A Royal World Apart

“I imagine I would not enjoy it,” he said, his tone wry. “But then, I have never been interested in sleeping with men.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Listen, Princess …”

“Eva. Just Eva, please. If we have to deal with each other for the next few months it will be easier.”

“Then you can call me Mak.” It wasn’t a friendly offer. More like a prisoner exchange.

“I don’t want to,” she returned, keeping her tone intentionally tart.

He chuckled. “Why is that?”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “It humanizes you. I would prefer to stay angry with you for as long as possible.”

His lips curved into a smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He took a step, then another, slowly circling around her, like a predator who had found some very tempting prey. “I am certain I will find many ways to make you angry, Eva. You won’t need to manufacture reasons.”

“On that we can both agree.” She turned to face him as he moved to her side. “Stop circling me, I’m not a gazelle.”

He paused. “Excuse me?”

“You look like … like you’re stalking me or something. But I am no one’s prey.”

“I believe it.”

“Tell me then, Mak,” she said his name with as much disdain as she could muster. “What is on the agenda? Has my father lined out every single activity I’m approved for over the six months? Galas and tea parties?”

“Something like that.”

“Lovely,” she said dryly.

“Not for either of us and I see no reason to pretend otherwise. I am not a babysitter, so unless you want me to be incredibly irritable during our time together, I suggest you stop acting like a child.”

She stiffened, anger coursing through her veins, her temper, quick at the best of times, ready to snap. “I am not acting like a child. I’m being treated like one.”

“What do you think, Eva, that you’ll find the answers to life in a casino? In a bar? That somehow that sort of freedom means more than doing your duty to your country? If so, you really are a child.”

He turned his back to her and for some, strange reason, she felt compelled to ask him to stay. To make him stay. “Wait.”

He turned back to her. “Yes?”

“Where are you staying? Do you … do you have a home on Kyonos?”

“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.

“Good morning, Mak,” she said, looking up from her breakfast, her tone telling him there was nothing good about seeing him at all. So, she wasn’t so different from last night’s Eva.

“Morning.”

“What’s on my agenda for the day?”

“You are housebound.”

Her head snapped up, her expression fierce. “Is that the way it’s going to be, then?”

“There is a ball coming up at the end of the month.”

“Ah yes, a ball. What is the function of those balls do you suppose? To trot me out before potential suitors.”

“And for women to parade themselves before your brother, right?”

“True. As long as Stavros is single there will be balls. And minor royals gagging to marry a future king.”

“And your brother is as interested in marriage as you are, I take it?”

“Less.” She looked up at him again and for the first time, he saw a vulnerability in her eyes. He also saw her beauty, beauty that was impossible to ignore. “Although he’ll do it. And he’ll do it without argument. That’s how he is. He does what’s best. Feeling … well, feeling never comes into it for Stavros. Is it really house arrest until I’m engaged? Is that my only option?”

“What is it you want, Eva?” He moved to the table and sat across from her. “Beyond creating scandal?”

“Something. Anything. A chance just to be myself for a while. A chance to have some freedom. To live.”

He ignored the slight twinge in his chest. “Your life is different, Eva.”

“Ah yes, I’m a princess. Which, ironically, means I have less control than your average person. Not more.”

“I find it difficult to muster any sympathy for you.”

“So … in lieu of that you plan on watching me eat breakfast?” she asked, finely groomed brow arched. She was stunning. A study in refined beauty. In another life, well, this same life, but a part of it that was so long ago it might as well not have existed, he never would have been able to speak to a woman like her. A woman of her station.

And yet, things had changed. He had found great success. And with every step in his professional life, with every dollar added to his bank account, more had been torn away from his heart, more of the things he loved stripped from him.

Now he was a billionaire. Self-made royalty. The most highly regarded man in his field. And in so many other ways he was bankrupt. He could relate in some ways to her, more strongly than she could imagine.

Still, she was here. She could use her legs, her mouth, her mind. She had so much, and she seemed to appreciate nothing.

“Breakfast, then maybe coffee out on the terrace? Lunch later. A thrilling day for us both.”

She rolled her eyes, the expression making her look like a rebellious teenager. He wasn’t that much older than her. Just nine years. It felt like so much more. “How can you stand this?”

“Simple. I’m getting paid to be here.”

