy without actually having it. An illusion of independence.

She closed her eyes, her head resting on a plush white cushion. She could feel the noose tightening around her neck. Duty. Honor. She should care about both of those things more than she did.

She just wanted her own life.

And in her position, wanting that made her selfish, terrible when it would be seen as normal, responsible, for someone else to want to take control of their existence. It was also completely impossible.

CHAPTER THREE

EVA in her fitted black slacks, white blouse and long string of pearls that hung low, knotted beneath her breasts, was a very different Eva from the one he’d encountered the night before. With her glossy brown hair tamed into a sleek bun, her makeup light and subtle, she looked every inch the proper princess.

But he knew better. He could not get the image of her as she had been last night out of his mind. Angry, and more than a little bit hot. She had plagued his dreams. Another strange occurrence. Even in sleep he had control. It had been necessary, for so long, for him to have control in every way. And he had gone into a business that took that and used it, made the most of it.

He couldn’t afford to lose it now.

He had been forced to take to the beach early in the morning, running until his lungs burned and his muscles shook, until he was certain the desire for her had been replaced by utter exhaustion. It was a technique he had used often in the past. It had not worked today.