by Millie Adams
“It is there,” she said, feeling proud. “Everything you need. I anticipated that we might have difficulty. You know, I came prepared with chloroform. And I was prepared to have this room fitted out for you. With razors and anything else you might need.”
“I see. And how did you, a woman who admittedly knows nothing of men, accomplish that?”
“I told you. I have women I work with who know. I do not need to know.” She stepped into the room, pleased with the grandness of it. Surely he would be too. Shortly, he would be happy with this place. She might need his help, and she might need an investment, but with what she had she could offer much. The room was large, and though everything in it was old, it was competently outfitted. And she was quite pleased with it. “You will find suits.”
“I don’t wear suits that you buy in a store.”
“We did not buy these in a store. They are made for you.”
“And how,” he said, “did you accomplish that?”
“I was very proud of this. I called your sister.”
He frowned. “You called my sister? Which sister?”
“Minerva. I called Minerva, and I told her that I was designing you a suit, but could not get a hold of you, and that I needed information from your tailor, which she gave to me. And then I got your measurements.”
“You are a stunning little weasel—do you know that?”
“What does this mean? A weasel. I’m not a weasel.”
“Sneaky. Weasels are sneaky.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, feeling pleased with that. “I am sneaky. So. A weasel it is.”
“You know,” he said, pausing at the center of the room. “You’re the only one who knows. The only one who knows who I am. Everyone else in this world knows Maximus King, and some might know about The King, that much-whispered-about super soldier. But they don’t know both.”
“I know both. Though what I do wonder is if actually no one knows either one. Do you know?”
“What kind of question is that?”
She shrugged. She shouldn’t keep staring at him. He really was desperately handsome, and it was throwing her off-balance.
He was the kind of man who made a woman do foolish things. Those were the kinds of things she knew about from her staff. They had become her friends. And she could admit she had hired women her age so that she might have some friends.
She had missed a lot of life.
And she listened as they sighed and moaned and talked about all the ways they were fools for the men they claimed to love. Annick had found it incredibly off-putting. But she was also curious; she couldn’t deny it. She did not know men. And that was... It was a difficult realization.
She had lived around them and been kept by them, but men to her were nothing more than imposing physical presences. Every one of her captors had disgusted her. Every one. But what she felt when she looked at Maximus was not disgust. Not even close. She had a feeling it connected up to all that long-suffering sighing of the women she knew. But she also could not quite imagine what it would mean. Physical intimacy like that. She knew what it was, in the practical sense. Knew what it was physically. But she did not really understand why a person would do it.
She looked at him, and heat stole over her body.
Do you really not understand?
“An honest one,” she said. “The man you were at your house, the man when you woke up on the plane, the man you are now, they are not all the same man. So I wonder. Do you know which is real? Are any of them real?”
“Here’s a hint. I was this man once. This one. Maximus King. Charming and easy to be around. With absolutely no blood on his hands.” He paused for a moment. “Until I wasn’t.”
“I see. Something happened to you.”
“Yes. Something happened to me.”
Except, she had the sense that that wasn’t strictly true either. That he was holding something back, even saying that much.
“Get your suit,” she said. “And dress for dinner. You will join me and we will go over the timeline for my plans. I am eager to speak of such things.”
Then she turned and left him there, feeling trembly and shaky and not entirely certain what was happening inside of her.
But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that in just two weeks, she would be Queen. And Maximus King was here to protect her.
She had done it.
That was all that mattered.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SUIT FIT, which irritated him more than he would like to admit. That the little devil surprised him was also more irritating than he would like to admit.
There was something about her. About the way she asked questions. The way she talked about her life. He found it difficult to be unaffected by her.
What he was good at was showing no emotion at all. Betraying nothing of what was going on inside of him. And so, when she had spoken again of offering her body, he had been able to remain outwardly impassive.
Even while inside he had felt more than a stirring of interest.
Come to dinner.
She was issuing commands that he had no reason to deny. Which would most certainly put her in a false mind of just how in control she was.
He could walk away from all of this at any time. This insanity. This farce.
But nothing has held your interest this long for...
Well, that was the issue. Nothing had. He often wondered if it was even possible for him to feel anything again. And then she had shown up. She had made him feel... Well, she had made him feel.
And she had managed to fill a closet up with custom suits that fit.
That in and of itself earned his acceptance of the dinner invitation, he should think.
The palace itself was old. Not crumbling, but definitely showing its age. Fortunately, it was put together with precious stones and metals, and those things tended to gather color and richness as they aged. Tended to find a new sort of life.
The palace was no exception. The jade and amethyst, emerald and ruby, was only that much more entrancing now.
