His Drakon Runaway Bride

He was leaner than she remembered and it made him look even more distant and withdrawn. There were lines on his face now, especially around that thinly sculpted mouth. At twenty-six he’d been gorgeous in an uptight, starchy kind of way.

Ten years later now, he seemed even more comfortable in his skin. Even more arrogant and ruthless about his place in the world.

Every small thing she noticed brought back a memory thudding into her conscious, as physical as a blow to her solar plexus. Her throat dried promptly again, her heart forever in that lurching rhythm when he was near.

Slowly the impact of this, of him, hit her in its completion. She wasn’t running away from this, not yet at least.

No, there was no running away at all from this, she corrected herself. Not unless she wanted him to give her chase for the rest of their lives.

Realizing she’d been gaping at him, she pulled her gaze up. Chin propped against his fist, he raised a brow. He didn’t tease her for gawking at him like a teenager.

He didn’t need the validation to his masculinity, to his ego.

Power was second skin to him, women flocked to him like buzzing bees. Actresses and models, CEOs and princesses, women had been falling at his feet since puberty. If he’d been merely one more vacant, lazy royal out to have a good time, maybe he wouldn’t have so much pull.

But no, Andreas Drakos was smart as a whip. A historian, an army veteran, a weaver of words. Christos, there wasn’t anything he didn’t excel at.

And yet he’d chosen her.

She frowned, the question had tormented her for years, struggled into a comfortable position and took stock of her body. A leaf fluttering in a harsh gale would have more strength than her at the moment.

Of all the stupid, moronic things to do in front of this man... She pressed a hand to her temple.

She felt the heat of his body instantly in the air around the bed. Whatever reprieve she’d gotten was over.

In silent scrutiny, he fluffed the pillows and propped them against the wall, and then pulled her into a sitting position. With economic movements, his fingers barely touching her, he arranged the duvet around her. Gave her another bottle of water that she emptied within seconds.

Hysteria began to bubble up through her throat and she laughed. Water spurted out of her nose and mouth inelegantly, and he promptly wiped her nose and mouth with a napkin. On and on went her near manic laughter until tears streamed out from her eyes. Until the ball of tension that had lodged in her chest since she’d seen him standing in front of the church slowly deflated.

He raised a brow again.

“How many women can claim Crown Prince Andreas Drakos waited on them like a lowly member of staff?” she quipped, perfectly understanding his question.

A sudden tightness gripped her chest. Wordless communication had been so their thing.

“So you still possess that ridiculous sense of humor.”

She tensed as he sat down at the edge of the bed. Not near enough to touch, yet tantalizingly close. Her body couldn’t take this much heightened awareness after what had been a drought of ten years. Not for long, not without combusting with need.

“What the hell was that?”

“Be glad I didn’t scratch that perfect face. Or maybe I should have. A little imperfection would have at least made you look human.”

A jagged sigh. An echo of all the times Ari had pushed his buttons. “I speak of your fainting.”

“You showed up after ten years and I fainted.” She sighed. Regression much, Ari?

“Continue like that and it will only confirm my belief that you’re still that reckless, juvenile, rebellious brat I knew back then.”

“What can I say? You bring out the worst in me, Your Highness.”

Their eyes sought each other instantly.

Are you my watchdog, Your Highness?

Crack a smile, Your Highness.

It’s called a vodka shot, Your Highness.

Had she been that naive, that foolish to have teased this man like that? Had he actually let her?

“Ariana, focus.” It wasn’t even a warning. Just a smidgen of his impatience leaking. “If I hadn’t been there, you would have been on the grass, in the cold, for God knows how long. Is this your new thing now, fainting?”

“New thing?”

“Yes. Pot brownies, vodka shots, fasting for days to lose weight... Christos, do I need to go on? You were always ridiculously reckless about your well-being.”

Ari massaged her temples with her fingers. He was right.

She had thrown herself into her sudden, boundless freedom, as naively as jumping off a cliff. Guilt over her parents’ deaths had stolen reason from her. The need to experience life to the fullest after seventeen years of being trapped in a golden cage...it had consumed her.

He’d thought her ditzy, willful, reckless and any number of even less complimentary things. She had been all those and more. But not in the past ten years, not anymore.

Her hands settled on her belly, corrosive grief scratching her throat.

The freedom she’d finally got, the need to make something of her life, it had come at such a high price. But it had helped her find herself, helped her achieve control over those impulses that would destroy her.

Until this past month when his impending announcement had undone her again. And that made fear whisper through her bones. It was the same circle of self-abuse her mother had been stuck in with her father.

“Ariana?”

“I...had a salad for lunch yesterday and nothing since then. It has been a stressful week—the caseload at the firm is crazy right now and then a doubly stressful morning. I’ve never fainted before.” Except that one time after she had left Drakon and him behind. Because in her recklessness, the same that he accused her of right now, it had taken a fainting spell to realize she’d been three months pregnant.

His instant control of the situation, his interrogation of her as if she were a child, grated like nothing else. But to be fair, that’s what she had been then. “Because of the elevation above sea level of this town, I sometimes find it hard to breathe.”

“Mountain air makes your asthma worse. I checked your little purse and you didn’t have your inhaler on you.”

She looked up then and swallowed. She’d thought he would delete anything related to their time together from his life, from his mind. At least after learning of the biggest lie she’d ever told.

Apparently, like her, Andreas had forgotten nothing of their time together. Of their short-lived marriage. Of how they made each other burn up in flames when they touched, and ruined each other when they didn’t.

“It does flare it up from time to time. But it makes up with everything else.”

A little frown appeared between his brows. “Makes up?”

“The fact that it flares my asthma is a little inconvenience to what I have found here. I...found a community here, Andreas. My life has meaning here. There are women who count on me.” She held his gaze, air ballooning up in her chest, smothering her lungs. Time to face the facts. “You can’t really mean what you said earlier.”

“Have you ever known me to say anything I didn’t mean?”