Jennifer Hayward – Marrying Her Royal Enemy (страница 7)

“I’m doing the right thing.” She said the words more vehemently than she felt them at the moment.

“For you or for your country?”

“For both.”

Alex stayed quiet and she knew why. Her sister was blissfully happy with Aristos, who’d mellowed out from his jungle-cat personality to something approaching civility of late. Stella was happy for her, she really was, but it was like being slapped in the face with her own romantic futility every time she saw them together.

A knock on the door brought their heads up. Her brother strolled in, jacket over his arm, tie loose. He gave his wife a kiss, then glanced at the dress rack. “How’s it going?”

Alex made a face. “How’s it not going, you mean.”

Nik took in Stella’s dark look. “Can you give us a second?”

His wife and Alex left, clearly happy for a breather. Her brother turned his ever-perceptive gaze on her. “Everything okay?”

“Never better.”

“This was your decision, Stella.”

“It’s not that.” She waved a hand at him. “I needed a challenge like this. I was dying inside going through the motions. It’s this media circus that’s getting to me. You’d think I’d solved world hunger instead of getting engaged.”

“Think of it as good for Carnelia. People are excited.”

“I know.” She raked a hand through her hair. Strode to the window to look out at the glittering, sun-dappled Ionian Sea, across which her fiancé was attempting to manage the media firestorm he’d created. She wondered how he was doing. She’d talked to him on the phone a few times, but she’d mostly been working with Takis, his personal aide, on logistics, while Kostas attempted to hold a faltering country together.

“Kostas is a good man. Survivor’s guilt is a hell of a thing to deal with. Give him some leeway.”

She turned around. “You absolve him of any responsibility?”

“I have chosen to let go. You should, too.”

She wasn’t sure she was as enlightened as he was.

“I wanted to mention something else. Darius is going to accompany you to Carnelia. Permanently.”

“I can’t ask him to do that—he lives here.”

“He wants to go. His loyalty to you has always been unquestionable.”

She adored Darius. He’d kept her sane at times when it felt as if her life was just too much. “Does Kostas know about this?”

“He’s in full agreement. I trust Kostas implicitly—he will take care of you. It’s when he’s not there I want an Akathinian, a known quantity, with you.”

“Why? You think I’m in danger?”

“I think it’s a smart precaution. You’re walking into a very tricky political situation.”

She didn’t like how he hadn’t answered the question. But then she’d known taking on this challenge was full of risk.

“Kala.” Fine.

Nik’s gaze softened. “I think you’re very courageous to do this, Stella. I’m proud of you. Remember you are not alone. You are never alone. We’re with you every step of the way.”

Her heart softened. Her rock, Nik was. Passionate, idealistic like her, the yin to Athamos’s rock-steady yang, she’d had to get to know him in pieces. He’d been sent off to join Athamos at boarding school when Stella was four, leaving her with only her nannies and tutor to keep her company while her mother immersed herself in her charity work as her marriage imploded.

She’d seen her brothers on holidays, had eagerly eaten up any time she’d had with them, missing them desperately when they left. When she’d gotten old enough to travel by herself, she’d visited Nik frequently in New York, hoping someday to join him there with her studies. But her parents had axed that dream.

She held his gaze now, as Constantinides electric blue as her own. “S’agapao.” I love you. “You know that.”

“Ki ego s’agapao.” I love you, too. He enfolded her in a warm hug. “Now pick a dress. The party is days away.”

Sofía and Alex returned with coffee and biscuits. Stella eyed the tray. “You think it’s my blood sugar.”

“We’re working all angles,” said Alex.

She smiled. Eyed the dresses. Felt her old fighting spirit rear its defiant head.

“I’m thinking the sapphire blue.”

She was going to dazzle. She was going to shake things up. She was going to seize every ounce of her destiny and accomplish what she’d set out to do. The king had no idea of the storm headed his way.

* * *

Her storm surge was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm by the time she made landfall at the Carnelian palace. Perched on a chain of mountains overlooking a vast green valley in one direction, with the Ionian Sea in the other, the cold and forbidding Marcariokastro was every inch the imposing medieval castle.

