Page 13 of Forbidden Royal Vows

And she could feel that comet inside her, burning her alive, even now.

Had she only been pretending, all these years, that she had somehow escaped that fire?

But there was no time to wonder these things. Not now. She turned to the pictures before them, some on the tablet the staff had brought and some printed out. And for another half hour or so, they talked about when they were younger. When they’d stood on opposite sides of ballrooms, Mila exuding duty from every pore while Paula and Carliz had gotten themselves into different sorts of trouble. Paula had always been more about giving her father white hairs and near heart attacks. Carliz had always promised not to embarrass her sister, so she was simply...irrepressible.

Some years Mila had been jealous that they were allowed to behave as they liked, even within the strictures of their class and its expectations. Other years she had felt quite serene in her choices, and her future.

And now here she was, living out that future, only her past—the one she thought she’d hidden away, far from view, where no one could ever find it—had reared its ugly head.

Well, drawled a little voice inside, as if he was still part of her, not ugly. I think you know better than that.

By the time Paula took her leave, Mila was almost tempted to pretend that she couldn’t remember that part of the evening. She said goodbye to her friend and did not accompany her out into the public part of the palace, where she knew Caius would be waiting.

She told herself that discretion was the better part of valor. That she had nothing at all to fear. That she was not, for that matter, the least bit afraid.

But it was also true that she walked a bit faster to get back to her rooms.

Because once she said good-night to her staff, once she closed her door, she could be Mila again until morning.

Just a person. Just herself.

And tonight she had her own mission.

Mila smiled and thanked her staff as they withdrew. She closed the door behind them to her private rooms and stood there a moment, her heart telling truths she didn’t want to listen to as it beat much too hard in her chest.

She forced herself to go into the dressing room and take her usual meticulous care of herself, the way she did every night. She had needed help out of the dress, but the rest she could do on her own, and so she did. She changed into what her sister had once called princess pajamas. It was a lounging set of the finest, softest cashmere that floated like a whisper over her skin.

And did not in any way remind her of the way Caius had once skimmed his fingers down the length of her—

“Stop it,” she chastised herself.

She sat in front of a mirror and took down her hair, brushing it the way she did each night. Her mother had always told her that it was not only her crowning beauty, but would be looked at more than most women’s, by virtue of the actual crowns she would be called upon to wear.

Like every other part of the vision that is the Queen, your hair must gleam with health and vitality, Alondra had declared. Repeatedly, throughout her girlhood.

Health and vitality, Carliz would whisper, twisting her own hair in a knot on the back of her head some years and acting as if she’d never seen a brush.

Mila took off her makeup, cleansed and moisturized her face. And only then, only when she had attended to the physical body of the reigning queen as was her sacred and sovereign duty, did she surrender to that wild and consistent beating thing behind her ribs.

Only then did she dart back into her bedroom, go over to the desk that stood in one far corner, and dig into the back of one of the drawers. She wedged her hand inside, reaching with her fingers until she could push just the right spot.

The drawer pulled out then. And she could pull off the envelope that she had taped there years back. She held the envelope in her hands as if, were she not careful, it might bite her.

Mila took it over to the bed, climbing up into the center of the mattress on this bed that the staff was forever trying to make more ornate and she was always asking them to make simpler. It had four posters, it didn’t need a canopy. It had enough pillows, it didn’t need a thousand more throw pillows to adorn it. It was already fitted with a soft mattress set to her precise specifications, about which she was quizzed with regularity, lest she spend even one night in discomfort.

And yet she wasn’t sure that she’d ever sleep again.

Mila turned the envelope over. Once. Again.

She blew out a breath and then she opened it up, shaking out the content onto the coverlet before her.

Then there was nothing to do but stare down at the delicate gold chain that held only the simple gold ring that she had worn on her finger only once.

Only briefly.

She had thought she might wear it on the chain instead, but had known even before the plane had landed back in Las Sosegadas that she couldn’t risk it. It would invite comments at the very least. It would demand speculation.

Mila had hidden it away. And she had not allowed herself to look at it since.

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