by Millie Adams
“No.” She winced internally, not because she’d been thinking of her virginity, but she had considered the fact that this would make the marriage to Matteo difficult. But in the end, it wasn’t why she had done it. “We don’t all live in the Dark Ages, Javier, and you know that. I don’t come from this world. Who I decide to sleep with is my choice and my business, and it is not a medieval bargaining tool, however my father treated me and my body. I do not owe you an explanation.”
“But I owed my brother my loyalty.”
“Then the failure is yours,” she spat, feeling defensive and angry, all the beautiful feelings that she had felt only moments before melting away. “It was my first time, and you’re ruining it. It was really quite nice before you started talking.”
“But it is a reality we must deal with,” he said. “You are to marry my brother.”
“You can’t possibly think that I will go through with it after this.”
He stared at her, his eyes dark, bleak.
“You do. You honestly think that whatever this greater good is that your brother plans... You honestly think that it’s more important than what I want. Than what passed between us here. You know that I don’t want to marry him. Putting aside the fact that we just made love... You know that I want to go home.”
Fury filled her. Impotent and fiery. She just wanted to rage. Wanted to turn things over. Because she felt utterly and completely altered, and he remained stone.
“How can nothing have changed for you?”
“Because the world around me did not change. My obligations did not change.”
“This was a mistake,” she said. “It was a huge mistake.”
She began to collect her clothes, and she dressed as quickly as possible. Then she ran out of the library without looking back. Pain lashed at her chest. Her heart felt raw and bloodied.
How could he have devastated her like this? It had been her plan. Her seduction plan to try to gain a bid for freedom, and it had ended...
She felt heartbroken.
Because this thing between them had felt singular and new, and so had she. Because it had felt like maybe it was something worth fighting for.
But not for him.
When she closed the bedroom door behind her, for the first time she truly did feel like a prisoner.
But not a prisoner of this palace, a prisoner of the demons that lurked inside of Javier.
And she didn’t know if there would be any escaping them.
* * *
When Matteo returned two days later, Javier had only one goal in mind.
He knew that what he was doing was an utter violation of his position. But he had already done that.
But things had become clearer and clearer to him over the past couple of days. And while he knew that his actions had been unforgivable, there was only one course of action to take.
“You need to set her free,” he said when he walked into his brother’s office.
“Would you excuse us, Livia?”
Like the mouse he often called her, Livia scurried from the room.
“You must be very happy with her performance on the business trip to address her by her first name.”
“I am. Now, who exactly do I have to set free?”
“Violet King. You cannot hold her. You cannot possibly be enforcing her father’s medieval bargaining.”
“I instigated the medieval bargain. So obviously I’m interested in preserving it.”
“She will be willing to offer her business services. But she does not wish to marry you.”
“Why exactly do you care?” Matteo asked, his brother always too insightful.
“I slept with her,” Javier said. “Obviously you can see why it would be problematic for her to remain here.”
Matteo appraised him with eyes that were impossible to read. “You know I don’t actually care if you’ve slept with her. As long as you don’t sleep with her after I marry her.”
“You aren’t angry about it?” The idea of Matteo touching Violet filled him with fury. That his brother could feel nothing...
Well, he didn’t know her. He didn’t deserve her.
Matteo waved a hand. “I have no stronger feelings about her than I do for my assistant. She’s a useful potential tool. Nothing more. What she does with her body is her business.”
“I betrayed you,” Javier said.
“How? She has made no vows to me. And I don’t love her.”
For the first time, Javier found his brother’s complete lack of emotion infuriating. Because he had wasted time having far too many emotions about the entire thing, and apparently it didn’t matter after all.
“Let her go.”
“Now see, that does bother me, Javier. Because my word is law.”
“And you wanted to know when you were overstepping. And it is now. She doesn’t wish to marry you. She wishes to leave.”
“And her wishes override mine?”
“You would force a woman down the aisle?”
“I told you what I wanted.”
“And I’m here to tell you it isn’t going to happen. She is mine.”
“Then you marry her.”
He jerked backward. “What?”
“You marry her.”
“Why the hell does anyone have to marry her?”
“Because I made a bargain with her father. And I don’t like to go back on a bargain. It was what he promised me in exchange for his freedom. I didn’t ask, if you were wondering.”