And if he were a man whose head was turned by such things, he would be in awe.
But no. The gemstones did not do it. However, when he walked into the dining room and saw her, he felt his blood begin to heat.
She was different than when he had seen her last. She had been dressed all in white before, a flowing pantsuit, with her pale blond hair caught in a knot at the base of her neck.
Now she was wearing a green gown cut to show off her curves. Her blond hair was loose, spilling over bare shoulders, falling like corn silk over her breasts. Everything about her looked soft. And he knew that wasn’t the case. So the artistry that must’ve gone into making her appear that way was surely a thing of great mastery.
The makeup around her eyes was gold, her lips crimson.
“I’m glad you could join me,” she said.
“You will recall it was more a demand than a request.”
“I did half expect to have to drag you out of your bedroom.”
“I was banking on you not wishing to chloroform me in order to accomplish the task. But then, I also don’t see the point of turning down a free meal.”
“A smart man. Very smart. And good.”
“No,” he said. “Not good.”
“I meant only that it is good you are smart. I did not mean you were good. You are, I know, a killer.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Your family does not know.”
“No,” he said, taking a seat at the head of the long table. “My family does not know. Nor will they.”
“Perhaps we could invite some of them to my coronation. Under the pretense you are my consultant. It will be advantageous for me to have a connection to Monte Blanco. And to your brother-in-law, Prince Javier.”
“Yes. I
’m sure it will be advantageous for you. It’s a shame he’s so busy with his new wife, or you could’ve kidnapped him.”
“It is true,” she said. “He would have been most convenient. A spare, no official position in his country, but raised to be royal. Also, he is the captain of the guard.” She frowned. “His brother, though, I hear has an ill humor. He would not have liked me to kidnap him.”
“You know a lot about my brother-in-law.”
“Of course. It pays to know these things. As I said, I have spent the last year going over everything.”
“What have you learned?”
“Everything about world events.” She squared her small shoulders. “You know they shielded me from many things. What was happening out there. And I wanted to learn all of it, and I did. And I thought...it would make the blank spaces in my mind feel full.” She blinked. “It did not.” She didn’t speak for a long moment. “I wonder... I wonder. I would like...some time to learn more about myself.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She shrugged, in that rather careless way she had. “You know, I have had so much decided for me. And even now, I know so little. I wish to do things like choose my own clothes. As an example. I hate everything that was bought for me. So, when the regime fell, I had my staff choose clothes for me. But I don’t know if it is what I like. I don’t know how to know what it is I like. Same with food. I did not keep the same menus, but I went back to what my mother and father made. Some I like. Some...”
“So what you’re telling me is you know a lot about the state of the world, but not what you want to eat for dinner.”
“It is exactly this,” she said. “Some things I know... Some things I don’t.”
“I...” He found himself speechless, which was...not something that he could remember happening. Except he suddenly realized that he wasn’t sure what he liked anymore either. He played a part. Slipped that role on like a second skin. He drank to excess in public because Maximus King would. He had supermodels on his arm because it was what Maximus King would do. Some grotesque version of himself that he imagined might have existed had he never known Stella. Had he never been in love.
A reckless playboy who cared only about appeasing his own appetites. But for someone who indulged as richly as he did in the hedonistic things of this world, he could not say that he loved them. He drank whiskey on the plane because whiskey was what he drank, not because he loved whiskey particularly. And he found the sort of beauty Annick possessed to be far more compelling than the beauty on any of those supermodels. As for food...
He ate what was served to him. He did not consider it much.
“What is it?”
“That will be our first step, Annick. We will find out what you like to eat. How do you summon your staff?”
“A bell,” she said. She looked very pleased, and she produced a small silver bell.
“Ring it.”
She did so. And three women appeared, with their hair in low, neat ponytails, their clothing all the same, black from head to toe.
“We need food. Food from restaurants in the city. Whatever was being cooked tonight, bring that too, but bring a variety. Annick—Princess Annick—needs to try some things.”
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“It does not do, Annick, for a Queen to not know her own mind. You need to know what you like. Everything you like. Because it is the job of those around you to make you happy, to make you comfortable, and if you do not know what you want, how can you give easy commands? If you cannot give easy commands...you don’t look like you’re in charge.”
She looked like she was considering this. “Okay.”
“Mostly,” he said, “if you don’t enjoy things, you will become cold and hard and dead inside.”
“What? Like you?” She asked it with some humor, but she had no idea.
“Yes,” he said. “Like me.”
She looked slightly abashed. “Sorry,” she said.
“Are you going to say that you didn’t mean it?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I very much meant it. Only I am sorry that I said it. I’m very out of practice with talking to people I don’t hate.”
