“You are being bullied into this whole thing by my father,” she said after a moment. “I assumed the moment you found yourself free of whatever he held over you, you would divorce me or annul this, or whatever it is kings do to rearrange reality to suit themselves.”
“Henry VIII preferred execution. Is that what you mean?”
“Surely you don’t think this is anything but temporary. You can’t.”
Orion should rejoice in that, surely. He should have felt relief pouring through him, because their first interaction had been so fraught and this, at last, was some sense. Some acknowledgment of what was happening and even the faintest hint that they might share a bit in this thing that they must do.
But instead, he was caught somewhere between her clever mouth and that odd, arrested expression in her gaze.
And when he shook himself out of that, he reminded himself sternly that it didn’t matter if Calista had a modern sensibility about the situation they found themselves in. It couldn’t. It changed nothing.
“There will be no divorce,” he told her. “No annulment. My father’s reign was too tumultuous. Too humiliating and upsetting, for this family and the country. There will be no scandal if I can help it.”
If anything, that seemed to agitate her more.
“Your Majesty. Really.” She moistened her lip and he found himself drawn to that, too. What was the matter with him? “You can’t possibly think that we would suit for anything more than a temporary arrangement to appease my father’s worst impulses.”
He had been horrified by her earlier. And now he wanted to argue with her about their suitability?
“I need to marry, Lady Calista. I need to produce heirs, and quickly, to prove to my people the kingdom is at last in safe hands. There will be no divorce.” He smiled more than he should have, perhaps, when she looked stricken. “We are stuck. In each other’s pockets, it seems.”
She blanched at that, but he had no pity for her. Or nothing so simple as pity, anyway.
He moved toward her, taking stock of the way she lifted her head too quickly—very much as if she was beating back the urge to leap backward. To scramble away from him, as if he was some kind of predator.
The truth was, something in him roared its approval at that notion. He, who had always prided himself on how civilized he was, did not dislike the idea that here, with her, he was as much a man as any other.
Surely that had to be a good sign for their marriage.
Whether it was or wasn’t, he stopped when he reached her. Then he stood before her and took her hand in his.
And the contact, skin on skin, floored him.
It was so...tactile.
It made him remember the images that had been dancing in his head ever since he’d brought up sex in her presence. It made him imagine it all in intricate detail.
It made him hard and needy, but better yet, it made her tremble.
Very solemnly, he took the ring—the glorious ring that in many ways was Idylla’s standard to wave proudly before the world—and slid it onto one of her slender fingers.
And because he was a gentleman and a king, did not point out that she was shaking while he did it.
“And now,” he said, in a low voice that should have been smooth, or less harshly possessive, but wasn’t, “you are truly my betrothed. The woman who will be my bride. My queen. Your name will be bound to mine for eternity.”
“I understand what it means.”
But her voice, too, wasn’t as sharp as usual. He expected her to yank back her hand, but she didn’t. He had the odd notion that she couldn’t.
The funny thing was, though he had never imagined that he would be blackmailed into marriage, it was no hardship at all to admit that Lady Calista looked a great deal like the woman he’d always vaguely imagined would be his. She was prettier than the last time he’d seen her, he was sure. There was something ethereal about her tonight, with her hair arranged on top of her head in something that looked effortlessly chic and complicated. It called attention to the beauty of her bone structure, from her high cheekbones to her elegant nose.
She looked like the queen she would become, and soon.
Orion dropped her hand, and was pleased to see that for a moment, she held hers where it was. Right there in midair, staring at the astounding ring on her hand as if she couldn’t quite believe it was real.
When she finally dropped it to her side, she looked almost lost. He told himself that was why he offered her his arm.
And when he led her from the salon, then down through the grand halls of the palace to the car that waited to take them from the palace, she seemed...almost subdued. Uncharacteristically, he would have said.
Though in truth he knew very little about her character—other than the fact she was happy to participate in his blackmail, that was.
“Where are my parents?” she asked when they were both inside the car, and his driver had pulled away from the palace.
“I sent them in a separate vehicle,” Orion said coolly. “Is that a problem? You will understand, I think, if I would prefer to do without your father’s company at present.”
“My father can be difficult,” she agreed, with a small laugh. And something in her gaze that he might have mistaken for dislike, had she been anyone else. Someone who didn’t work so closely with Aristotle, for a start.
Orion settled himself in his seat, wishing for perhaps the first time in his life that it was a tighter, smaller car. So that he would have the opportunity to touch her more. To enjoy the fact she was sitting there beside him, smiling faintly of something he could only describe as sparkling vanilla.
“Why do you do his bidding if you find him as difficult as the rest of us do?” he asked, because the seat was vast and it was the only way of touching her available to him.
And he didn’t want to investigate why it was he wanted that so much.
It seemed to take her a long moment to lift her gaze from where it rested on her hand in her lap. On the ring she wore. His ring, claiming her.
