Page 45 of Twelve Nights In The Prince's Bed

‘I told her the truth. Not the whole truth,’ she clarified. ‘But about the job in the Hague, and I explained why you and I would be breaking up soon. It felt...like a weight was lifted off my shoulders to finally be able to say something honest to her, and to know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.’ Even to her own ears, the words sounded flat.

The air around them seemed to crackle and Poppy held her breath, waiting, wondering, how he would reply.

After a moment, Adrastos freed his hand from hers then brought it around her shoulders, drawing her body close to his side. ‘Tell me about the promotion,’ he invited. ‘I’d like to hear what you’ll be up to.’

It was an impressive opportunity for someone so young. Long after their walk in the woods, Adrastos had been thinking about Poppy’s work, about the Hague, about the role she’d accepted on the day of her twenty-fourth birthday. He was happy for her. More than that, he was proud of her.

But what right did he have to be proud? Poppy had achieved this all on her own, just as she’d always wanted, without letters of support from his parents, without the connections they could offer. He’d watched her working, seen her succeed from the sidelines and, yes, he realised now, he’d always felt proud.

Actually, if anything, he’d been in awe of her.

So why was there a corresponding sense of something dark spreading through his body, like anger and rage, all wrapped up in one? A feeling that he was being forced to walk a path he didn’t want, that he was bound and on a track that wasn’t his own?

It was different from the way he’d felt when Nick had died. Then, he’d recognised his anger and sense of impotence but at least he’d known why he felt those things. For Adrastos, this was harder. Nobody was dying. There was no grief to grapple with, and yet he was experiencing...the strangest weight bearing down on him. All day, and all night. Every night that passed, with Poppy in his bed, the weight became worse. They made love, and his body rejoiced in hers, his ego exploding at her obvious pleasure and delight, the euphoria he was able to give her and show her, the awakening of her body’s senses. This was allgood. So why didn’t he feel that?

Nothing about it made any sense.

At the start of their Christmas visit, he’d just wanted this whole ruse to be over. He’d hoped they might fall back into bed once or twice, but he hadn’t been prepared to lose sleep over it. It was only a fortnight, a little less, and afterwards, his life could resume its usual rhythms. A buoying thought, except he couldn’t marry what he wanted now with how he’d felt then. Rather than wishing this visit to be over, he found himself contemplating the end of their arrangement with a distinct lack of relief.

And on the night of the famed New Year’s Banquet, he wished he could understand the darkness creeping through his thoughts, the weight in his mind. He wished he understood himself better.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘YOULOOK...’

Beautiful? Stunning? Perfect? All so insufficient for the vision Poppy made as she stepped into the living room, dressed for the ball.

‘Too much?’ she asked, running a hand down the front of the red gown.

He shook his head, frowning, still unable to speak. The dress had a fitted bodice and sleeves that fell just beneath her shoulders, at the very top of her slender arms, so his fingers tingled with a need to reach out and touch that creamy, perfect skin, never mind that he’d spent all night touching, that he’d touched until he knew her inch by inch, could recreate her body in the dark. The dress hugged her torso like a second skin, to just a few inches beneath her breasts, where it suddenly flared into a frothy but somehow incredibly elegant skirt, so swishy and...lovely.

‘Adrastos? Please? One of the courtiers sent it over. I had chosen something far more...normal... I don’t want it to look...’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t even think about changing.’

Her eyes showed doubt though, and he cursed himself for not reacting better. He’d been sideswiped by the vision she made. Ordinarily, he liked her hair down, loose in waves around her shoulders. He particularly liked it when it formed curtains on either side of her face as she straddled him, staring down into his eyes with an expression of wonderment...but tonight, it had been styled into a loose, sensual bun with tendrils loose about the face. Her neck was bare, and suddenly, Adrastos wanted her to wear something as beautiful as she was, something stunning and frosted like the snow falling outside their windows.

‘I want you to wear this dress,’ he said gruffly, closing the distance between them and lifting his hands to her hips, holding her there, feeling her familiar warmth through the fabric, ‘until later tonight, when I will remove it from you.’

Her eyes widened, then a dimple formed in one cheek as she smiled shyly. ‘Next year, you mean.’

He grinned back—it was the easiest thing in the world to do. ‘Of course.’

‘I just realised our “relationship” will span two years of your life—that’s probably a first.’

She was right, but he didn’t like hearing her say that. He didn’t like the reminder of how he’d lived his life before.

The thought brought him up short. Before? Before Poppy? Before this week? Nothing had changed, he reminded himself forcibly. Sure, this woman he’d been encouraged to think of as a little sister had turned into something else entirely, but that didn’t meanhewas any different.

‘You need a necklace,’ he said after a beat. ‘Let me arrange one for you.’

‘Arrange one for me?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘That’s okay. I...think the dress is over the top enough.’

He considered that. ‘There are jewels available in the vault. Come, have a look.’

Poppy hesitated a moment, eyes huge in her face, and then she nodded. ‘Let’s go and see.’

She had no intention of wearing any of the jewels from the vault, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t excited to peep inside. The vault was a place that had inspired great games of imagination for Ellie and Poppy as teenagers—a place they knew they weren’t allowed,ever, because it stored some of the rarest, most valuable jewels in the country, possibly the world. But Adrastos, as heir to the throne, and not being a teenager, Poppy thought with a smile, simply had to appear at the heavily fortified door and he was waved through. And then, through another door, and another, and finally, a suited man met them in a room with some gentle lighting above a line of wooden cabinets. In the centre of the room, though, there was a glass case, and within it stood crowns and tiaras, at least a dozen.

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