Page 41 of Hired For His Royal Revenge

Lysias felt like home, but he would be gone. He did not view her the same at all. And she had to find some peace there. Because she would not back out now. She’d come this far. She wanted her money.

You want him to change his mind.

Maybe she did. Maybe that made her weak. She would work it out...at some point. But not now. They walked back to the car, and Lysias drove them to the palace. They walked to their rooms, guards trailing after them, everyone silent.

They stepped inside their quarters, and Alexandra did not look at him. She strode for the bedroom and, once inside, turned to face him. He was moving as if he would follow her in, but for the first time, she didn’t want to be near him.

“I think I would like to be alone,” she said, and closed the door on his face.

Lysias stared at the door, beyond shocked. He did not understand for the life of him what had changed in her. What had altered.

Surely she didn’t think she was the princess. It was a ridiculous avenue to go down. He’d been telling himself that for days. On a loop. Because it was, quite simply,unfathomable.

And, as he’d told her. That impossibility would change nothing. Nothing could change. His plans were set in stone.

He turned away from the door. No matter what she was thinking or feeling. No matter that she’d cried and that he’d wanted to gather her close and promise her whatever she wished.

Nomatter.Because revenge was in the cards. So he left her. For the rest of the day. Yet again, he did not return to their quarters to sleep. The past few nights, he’d prowled about the island, meeting with whom he needed to meet, catching snatches of sleep in corners and alleys much like he had as an adolescent in Athens.

Tonight, however, he snuck down to the servants’ quarters. It was late and mostly quiet, so it was easy to slip into his old rooms. Diamandis had wanted him to stay here, and for some reason that he did not wish to examine, Lysias wanted to prove he could. Even if only to himself.

It was not exactly the same as when he’d been a child, and it was clear no one lived in these rooms. Whether they had stayed unoccupied for years, or Diamandis had some poor family moved out to hurt Lysias, it did not matter.

It was empty and Lysias was here. This room did not scare him. The ghosts of his parents... Now that he was actually in the rooms, he did not feel them here. It was a room like any other.

Perhaps, because no matter how unfairly, they had been in his life less than he had been without them. His memories here were only fond ones. Of good people, good parents, a good childhood before the night that changed everything.

He could picture his mother in the rocking chair doing her mending while his father read on the sofa, his glasses always sliding down his nose. He could picture them working in tandem as they always did.

They had been devoted to one another and, in turn, to him. Something about that realization, that memory, turned uncomfortably over in his chest. Made his heart ache.

So he left the family room and went to the small little room that had been his. No more than a closet, but he’d been happy here. He lay down, right there on the floor, and—thanks to a few days of little rest—fell asleep.

When he woke with a cramp in his neck and his muscles screaming from an uncomfortable night on the floor, he realized that he had not dreamt. Good or bad.

A rarity.

He had no time to consider what that meant because it could mean nothing. Tonight would be the ball.

Tomorrow would be revenge.

Lysias got up. He would need to go back to his quarters and shower and change. And get up there without the guards following him about. But before he could do so, the phone in his pocket buzzed.

“Balaskas,” he muttered.

“Mr. Balaskas. I’m sorry to call you directly, but there’s a bit of a problem with the DNA test,” said the doctor, his voice nervous in Lysias’s ear.

“You did not follow my instructions to the letter?” Lysias demanded.

“No, I mean, I followed them exactly, sir,” the doctor said, stumbling over his words. “It’s just, I cannot do exactly what you want because—”

“I willdestroyyou,” Lysias growled, but the doctor was stumbling on, not having the intelligence to shut his traitorous mouth.

“Mr. Balaskas. You don’t understand. I created the false test, but then I ran the second test you requested. To discover any genetic matches for the woman. The kingisa genetic match. Your woman is no imposter. There’s an irrefutable sibling percentage match. Sheisthe princess. No tampering needed.”

Lysias stood with the phone to his ear, but whatever else the doctor said was lost to the buzzing that invaded his mind.

She is the princess.

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