Page 6 of Vows to a King
For the first time since he’d heard of Adamos’s death, the haze of grief and rage that had clouded his head fractured.
When she tried to move past him—dismissing him as if she were the damned queen—he stepped into her path. “Tell me then.”
She regarded him with her cool gaze, as if he were an annoying fly. “No, you want to take out your powerlessness on me. Believe it or not, I’m so very…” her throat moved up and down in a hard swallow, “exhausted. I will not be your punching bag, Your Highness.”
Suddenly, he could see past his own emotional haze to the dark shadows under her eyes and the lines carved around her mouth. She’d just lost her fiancé and her entire future with it. If he couldn’t show her compassion, he could at least be civil, couldn’t he?
“No attacks or punches, Princess.” He raised his hands, palms facing out. “You’re right that I need someone to give me the status quo. Who better than the woman who’s trusted by my entire family? At least you’re not hiding under a mask anymore to approach me,” he said, curiosity a sudden flame inside him.
Color streaked her cheeks at his mention of that one forbidden evening but she didn’t let it stop her. “Everyone around the palace has an agenda for you, to push you toward their own ends. I’m, however, aware that you’ll respond to honesty better than anything else.”
Some wild thing in him calmed at her faith. Though he couldn’t help asking, “And how have you arrived at that?”
“Adamos spoke of you frequently as does the Queen. I have faith in their judgment.”
His heart gave a little spasm at the thought of Adamos talking about him even as he wondered if the knot of grief would ever loosen. “So you’re about to tell me that you’re pure as snow?”
“No. I’m admitting that I have an agenda too. One that’s least harmful to Thalassos and therefore you.”
Adonis searched her eyes, intrigued like he’d never been before. Suddenly, he could see why she had been his father’s choice for his favored son. Had Adamos known what he had had in this woman? Had he loved her? “You have successfully captured my full attention, Princess. Don’t hold out on me any longer.”
“The last thing either of us needs is the staff relaying our petty argument to my…to the crown council,” she said, catching herself at the last second.
“I see that you’re still a very…” when she raised a brow, he tempered his words, “obedient daughter.”
Her smile became richer, deeper, bringing out the burnished amber flecks in her eyes. “Oof, that was probably six months’ worth of diplomacy you just used up on me, huh?”
She looked so incandescently beautiful that he almost missed her neat sidestep.
“Are you afraid that your father will call you out on wasting your time with the useless prince? He must be cursing my brother for foiling his life’s work.”
“Not here please,” she whispered.
She grabbed his arm as if he was a recalcitrant child she didn’t trust to behave and tugged him. Her touch sent shock waves through him as she pulled him into a suite before she dropped his hand.
Adonis looked around the dimly lit suite and its ornate furniture. The air was thick with the scent of polished wood and old books and…a thread of lush roses he had smelled on her.
This washer…suite.
He blinked when the lights came on, the suite unlike any in the palace.
Books—old and dog-eared, some with new glossy covers, some falling apart at the spine, were strewn across every available surface. Along with piles of folders, maps of Thalassos, and little ceramic jars bursting with colorful pens.
A cozy window seat tucked into an arched alcove was also littered with books and chocolate wrappers and leather-bound journals. Stationery and sweets, it seemed, were her drugs of choice.
In the sterile perfection of the palace with its polished marble floors and winding staircases and imposing paintings of ancestors he’d rather not look at, her suite was a streak of brilliant sunshine. It seemed like the politics, power plays, and palace intrigue her father involved her in hadn’t erased all of her.
He kept his gaze pointedly away from the large, intricate four-poster bed that sat in the back recess of the large room. The last thing he needed in his head was an image of her and his brother in it. Not that the ghost of his perfect brother was ever going to be far behind amidst these walls.
“The palace team let you move in before you and Adamos married?” he said, walking toward the window seat. From here, there was a perfect view of the courtyard and the wing he’d once burned down, nearly trapping Adamos inside by accident. “How positively… scandalous.”
A dusting of pink streaked her honey-gold cheeks. She pursed her lips, her hands going to her updo with a sigh. Thick, light brown waves cascaded onto her shoulders in a silky shower. Her hand lingered at the back of her neck, the lush globes of her chest pushing out in a stretch.
Adonis looked away—five seconds too late, heat streaking through him. Did she have any idea how sensuous she looked?
She didn’t, he decided with a perverse anger.
Jemima had always been too busy honing her mind, her head buried in history and art, busy being trained at the finest finishing schools to be Queen, to have much use for her unconventional beauty.
