Falling For His Convenient Queen

‘Nalini, are you okay?’ Zacchaeus asked, crouching beside her.

‘I’m fine.’ She was pretty sure that she was, at least. ‘You shouldn’t be in here though. You’ll spoil your uniform.’

‘It’ll survive,’ he said wryly and offered her a hand. ‘Will you accept my help or are you going to ignore it to avoid touching me?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she answered, though she hesitated before she took his hand. When she was standing, she looked down at her dress, no longer falling in an A-line around her hips but flattened to her sides. ‘I’ve spoilt this dress.’ She looked up at him. ‘You shouldn’t have come in and spoilt your uniform too.’

‘The uniform doesn’t matter, Nalini. Neither does your dress. But you do.’ His eyes searched her face. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Of course I am,’ she replied, straightening her spine. Trying to maintain what little dignity she had left. ‘Besides my pride, I’m perfectly fine.’

‘I have to agree on that one.’

‘You do? Why?’

‘My pride’s tingling a bit too. After all, you did just fall into a stream to get away from me.’

‘That’s not what happened,’ she retorted, and then frowned. Was that really the reason she’d fallen into the stream? To get away from Zacchaeus? Now that the fogginess of the stun had cleared, she could remember taking a step back, away from him—no, she corrected. Away from kissing him. She hadn’t meant to make it obvious. She’d just wanted space to think, and to get away from the way her body felt when she touched him.

To get away from how her body had reacted to the prospect of kissing him.

Of course her attempt at subtlety had landed her on her butt in a stream.

At that moment her eyes took in their spectators, clamouring against the fence surrounding the garden, their faces a mixture of surprise and concern. The faces of those she could see, that was, considering the number of phones she saw capturing everything that was happening.

Stefan had a horrified expression on his face, although she had noted while Zacchaeus had been helping her that he’d still been taking photos. And then there was Zacchaeus’s face, wrought with concern and annoyance.

All of it should have embarrassed Nalini. And, she supposed, she would feel that way later, when she’d had time to process it all. But right then the only logical response she could manage started low in her belly, bubbling up her throat until she couldn’t control the giggles any more.

‘How are you laughing at this?’ Zacchaeus asked, his eyes wide.

‘Because...’ She told herself to stop laughing, to answer him, but the more she tried, the more she kept laughing. ‘It’s just...so...ridiculous!’ she managed between fits of laughter. ‘I’m sorry, Zacchaeus,’ she said, wiping a tear from her eyes. ‘I know this must seem like a terribly inappropriate response, but I landed on my butt trying to get away—’

She broke off at the deep sound that came from the man in front of her. He was laughing. Time ticked by, and still he laughed. The shock of seeing Zacchaeus laugh lasted only a few more seconds before she found herself joining him. She wasn’t sure how long they laughed together—she didn’t even care that there were witnesses to their momentary insanity. And when the laughter faded there was a sparkle in his eyes that had never been there before.

It made those light flecks in his eyes that she’d only just noticed even more visible. Again, she wondered how she’d missed it, and felt unsettled, like a speck of dust that had been blown away.

‘It’s no wonder you don’t laugh very often,’ she murmured softly. ‘You’d have the entire female population falling at your feet.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#u4afddf52-0381-5439-9a87-9451587daa31)

ZACCHAEUS TILTED HIS HEAD, acknowledging—but refusing to dwell on—the warmth that went through his body at her words. ‘Is that so?’

Though her cheeks pinked, she nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘Because my laughter is so charming?’

‘Because it makes you look...like a man,’ she said. ‘Not like a king.’

Caught by the picture she was painting, even though he knew it would only start trouble, he asked, ‘Does no one notice the man when he’s a king?’

‘No,’ she said softly, her eyes following the hand he didn’t seem able to control as it swept a piece of her hair from her face. ‘People look at the deeds of a king. That’s how they notice his heart.’

‘Which means people think I have no heart,’ he said before he could stop himself.

He paused and gave himself a moment to stuff the emotions he was feeling back into the box he’d created in his mind especially for them. It was harder than it generally was, and he ignored the inner voice telling him it was because of the woman in front of him.

No, he told himself. His feelings were just becoming harder to cope with because there had been so many of them over the last months. Feelings about his mother’s affair, about her leaving. About the demands she and her lover in Macoa were making of Kirtida. About his father’s illness, and the fact that he’d forced Zacchaeus to pretend to overthrow him...

There had been no time to deal with them—no time to even think of them. But a part of him warned that he would have to face them at some stage. And that if that time didn’t come soon, they might just bubble over, forcing him to deal with them.

Though it left a sick feeling in his stomach, it helped him remember he couldn’t think of himself as a man—however tempting it was, he thought, looking at the woman who drew him in unlike any other. He was a king. Which was why he had to ignore the betrayal, the sadness, the hurt swirling around inside him because of his parents.

Which was why he had to refuse the attraction he felt towards the woman in front of him. He had to focus on his kingdom. He had no other choice because he was King.

And a king shouldn’t be standing in a stream with his fiancée, laughing at something that could be misconstrued.

‘We should probably get out of here,’ he said, keeping his voice devoid of emotion. And keeping his heart devoid of it too, when it wanted to react to the way her face fell.

‘You’re right,’ she said after a few moments and aimed unsettlingly cool eyes at Stefan. ‘Can you make do with what you have, Stefan? I’d prefer not to repeat this process.’

It was a jab at him, he thought. And it hit its mark.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Stefan rushed forward now and helped Nalini out of the stream. ‘I will edit these pictures immediately and have them sent to the castle for approval.’

‘Thank you,’ Nalini answered as she stepped onto the grass. Water ran down her legs—long and shapely in the heels she wore—and Zacchaeus had to force his eyes away from them to look for someone who could assist them.

He strode to the nearest staff member he saw and requested that towels be brought to them as soon as possible. When he returned to Nalini and Stefan, Nalini was thanking the photographer again in a voice significantly warmer than the one he’d heard her use before he’d left.

‘I’m sure the pictures will come out beautifully,’ she said before turning to him. Her eyes went cool again, and something chilled inside him as well.

He told himself that it had nothing to do with the fact that she was filled with light and happiness. That her laughing at something that she could have found embarrassing had been so authentic that he thought it was the first time he’d seen a glimpse of the real Nalini.

Which had him wondering why she thought that she needed to hide the real her.

He shook his head, grateful for the distraction of being brought the towels he’d asked for. He took them and handed one to Nalini.

‘You should dry off.’

‘I’d prefer to have a shower,’ she answered, but took the towel and rubbed it over her legs. She slipped out of her heels and dried her feet and, though he was tempted to keep watching her—what was it about her legs that was so captivating?—it reminded him that his feet were wet too.

Like her, he wanted a shower. And dry clothes and shoes. Since he’d angled his body so that she would have some privacy from the onlookers, he couldn’t dry himself off as she was doing. Yet he was hesitant to leave.

That burst of light he’d seen from her had been so refreshing—and so completely different from the perpetual darkness he’d felt shroud him since the night of the State Banquet. Since before then, he knew, thinking about his mother.