Page 169 of Their Princess

“I’ll let you two speak in private.” I turned to leave.

But Graff caught me by the shoulder. “Don’t go.”

I glanced back, first at Adelina standing on the platform surrounded by mirrors, then down at Graff’s hand on my shoulder, and finally up to meet his intense gray eyes.

“Gonna need you to admit it,” whispered Graff so only I heard.

I cleared my throat. “Admit what?”

“You don’t hide your desire well,” he said. “I knew the moment I met you and Adelina. And every time I’ve seen you with her since.”

She stepped to the edge of the dais in front of the mirrors. “What are you saying about me?”

“Don’t,” I warned Graff.

But he shifted his focus to her. “I want Rafe to admit what he feels for you. He liked watching us the other night.”

“I know,” said Adelina in a soft voice.

My cheeks burned, and I refused to turn around and show off the bulge in my slacks. The same hardon I’d had since this morning when Adelina arrived in that silky white robe. “It’s wrong, tesoro.”

“I know,” she repeated. “But this thing between us has been there forever, Rafe.”

I flinched. She was right, but... “That’s more reason for me to go.”

“And what if I don’t want you to leave?” The tone in her voice then reminded me of what she’d said one day long ago—the day I left for Quantico for the ten-week commissioning program.

My intent had been to separate myself, not only from the fear of Nonna Petra, but the deepening connection with Adelina. In the Marines, I could focus on being a good captain. On creating a rockstar team. On anything except her gentle touch, the way she always knew when I felt like an outcast, or the way her hand trembled when she would touch me. When she was that young, barely in high school, she hadn’t known what she was doing to me or how she gave me the family and the promises of acceptance I had longed for.

I dropped my head back, took a deep breath, and let out a low groan. Her words were smudging the line I tried to draw, but for once, I needed to be strong about this.

“You’re getting married.”

“I am, but?—”

“There is no but, Adelina!” I whirled and pinned her with a hard stare.

“There’s always a but.” Graff shrugged.

Without looking at him, I snapped again, “Don’t act like this is fucking normal.”

“None of this isnormal, Rafe,” said Adelina, placing her hands on her hips. “Our lives have never been normal. How many times did we sit in the living room long after Papà and Mamà went to bed and wish for the lives others lived?”

“That was different.” It was a weak argument, but she was tearing down my wall brick by brick.

“It wasn’t.” She walked off the platform, moving toward where Graff and I stood. “We have more experiences under our belts now, but we aren’t different people than we were then. Only I’m an adult now.”

My wall crumpled, but I had to throw out a last-ditch effort. “And that makes fucking your family okay?!”

Adelina didn’t flinch at my outburst. Instead, she remained the calm eye in the center of Hurricane Rafaele.

She countered, “It wouldn’t be anything new.” Then she started ticking off her fingers. “The Bourbons of France. The Habsburgs. Cleopatra—though I couldn’t imagine marrying a sibling.”

“I’m not your sibling,” I grumbled.

But she still came right back at me with more history. “In Rome, the emperor, Claudius married his niece. Even the late Queen Elizabeth and the now Prince Phillip are related. Third cousins, I think.”

Leave it to her to have done research.

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