It conjured up the dark, suspenseful tales of her childhood, with its square ramparts, circular, capped turrets, moat and drawbridge, although the moat and drawbridge, it was to be noted, were no longer in use. Instead, a beautiful, pastoral lake surrounded the castle.

Stella had visited the massive, gray stone castle with her family years ago when relations between Akathinia and Carnelia had been peaceful; friendly, even. It had seemed a place of immense excitement and mystery to her then, its dungeon and weaponry rooms and long, stone labyrinth of hallways the perfect place for hide-and-seek.

She had always been the bravest of the kids, lasting the longest in her hiding spot, her goose bumps and chattering teeth nothing compared to the thrill of victory. Not even the brave Athamos had liked the dark. But settling into the spacious suite down the hall from the king’s wing, where she would stay until she and Kostas were married, it suddenly felt more unnerving than exciting. Perhaps because the thought that this was now her home filled her with trepidation. Perhaps because she would miss Nik, Sofía and Alex terribly.

Immersed in meetings until late on the night of her arrival, Kostas had left word he would see her the next morning. By the time he deigned to make an appearance as Page was doing Stella’s hair for the party, the day had come and gone, the apprehension she hated herself for having once again kicking up a storm in her veins.

Nodding her head to Page to admit the king, she felt her stomach fill with a thousand butterflies. Clad in a bespoke, light gray suit and white shirt that emphasized his good looks, with his dark hair scraped back from his face, the sleek, powerful impact of him knocked her sideways.

She’d told herself she’d have her response to him firmly under control by now, but the spacious suite suddenly felt as if it had shrunk to the size of a shoe box when he strolled over to stand by her side at the dressing table, his gaze meeting hers in the mirror.

Moistening her lips, she searched for a smart remark but, for the life of her, couldn’t think of one. His gaze slid to her mouth, as he appeared to absorb the evidence of her nerves, then dropped to the plunging neckline of her silk robe that had seemed respectable until he’d walked in, but now made her desperately want to pull the edges together.

She resisted the urge to do so. Somehow. The color riding his high cheekbones, the dark heat that claimed his whiskey-hued eyes as they lifted to hers, ignited a slow burn beneath her skin. Sparked a chemical reaction that climbed up into her throat and held her in its thrall.

He bent his head and brushed a kiss against her cheek. Unprepared, or perhaps overprepared for the press of his firm mouth against her sensitized skin, she flinched.

Kostas straightened, a dark glitter filling his eyes. Her gaze moved to Page, who was watching them with unabashed curiosity.

“Leave us,” the king bit out quietly. Page scurried from the room as if he’d been Zeus himself raising one of his thunderbolts.

Stella lifted her chin defiantly as the door closed and the room went silent. “You will need,” he instructed tersely, “to learn to hide your very...distinct response to me when we’re around others, when the cameras start flashing tonight, or this isn’t going to be a very productive exercise.”

Her chin lifted higher. “I don’t plan it, Kostas. It just happens.”

The glint in his eyes deepened. “Maybe we should do it again, then, maybe a real kiss this time, practice, so it doesn’t happen tonight.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Why not? Are you afraid of how you might respond?”

“Hardly.” The pressure on her brain pushed her temper to its very edge. “But why stop there?” she challenged. “Why don’t we do it right now? Up against the wall while Page is waiting... Would that satisfy you? Would that be enough of a reaction for you? To have the whole palace abuzz with how you keep me in line?”

He leaned his impressive bulk against the dresser, folding his arms across his chest. Dark amusement melted the ire in his eyes. “Is that the plan, Stella? To make me pay for entrapping you? To bait me until I fall over the edge? You forget how well I know you, how you deflect when you are stressed, when you feel cornered, how you use sarcasm as a weapon because that sharp mouth of yours is so very good at it.”

She lifted a shoulder. “You have to work with the tools you’re given.”

His mouth curved. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s eating you?”

“Oh, what would be the fun of that? I’m enjoying your amateur psychology course so much, I think you should tell me.”