Page 27 of Her Red Hot Secret Royal Fling

She nodded softly.

“But back then, as boys, we wanted to swap places so badly.”

She arched a brow. “You wanted to be the heir?”

“And he wanted to go overseas, and live an anonymous life, where he could study his passions, like archaeology.” He shook his head with a rush of emotion. “That’s what they were doing, you know. My parents had taken him to Egypt—to show him that as King, he could still do and be whatever he wanted. They were on a scenic flight and their helicopter got caught in a freak sandstorm. It crashed; they died instantly, as well as the pilot.”

She closed her eyes on a wave of sadness. She knew they’d died in a helicopter accident—it had been widely publicised at the time, and she’d heard the Santoros refer to it since—but just the small amounts of biographical information provided by Ares brought it all to life for her, made her see and feel and imagine that devastation.

“I had wanted to be King for almost as long as I can remember, but the moment I inherited the throne—Apollo’s birthright—I wanted to run a mile. This is his throne, his crown, his country, his people.”

There was such passionate anger in his words, all entirely self-directed, that Sofia couldn’t help but reach out for him, putting a hand on his knee, stroking him there solicitously. “You lost so much that day, Ares. And you had the weight of the world thrown around your shoulders. It must have been an impossible time.”

His eyes focused on hers. “I was glad to have something to distract me. The protocols surrounding my inheritance took up a lot of time.”

“But when you were alone,” she said, from experience, “you must have grieved like a normal boy, who’d lost some of the most important people in his life.”

“I didn’t have time to grieve. Nor the space. I had to take care of my younger siblings—they needed me.”

“Everyone needed you,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder. “But what about you? What did you need?”

“Part of being King, part of what I saw my dad do again and again, is doing what is right for others, always.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“What I needed was irrelevant.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Silence fell, except for the backdrop of the forest, which Sofia had now become completely familiar with. In fact, she was so used to the melodious bird songs and rustling leaves that she barely registered them now.

“We should start the hike,” Ares said, reaching down to squeeze her hand before shifting it aside and standing. “Do you need long?”

He was walling her off, putting their conversation, and relationship, back in the box he was comfortable with. And she should have been glad because Sofia had always liked boxes and lines, boundaries and rules. She’d always seen them as a path to freedom. She could come and go as she pleased, so long as that was expected. But now, their boxes and boundaries had started to feel overly restrictive, so she had the strangest feeling that she couldn’t breathe properly.

“Sofia?”

She blinked at him; a frown etched on her face. “Oh. No. Just…ten minutes or so.”

“Great.” His voice was bland, blank of emotion. “I’ll pack up.”

It was their last night.The next day, they’d return to the clearing and be collected by his security detail, and everything would change. Sofia couldn’t decide if she was excited, or disappointed. Or both.

Because she desperately wanted to take things with Ares to the next level, with the added precaution of a condom, to be extra sure there wouldn’t be any consequences.

But she was also reluctant to shed the freedom this hike had afforded him—and them. She’d loved getting to know him like this.

Except…had she really gotten to know him? On some level, yes, but in other ways, he remained a stranger. And that was something she’d just have to live with. Even the small parts of himself he’d been happy to share had been more compelling and addictive than any other man she’d known. Sofia suspected it would be many years before she’d forget her time in the forest with King Ares.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE STARS OVERHEAD SPARKLED with almost magical perfection, like thousands of diamonds thrown into the heavens. Ares looked at them for a long time, as if imprinting everything about this night into his mind. For their final night, rather than setting up the tent, he’d lain their sleeping bags together under the stars —it was the perfect night for it. Cool without being cold, and no wind to speak of.

Hiking always brought him a profound sense of freedom, but this had been different again. Spending time with Sofia, out here, had been everything he hadn’t known he needed. It wasn’t just that she was the perfect distraction from the way things had ended with Louisa—that was doing a discredit to Sofia, who had her own gravitational pull, regardless of the fact he was still in shock over the ending of that relationship.

This had more to do with her, and how much he’d enjoyed spending time with her. At night, yeah, of course. Their spark was so bright it felt more like an explosion. But it was the way she was in the day, too. Fascinated by the history of his country, interested in the forest, and the trees, funny and relaxed. At the palace, he’d had her pegged as an ice queen, everything about her had been so immaculate and formal, but the moment she’dstepped into the woods with him, she’d become someone else entirely. Someone he really liked.

The thought speared through him like a red-hot blade, blaring as a danger signal might. Liking Sofia wasn’t a problem, per se, but liking her in a way that made him want tokeepliking her was. For a million reasons, their relationship could never be more than this. A fling. Temporary. Fun. Flirty. Casual. Definitely not serious.

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