He laughed, the bubble of humor in his chest entirely unexpected.
“Are you?”
“I have made friends,” she said. “Here on my staff. But it is a learning process.”
“I see.”
“Yes, I think you do.”
“Regrettably, talking to people that you hate will be part of the position that you occupy. I have to talk to people I hate all the time.”
“As a hit man or as an image consultant?”
“As an image consultant. I don’t talk to anyone in my other job. And you had better be careful about where and how you speak of such things. I’ll ask again—how did you find out about me?”
She shifted. “No one knows who ‘The King’ is. I know. They know you are coming for them, but they did not know from where. Me, I listen. I have nothing else to do but listen. I collect information as I can. And somehow, it all just fit.”
“How did you know about me at all?”
“Your sister Violet. I was fascinated by her. By this woman from California, who married a Prince and helped reform a country. After all, is that not what I must do?”
“Yes. Though I think you must give her husband and his brother some of the credit for the reformation of their country.”
“Yes. I did not say they don’t get credit. But I was intrigued by the way bringing in an outsider could help. That is when I started looking at you. And that is when I realized. That you are The King.”
“Again, how?”
“Connecting dots.”
“No one else has connected those dots.”
“When you are a prisoner for so very long, and cut off from so many things, your other senses become heightened. And you learn how not to be stupid. And so, I am not stupid.”
“Tell me.”
“I saw you.”
His breath left his body. She looked up at him, her pale eyes glittering. “I was hiding. In the dungeon. I heard footsteps. And I am not a fool. When you are kept locked away, you have very few options when it comes to deciding when you want to speak to someone or not. So, often, I’m quiet. I hid in the corner. I heard you. And I saw you. But you did not see me. I was in the darkness, and I saw you. Your eyes.”
“My face was covered.”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I saw your eyes, and though you did not see me, I felt it. Like lightning here,” she said, touching her stomach. “When I saw you in your house, it was the same. I’ve never seen eyes like lightning.”
He gritted his teeth, holding back what he thought might be the truth. It wasn’t so much that she recognized him as she was attracted to him. And who would have ever thought that his undoing would become some virgin trapped in a dungeon recognizing him because he made her heart beat faster.
“But you must have known before you came.”
“I suspected. I suspected from seeing pictures, yes. But I knew for sure when I went to your house.”
“And if you had been wrong?” he asked.
“I might have kidnapped you anyway. Either way, either persona, is of use to me.”
“You are ruthless, aren’t you?”
His proclamation seemed to cheer her immensely. “I said so. I don’t lie, Maximus. I tried. It would have been easier were I proficient at it. I might have been let out of the dungeon more. I might have been beaten less. And now here I am, free. I hate lies. If I am to be the best Queen, then I cannot lie.”
“Life is a bit grayer than that, Annick. I hate to inform you.”
“Eh...” she said, that nasal sound of dismissal she seemed quite fond of. “I’m tired of gray. I’m tired of the dark.”
> She would not like, then, what he was planning. But she would have no choice.
She’d brought him here.
But he would be the one to decide how it went.
Then the doors to the dining hall flung open and in came trays laden down with food.
For now, he would let her eat.
“And here we are,” he said. “Your dinner is served.”
* * *
Annick stared at the food that had now been laid out on the table, and then she looked back at the man who was responsible for ordering it.
“This is nice.”
She foolishly found that she wanted to cry.
She had read once, in her studies, that small kittens that were kept in cages from the time they were born still saw the bars in front of them even when they were removed, and staring at this feast laid out in front of her, she had to wonder if she had been seeing bars where there were none.
If she still treated herself as a prisoner. She often kept to corners of the palace. She did not indulge herself overmuch. Some of it was wanting to preserve that which she felt was important. Her integrity. Some of it was being afraid that wanting too much would make her little more than a dictator.
But... He had brought all this food from restaurants run by her people. It surely benefited them that this money had been spent.
Her stomach growled. She was hungry. And she was...delighted.
“I have never seen so much food.” She frowned. “Except I must have. In the early days of the palace. I was twelve when that ended. And I know I have memories from before. But...”
“It’s hard,” he said, his voice surprisingly tender. “When memories from before are too good.”
She nodded. “Yes, it is not bad memories that I turn away from. The bad reminds me why I keep going. It always has. It is a terrible thing to think of my parents dying. But their deaths reminded me of why I lived. But remembering how happy we were...that was too painful. Well and truly.”
“Annick,” he said. “You can enjoy the food.”
She practically fell upon it then. She was starving. But it had more to do with everything else than it did actual physical hunger.