“He simply... Offered her?”
“Yes. I think he liked the idea of a connection with royalty.”
“She doesn’t want it.”
“But you see, I made a business deal with Robert King. He gave me some very tactical business advice that was needed at the time. In exchange I promised that I would make his daughter royalty. Make him a real king, so to speak.”
“In exchange for?”
“Manufacturing rights.”
“Violet is prepared to offer those for her makeup line.”
“Great. I’m glad to hear it. I would like both. Either I marry her or you do it, younger brother, but someone has to.”
Javier stared at his brother, more a brick wall than even Javier was. And for the first time he truly resented that his brother was the leader of the nation and he owed him loyalty. Because he would like to tell him exactly where he could shove his edict. Because they were two alpha males with an equal amount of physical strength and a definite lack of a desire to be ruled by anyone.
But his brother was the oldest. So he was the only one that actually got to give that free rein.
But Javier thought of Violet. Violet.
And he could send her away, or he could keep her.
The beast in the castle.
He could have her. Always. Could keep her for his own and not have to apologize for it.
“Why did you make it sound like her father didn’t have any power? Like he’d lost a bet?”
“That’s what he told me. He didn’t want her to know that he had traded her for a business deal. He instructed me that when the time was right... I should embellish a little bit.”
“That bastard.”
“Honestly. He’s decent enough compared to our father.”
“Our father should not be a metric for good parenting in comparison to anyone.”
“Perhaps not. So, what’s it to be?”
“Even if I marry her, you will still have to marry.”
“I’m aware,” Matteo said. “I’m sure my mouse can help with that.”
“I’m sure she shall be delighted to.”
“She is ever delighted to serve my every whim. After all, I am her Savior, am I not?”
“I cannot imagine a worse possible man to serve as Savior. To owe
you a debt must be a truly miserable thing. I will marry Violet.”
“Interesting,” Matteo said. “I did not expect you to accept.”
“If you touch her,” Javier said, “I will make good on my promise and find an excuse to kill you.”
“So you have feelings for her?”
He had, for many years, looked into his soul and seen only darkness. But she had somehow traversed into that darkness and left the tiniest shard of hope in him. A small sliver of light. But it wasn’t his. It was hers. He feared that the laughter she’d placed in him, the smile she’d put on his lips...he feared in the end his darkness would consume it.
But like any starving creature, hungry for warmth, he could not turn away either.
Though he knew he should.
Though it went against all he knew he should do, all he knew he should be. “She’s mine. I’m not sure why it took this long for me to accept it. I’m the one who went and claimed her. You’ve kept your hands clean of it the entire time. If I’m going to go to all the trouble of kidnapping a woman, she ought to belong in my bed, don’t you think?”
“As you wish.”
“I do.”
“Congratulations, then. On your upcoming marriage.”
CHAPTER TEN
VIOLET’S ANXIETY WAS steadily mounting. Everything had come crashing down on her that moment in the library. The reality of it all. And then in the crushing silence Javier had delivered in the days since, it had all become more and more frightening.
She knew that Matteo was back.
But she still hadn’t seen him. Everything was beginning to feel...
Well, it was all beginning to feel far too real.
When she had gone back to her room after they’d made love, her body had ached. Been sore and tender in places she had never been overly conscious of.
And her heart had burned. The sting of his rejection, of pain that she hadn’t anticipated.
And she couldn’t decide exactly what manner of pain it was.
That he had still been willing to give her to his brother, that he didn’t seem to care what she wanted.
That he didn’t seem to want her in the way that she wanted him, because if he did then the idea of her being with another man would...
Well, it was unthinkable to her, and on some level she wished it were unthinkable to him.
That he didn’t care that she wanted her freedom, because didn’t the beast always let the beauty go?
But maybe this was the real lesson.
Because how many times had her female friends been distraught over one-night stands that had ended with silence? How often had they been certain that there was some sort of connection only to discover it was all inside of them? Violet had been certain that what was passing between herself and Javier had been magical. That it had been real, and that it had been real for both of them.
But that had been a virgin’s folly. She was certain of that now.
And she was trapped here. Trapped.
For the first time, she knew that she needed to call home.
But not her father. Not her mother.