Something roared in him at that, too.
When her eyes met his, she looked far less dazed than before. And Orion found, to his surprise, that he liked the sharpness. The challenge.
That intensity that was only Calista.
She shook her head. “Of all people to ask me that question.”
“I don’t follow.”
Calista didn’t quite laugh. “Don’t you? My mistake. Or are you not the man who followed the dictates of a mad king for the better part of his life?”
That was a direct hit, but a part of him enjoyed that she swung at him like that. A part of him wanted more—because whatever else it was, unlike so much else in his life, it was real.
“The difference being that my father was indeed the king. Yours is...what? A businessman with a family title?”
“As if a hereditary king is any different.”
“You could leave at any time,” Orion pointed out. “You could have stayed in France, for example. Or gone off to America, as so many do. Instead, you chose to stay. Here, on the island. And to involve yourself in his schemes.”
She pressed her lips together. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Perhaps not. But I do know that I would never participate in blackmail.”
But if he expected to shame her, he was disappointed. She only shrugged, then smirked a bit, as if pleased with her own insolence. “That doesn’t keep me up at night, Your Majesty. Did you think it would?”
“Orion.”
Her smirk faltered. “I beg your pardon?”
It was his turn to shrug, then. “You’re my betrothed. And, apparently, intend to continue to treat me in as cavalier a fashion as possible. You might as well use the correct name, don’t you think?”
And he could see, somehow, that didn’t sit well with her. That the
re was something about the request that made her shift, then sit even more stiffly beside him.
“That wouldn’t be right,” she said, glaring down at the ring on her finger. “That would make everything...messier.”
“Would it?” He found himself smiling, and his heart was beating too fast in his chest. “Or is it instead fear? Once you succumb to familiarity, will it be harder and harder to do your father’s bidding?”
She let out a breath that was not quite a laugh. “Don’t be silly.”
“Familiarity. Intimacy. These things take their own toll. What will become of you, Calista, do you think?”
“I didn’t give you permission to use my name,” she pointed out, but there was no heat in it.
They were in the back of a car, winding their way down the hill into the city proper. They were as alone as they could get.
Maybe that was why he reached over and picked up her hand, the hand that wore the ring that was the symbol of his kingdom.
“I am your king,” he reminded her. “I do not require your permission. And in any case, using your name is the very least of the intimacies I plan to share with you tonight.”
Her gaze flew to his, alarmed. “Tonight? What intimacies?”
“It is customary to seal the announcement of a royal engagement with a kiss, Calista. Surely you know this.”
“How would I have the slightest idea?” she asked, her voice sharp again. But not, he rather thought, in quite the same way it had been. Instead, it felt connected to all that heat in him. “I wasn’t alive when your father and mother were betrothed, was I? How could I possibly know how they did it?”
“I thought all Idyllian girls were raised on dreams of marrying into the royal family.”
Her hand in his flexed, as if she wanted to curl it into a fist. “Not this Idyllian girl.”
“My father was more traditional back then,” Orion told her. “He was still the crown prince, for one thing, and my grandfather would have taken a dim view of any deviation from tradition. So at the first of the holiday balls, my father presented my mother to the kingdom, as the Kings of Idylla have always done. He showed them all that the ring of Idylla sat on her hand, claiming her for the people as well as himself. And he kissed her on the balcony of the opera house, then danced with her as a grateful nation cheered.”
“That sounds ghastly. My teeth hurt just thinking about all that forced sweetness.”
“Nevertheless, we will follow the same script. Your dental trauma notwithstanding.”
“Will we?” She glared at him. “I have no desire to kiss you, on an opera balcony or anywhere else, and I don’t dance.”
“Whether you choose to dance or not, in your private life, is your business, Calista.” She tried to tug her hand from his, but he held on. “But tonight, your dancing is my business, and I regret to inform you that I’m already well aware that you know how. Like every other girl of noble birth, you were trained in such things at a very young age. Did you think I would not check?”
“You can’t make me dance with you.”
“I don’t have to,” Orion said, almost idly. “You appear to be more afraid of your father than you are of me. Feel free to tell him that you intend to buck tradition entirely tonight. I’m sure he will be fully supportive of this choice.”
She was silent for a moment. The car was making its way down one of the city’s wide boulevards, done up with holiday lights. Flags waved from the hood while people lined the street, the holiday decorations that went up this first week of November making them look red and green and gold, and cheered.
“If you kiss me, I will bite you,” Calista promised him.
“Another empty threat, I think.” And suddenly, it occurred to Orion that he was enjoying himself. He hardly knew where to put that, so unexpected was it. “But never fear, my surprisingly bashful betrothed. It cannot be a real kiss. That would be inappropriate.”
She wrinkled up her nose. “What a relief.”
And Orion never surrendered to his demons. He never let feelings control him. Urges were anathema to him and strong emotion was his enemy.