“You don’t need the money.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Then why?”

He shrugged. “I have nothing else to do, and I don’t believe in an idle life. I have built my company from nothing, I have a reputation to protect, and I intend to do it. I see a job through to completion and I don’t intend to stop now.”

“Well, you might have chosen your life, Mak. But I didn’t choose mine.”

He laughed at that. Laughter was a rare thing in his life, yet Eva seemed to make him laugh more easily than most. Unintentionally of course. “I didn’t choose my life, any more than you chose yours. But what I did was make something with it.” No one, not a single person in history, would have chosen the path he’d walked, not knowing where it led. He was certain of that.

“But you said you didn’t have to work … you.”

“I don’t. But I choose to, because I believe in what I do. I started my business for the same reason anyone starts a business. To make money. I did. I kept going, I made more. And now I am here.” He looked around the dining room, bright, with large windows that overlooked a turquoise sea. “I started a job here, and like every job I have ever started, I will see it through to the end. Honor, keeping my word, that’s more important than money. Something I realize you don’t understand.”

“That’s low,” she said, pushing her plate back. “I get that you pride yourself on reading people,” she looked up, her dark eyes blazing, clashing with his, “but you don’t know me. And you won’t until you’re facing a future filled with nothing but endless … endless darkness. An eternity serving other people with no consideration to yourself.”

His stomach tightened. Painfully. It was still so easy to find himself back at Marina’s bedside in his mind. Watching her face, so lovely at one time, contorted with pain, her lips opening for silent screams her damaged mind wouldn’t allow her to articulate. Then sometimes she would scream. Sometimes …

He stood, trying to ignore the raging of his heart. He couldn’t afford an emotional reaction. Not now. Never.

“I will make you a deal, printzyessa. I won’t assume to know you, so long as you don’t presume to know where I’ve been in my life. There are other paths to walk down than the one you speak of. There is darkness you can’t imagine. Darkness no light can cut through.” He breathed in deeply, ignoring the stricken look on her face, finding a foothold in his control and taking it. “Are you through eating?”

“Yes.” She stood too, a hint of curiosity mingling with the anger in her eyes.

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind showing me the grounds of the palace?”

Eva couldn’t even pretend to be happy about playing tour guide to Mak, particularly since she didn’t believe, for one second, that he wasn’t well-versed in everything pertaining to the Kyonosian palace and its grounds. He’d read her file after all.

“So, now that we’ve covered every wing of the palace, and half of the gardens, be honest with me,” she said. “You already know about everything I’ve told you, don’t you?”

His expression remained stoic as he studied the little alcove. It was on the far end of the gardens, shrouded by hedges, with lattice and grapevines arching over them like a domed ceiling, providing shade and privacy. The ground was covered in stone carved with scenes from ancient stories. It was a sacred place, one her family never seemed to have time for. But she’d always liked it.

“I’ve been over the schematics for the palace in detail, and of course I’ve walked the perimeter, both of the grounds and of the palace itself.”

“This was just to keep me busy.”

“The bodyguard equivalent to a nanny’s cartoon,” he said, his tone as stoic as his face.

She shot him her deadliest glare. “And now you’re being an ass on purpose.”

A small smile curved his mouth. “I have to make my own fun.”

She studied him for a moment, the hard lines of his face. Hardness not even the slight show of humor softened. “You don’t look like you care one way or the other about fun.”

He looked at her, his gray eyes intense. “You’re right. I don’t.”

Being on the end of that look, of those eyes, made her feel hot all over. “So … so you can’t really understand my problem.”

“Your problem?”

She swallowed. “Yes. The fact that I want a life. You can’t understand it because you have no desire to have one of your own.”

He paused for a long moment. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had one. It doesn’t mean I don’t understand it.”

More puzzles. He was a complex man. Hard on the surface, letting things glance off without even feeling them. He had erected a barrier between himself and the world, that much was obvious. He was able to talk to her, joke even and yet, it felt as though he was barely giving any of himself in the process. Makhail, who he really was, was hidden behind that thick stone barrier he’d erected. She had a feeling if she could ever get a look behind it, she would find a darkness that would consume her.

Because she could feel it. Could see it sometimes, in his eyes. As frightening as his surface image was, all of that hard muscle displayed to its best advantage by military-grade posture, it was the man beneath that scared her most.

