Page 22 of Twelve Nights In The Prince's Bed

They’d been girls when Poppy had arrived—just fourteen—and Adrastos a man of nineteen. He was intimidating and frightening, silent, strong, brooding and powerful. Even Eleanor had been a little afraid of him.

He’s not like Nicholas. Nicholas was gentle and soft. I could tell him what I wanted to do and he would always go along with it, never mind that I was so much younger. Adrastos is...scary.

Silently, Poppy had disagreed. He wasn’t scary, so much as intimidating. There was a vital difference. Scary implied something negative, whereas to Poppy it had always seemed that Adrastos was simply too much of everything. Too smart, too powerful, too strong, too athletic, too handsome by a mile, and so it was difficult to be oneself around him.

And so it was that despite having spent years living in the palace, after dinner, Adrastos guided her to a part of it that was wholly unfamiliar, through a wide set of double doors she’d never crossed, into a corridor with one door on either side.

‘My office,’ he explained, waving a hand to the left. ‘And my room.’ His eyes held hers for a moment too long, as though he was hesitating or working out what else he could say, then he pushed the door inwards and stood just inside, waiting for Poppy.

Her nerves were stretched, her heart racing, blood washing through her ears as loud and urgent as the ocean on a stormy night, but Adrastos was watching her, and waiting, and she didn’t feel as though she could simply hover on the threshold.

‘This is weird,’ she said on an apologetic half-smile, thinking longingly of her own room, just down from Ellie’s, the familiar view over the rose garden.

‘A little.’ He dipped his head forward in agreement, still waiting, so she sucked in a breath and pushed forward, step after step, into his room, looking first at Adrastos and then quickly away when their eyes met and she felt as if she were losing her footing.

His room was big, and she expelled a breath of relief. More than spacious enough for the two of them.

She took a few more steps, towards the bed, then froze. The bed.

It was right there. Huge. Reminding her of another bed, in a faraway penthouse.

She spun abruptly, almost bumping into Adrastos, who was so close she could have reached out and touched him. Her heart was in overdrive.

‘I—’

What?

What could she say in that moment? Everything was spinning completely out of control.

‘I think they believed us.’

‘It would not occur to any of them that we would lie. Not about this.’

That was an indictment, if ever she’d heard one. ‘I hate that we’re doing this.’

‘There is no sense discussing that now. We’ve made our choice.’

So final. So simple. Could he really be so clear-cut about something so complicated? Perhaps that was a secret to his strength: no ambivalence. Poppy, perhaps through her legal training, saw everything through every facet.

Adrastos moved away from Poppy, towards a door. ‘There’s a bathroom there, a kitchen, a lounge. Obviously you should feel free to call staff for anything you require.’

Poppy wrinkled her nose. She rarely availed herself of the palace servants. Though she’d come to live here and been treated as one of the family, she knew shewasn’tactually an Aetos, and hadn’t wanted to ever seem to be taking things for granted.

‘Do you mind if I make a tea?’

‘Not at all. So long as you don’t mind if I have something a little stronger,’ he responded with a tight smile.

She toyed with her hands. ‘Of course not.’

They stared at each other for several beats.

‘I was—’

‘Do you—?’

They spoke at the same time, so Poppy lifted a hand to her throat and pulled a face. ‘Please. What were you saying?’

He gestured to the door of the kitchen, and Poppy was relieved to move that way, relieved to have something practical to focus on, instead of the inherent discomfort afforded by this circumstance.

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