Still, what moved in him then proved too strong to deny.
He reached over and took hold of her, sliding his hand along the curve of her cheek and then guiding her face to his.
“What— What are you—”
She sounded breathless. But she didn’t pull away.
“This is a real kiss, Calista,” he heard himself say.
And then he demonstrated.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE KING WAS kissing her.
And, worse, he was kissing her well.
Everything inside Calista went haywire. Alarms kicked off other alarms, each shrieking so loud it should have deafened her completely, but he kept going.
And despite herself, she felt herself...softening.
His lips coaxed hers. His mouth, so stern from a distance, was firm against hers, and it made her stomach dance.
Butterflies, something in her whispered.
She pulled back slightly, perhaps to consider the horror of that thought—
But that was when he angled his head and took the kiss deeper.
And everything inside Calista burst into flame.
It went on and on. She burned, and she kissed him back, moving closer to him as if that would make the fire in her better. Or hotter. She couldn’t tell which.
There was a song in her, louder and louder, and it took her a moment to realize when he pulled away. And worse, that her hands were clenched on the fine fabric of his jacket.
For one breath, two, she could only cling to him. And stare back at him, astonished.
But then reality reasserted itself and she hitched in a breath.
“We won’t be doing that again,” she said, hoping she sounded more outraged and faintly disgusted than what she was. Knocked off balance. At sea, even.
But the way Orion very nearly smiled at her suggested otherwise. He looked far too male. Too smug. She told herself that was redundant and he was a king who was the worst of men anyway, and tried her best to make herself furious—
All while terribly afraid that she was trembling with all that leftover sensation. Visibly.
“If you say so,” he murmured. In a dark, rich tone that should not have had anything to do with the sensation of sparks cascading down her spine. She managed not to shudder. Somehow.
And it took the concentrated force of all her willpower, far more than it should have, but she managed to keep from pressing her fingers to her lips. Because it suddenly seemed to her like an act of sheer survival to prevent him from knowing how much he’d affected her.
No matter how much of a lost cause that might have been. It was one thing for him to suspect. But if he knew...
Well. She didn’t intend to let that happen.
And no matter that she could still taste him in her mouth.
Orion reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his mobile, more evidence that his royal blood did not prevent him from being a mortal man like anyone else. Like everyone else, even. She pretended not to watch him scrolling through whatever messages waited him with an expression that was entirely too calm for her tastes.
Surely if she felt wrecked, torn inside out and made new despite herself, he should feel the same. And it should show.
But Calista had turned biting her tongue into an art, or she never would have survived her childhood, and she did it now. She jerked her gaze away from Orion. She folded her hands in her lap, maneuvering around the unfamiliar ring that sat on her hand, so beautiful she didn’t dare look at directly. And yet heavy enough to feel like a portable dungeon.
She directed her gaze out the window instead, at the royal city that slipped by as the car took them toward this destiny of hers that she had never wanted.
This d
estiny she had felt fairly smug about until tonight, if she was honest. Before he’d kissed her. Before he’d taken her mouth with such raw, consuming mastery that she still felt fluttery, knocked off balance, and a little silly.
And Calista had no experience whatsoever with silly. She hardly knew what to do with herself.
Especially when Orion appeared to expect this union of theirs to be permanent.
“I hope you’re prepared,” Orion said from beside her, surprising her. Once again, his voice went off inside her like a tuning fork and everything in her yearned toward him, like a song.
She would cut out her own tongue before she gave in and actually sang, thank you very much. She promised herself that no matter what, she would ignore that odd urge.
Calista cleared her throat. She felt almost misshapen, as if he’d kissed her so thoroughly that if she were to look in a mirror just now, she wouldn’t recognize her own face. She didn’t test that theory.
“What sort of preparation do you mean?” she asked, as smoothly as she could, and congratulated herself on sounding anything but shaken up. “I’m the vice president at a multinational corporation, but thank you. I don’t normally need to be reminded to prepare for a party.”
“I cannot speak to corporate wrangling, of course,” Orion said. With a glint in those grave eyes of his that she was tempted to consider evidence of a heretofore unknown sense of humor in the new, stern king. Surely not, she thought. Her head must still be spinning. “Or party planning, for that matter. But you must know that the moment you emerge from this vehicle on my arm, your life will change.”
She waited for him to laugh. Or even smirk.
He didn’t.
And she felt herself go cold. “What do you mean by that? I don’t want my life to change. I like my life.” Or she would soon enough, anyway. “I’ve worked hard on the life I have.”
With single-minded focus, in fact. All pushing toward the finish line she could finally—finally—see before her.
But the cheers from outside the car seemed to press in on her, then. The way the city slid by as if it, too, danced attendance on this man. Then again, maybe it was the way he studied her expression, the look on his face a bit too close to pity for her liking.
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