And intrigued her. Made her breath grow short and her stomach get tight. Which was actually scarier than Mak himself.

“Then, if you can imagine it, why can’t you try and understand instead of simply assuming I’m a spoiled brat?”

“Because it’s not my job to do anything that goes beyond your protection.”

“But … you can protect me without holding me prisoner. You can …”

“I don’t work for you, Eva. That means it’s very likely your suggestions are wasted.”

Her stomach tightened. “You’re right. I don’t know why I bothered. You aren’t any different from anyone else. From my father.”

She turned and he caught her arm, his touch sending a blaze of heat through her, her skin on fire where his fingers met her flesh. “And that means?”

She sucked in a sharp breath, determined to keep her composure. Determined to stay strong. “You only care about yourself, and you can use me to further your own end. For my father, it’s about Kyonos. For you, it’s about the job. I’m a person, Mak. And I am sick to death of people forgetting that. Who has to go around reminding people that they aren’t a thing?” Her voice broke and she was horrified by the weakness. She didn’t show weakness. It accomplished nothing. It earned her even less respect than she already got. She cleared her throat. “That’s why your guilt trips don’t work. That’s why I can’t feel bad for wanting more.”

She jerked her arm out of his grasp and walked away as quickly as she could, willing the tears that were forming in her eyes not to fall. She didn’t cry. Ever. She wouldn’t start now.

It was late when Eva decided to try and make her escape. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t care. But there was no way she was allowing Mak to think that he had all the power here, not even close.

She was a princess, and that ought to mean something. Shouldn’t she have some sort of power? Some sort of say in any part of her life?

She tightened the belt on her black trench coat and opened the door to her chambers, her heart pounding. She didn’t usually sneak out of the palace. Usually, she conned her guard into taking her somewhere and sneaked off from there. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

She closed the door behind her as quietly as she could, her high heels dangling from her fingertips as she walked down the hall. The marble floor was cold on her feet, but it was preferable to announcing her presence with the click of her heels.

It was dark, and even though it was rare there wasn’t some form of activity happening in the castle, everything was quiet in her wing. She could only hope that there wasn’t anyone loitering in the halls.

She rounded the corner and hit a hot, solid barrier. A hand over her mouth cut off her sharp shriek, strong arms turning her sharply, putting her back to the wall. Her eyes clashed with Mak’s, dark and glittering in the dim hall. She breathed in deeply, her breasts brushing against his hard chest.

Anger, excitement, desire, swirled around inside her. She tried to grab onto anger and hold it steady, keep it at the forefront.

She narrowed her eyes and he lowered his hand.

“I didn’t want you waking the whole castle,” he said, his expression deadly.

“So, you accosted me?” She refused to be intimidated. Refused to let him hear the tremor in her voice. A tremor caused by his nearness, and not so much the scare she’d just had.

“You were sneaking out.”

“How did you know?” she asked, fully aware that she sounded petulant and childish and not really caring at all.

“I have an alarm on your door. Silent, of course.” One side of his mouth lifted into a grim sort of self-satisfied smile. “Surprise.”

“Bastard.”

He released his hold on her. “It’s entirely possible. Likely, in fact.”

“I didn’t mean in the literal sense,” she said, brushing her hand over her arm, where his hand had burned her through the fabric of her jacket. “Of having unmarried parents, I mean. I meant it to mean more that you’re a jerk.”

He shrugged. “Either way, you’re probably correct. Where were you going?”

“To a drink-fuelled party,” she said tightly.

His lips curved into what might have been a smile. “I don’t even almost believe that. Where were you going?”

She looked away from him. “I don’t know. Somewhere.”

“In the middle of the night. By yourself.” His tone was even, but hard. The control injected into each word more unsettling than if he’d been shouting. “You might not be under any current threat, but it seems as though you want to tempt someone to try something.”

“No. That’s not it. I …”

“What is it, Eva? You’re stubborn for the sake of it?”

“Hardly. I wanted to go out. I’m an adult, it seems like I ought to have the freedom to—”

“Oh yes, you think you’re an adult because you’ve reached a certain age, and yet you don’t show that you’re capable of making intelligent decisions.”

“I see, were you required to pass some sort of test demonstrating competence before you made a decision in your adult life?”