Page 8 of Forbidden Royal Vows

“It’s been five years. I assumed that you’d slithered off, never to be seen again. To be clear, I hoped you had.”

She turned then, straightening from the rail and folding her arms over her chest, which he understood in an instant was as close as he would get to an outward expression of her emotional state. The Queen, obviously, did not cross her arms.

Yet he had known her as a woman first. He could see the things she hid. The sheen in her gaze that spoke of her feelings. The barest, faintest hint of a tremble in her lush lower lip.

This was likely to be all the temper she was willing to show him.

He’d take it. Because he could see the truth of it.

“Careful,” he murmured. “That is no way to speak to your husband.”

“What is it you want?” And her voice was so cool. Her gaze was frosted over. But he was close enough, outside on this clear fall night with the canopy of stars above, to see the pulse in her throat that gave her away even further.

“What is it you think I want?”

They stared at each other, and it was as if the earth and the sky switched places. As if he was standing half in each, not sure if there was solid ground above his head or stars at his feet.

“As you might imagine, the pressure to marry is intense,” she told him in that grave, measured manner that he had studied, these last few years. He’d seen it in so many news programs. In every clip of her speaking that he could locate online. “At a certain point, my protestations that I wish to stand on my own two feet will have to give way to the best interests of the kingdom. Those being, of course, that I will be required to produce my own heir.”

“Mila,” he murmured, and it was possible he moved a bit closer, too, “that sounds a great deal like your problem, not mine.”

Her gaze was dark and gray. “I understand that vows mean nothing to you. But I’m afraid I take mine rather seriously.”

“Nothing has changed since the last time we had this delightful chat,” he said in the same quiet way that tore at him, so he suspected it shredded her, too. “I invite you to divorce me, as I have done from the start.”

“You know that I can’t.”

“Then I can only repeat what I told you five years ago. If you do not wish to divorce—”

“Of course I want to divorce.” And whatever it was that flashed in her gaze, that slap of emotion, he could feel it in him, too. Low. Deep. Much too dangerous, the way it always had been between them. “But you refuse to sign the documents that I would need for that to happen.”

“I’ve already kept our marriage confidential,” he said with a shrug that, very likely, did not match the edge in his voice. “I do not see why you cannot simply trust me to keep our divorce equally private.”

“I have never understood why you insist on playing these power games.” But there was no heat behind the words. If anything, she sounded weary, and that felt like a weapon of her own, sunk deep. “What do you hope to gain? At the end of the day I will always be, until the day of my death, the Queen of the Sosegadas. And you—”

“Yes, me,” he said when she paused. “There’s nothing about me that is not indiscreet, is that not so?” He made himself a portrait of sheer indolence, standing there so languidly, and perhaps it was for the sky above. Perhaps it was for her. Perhaps it was entirely self-referential—or perhaps it was that or put his hands on her the way he deeply, darkly wanted to. “My own parents appear to be engaged in a competition to see who can collect the most spouses in one lifetime. Mine is less a family tree, and more...a collection of misbegotten sticks that someone gripped in a careless hand, then threw up into the sky, not caring at all where they might land. This must be so distressing for you.”

“Again.” And this time, her voice was resignation and steel at once. “What is it you want?”

“Perhaps I think it is time you finally recognize me,” he said. And then he tilted his chin down so he could look at her and not the stars. So he could bask a little in that look of sheer horror on her face. “Oh, dear. Does that not fit into your plans? What would the good people of your kingdom think if they knew you had married so disastrously? If they had any idea you were swept away like a foolish girl, enslaved entirely by your body’s demands? What will they think of their spotless queen then?”

“They would assume what I have assumed ever since,” she said in that same calm voice, but he could see her eyes. He could see the way they’d gone a little hectic. “You are a master seducer, as you have proven repeatedly. I succumbed, as many do regularly, according to your rather overactive tabloid profile. Life is filled with regrets. The end.”

“I can see that you put thought into that one,” Caius said, sounding almost congratulatory. “No doubt you practiced it in the royal mirror. But the tragedy remains the same, does it not, my queen? In order to brand me a base seducer, you must cast yourself as the seduced. And who will consider you an icon above all others then? You will be but one more pathetic creature, ensnared like so many women are by men so unsavory that any association with them leaves a mark.”

Mila only raised a cool brow. “How lovely that at least one person on this planet appreciates my dilemma.”

He laughed at that, a low sound that the stars stole away. But he saw the color rise in her face, and then everything was fire.

“Poor little Majesty,” he murmured. “It appears that you remain hoist securely on your own petard.”

Her cheeks were aflame but her voice was still cool. “We will have to find a solution, Caius. You must know that.”

“I require no solutions. I am perfectly content.”

“Then why are you here?”

Caius laughed again. “When have I ever given you the impression that I’m the sort of person who would not enjoy a moment like this?” Her face looked hotter, and he could feel his own temperature rising. He told himself it was temper. Well-deserved temper. “You can’t control this, Mila. You can’t control me.”

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