Instead, she took her phone out and dialed her sister, Minerva.
“Violet,” Minerva said as soon as she answered. “Where are you?”
“Monte Blanco,” she said, looking out her bedroom window at the mountains below.
Even the view had lost some of its magic. But then it was difficult to enjoy the view when you were finally coming to accept that you were in fact in prison.
“Why?”
It wasn’t any surprise to her that her bookish younger sister had heard of the country.
“Well. It’s a long story. But it involves Dad making a marriage bargain for me. With a king that I still haven’t met.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m serious. I got kidnapped by a prince.”
“I... What is your life like?” she asked incredulously.
“Currently or in general?”
“I just don’t know very many people who can say they’ve been kidnapped by a prince. At least not with such flat affect.”
“Well, I have been. And it isn’t a joke. Anyway. You lied and told the world that you had our brother’s billionaire best friend’s baby.”
“Sure,” Minerva said. “But Dante never kidnapped me.”
“He did take you off to his private island.”
“To protect me. That’s different.”
“Sure,” Violet said. “Look. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get out of this. I’m trying... But I’m here now. I’m in the palace. Then... The worst part is... I... He’s not the one that I want.”
The door to her bedroom opened, and she turned around, the phone still clutched in her hand, and there Javier was, standing there looking like a forbidding Angel.
“I’m going to have to call you back.”
“No. You can’t say something cryptic like that and then go away.”
“I have to. Sorry.”
“Should I call the police?”
“I’m the captive of a king, Minerva. As in an actual king, not our last name. The police can’t help me.”
She hung the phone up then and stared at Javier. “Have you come to deliver me to my bridegroom?”
They hadn’t been face-to-face since that night. The last time she’d seen him he had been naked. And so had she. Her skin burned with the memory.
“Who are you talking to?”
“My sister. Oddly, I have a lot on my mind.”
“I spoke to Matteo.”
She took a deep breath and braced herself. “And?”
“You are not marrying him.”
A roar of relief filled her ears, and suddenly she felt like she might faint.
“You mean I’m free to go?”
“No,” he said gravely.
“But you just said that I don’t have to marry him.”
“No. But you do have to marry me.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“It turns out that neither my brother nor your father were honest about the particulars of the situation. You may want to call him and speak to him. But my brother made a commandment. He said one of us had to marry you. But that sending you home was not an option.”
“Except, what’s to stop you from letting me go?”
“I refuse,” Javier said. “He has turned your charge over to me completely. And that means you’re staying here. With me.”
“But I have a life, and you know that. We... We know each other.”
“And you wanted me to be something other than what I am. You want to believe that I am a man made into a beast. But you never gave space to the idea that I might simply be a beast. Given free rein to keep you, I think that I will. We are very compatible, are we not?”
“You...”
And she realized that the strange, leaping, twisting in her heart was because she was as terrified about this new development as she was exhilarated.
This man, this beautiful man, was demanding she become his wife.
And he was the man that she wanted.
If his words had been filled with happiness. If there had been any indication that he felt emotion for her, then she would have been... She would have only been happy. But there wasn’t. Not at all. He was hard and stoic as ever, presenting this as nothing more than another edict as impersonal as the one that came before it, as if they had not been skin to skin. As if he had not rearranged unseen places inside of her. As if he had not been the scene of her greatest act of liberation, and her greatest downfall.
“Just like that. You expect me to marry you.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“There is nothing to understand. You will simply do as you’re com
manded. As you are in Monte Blanco now. And the law here is the law you are beholden to.”
“But you don’t care at all what I want.”
“To be free. To go back to your life. To pretend as if none of this had ever happened. But it has. And you’re mine now.”
“Why? Why are you marrying me instead of him? I don’t seem to matter to you. Not one bit.”
That was when he closed the distance between them. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his body. “Because you are mine. No other man will ever touch you. I am the first. I will be the last.”
She was angry then that she hadn’t had the presence of mind to lie to him when they’d made love. Because it would have been much more satisfying in the end. To take that from him, when it clearly mattered.
“I will be the only one. Didn’t I promise you? That no other man would ever satisfy you as I did?”
“Yes,” she said, her throat dry.
“I know no man will ever have the chance to try.”
“That’s all you want. To own me?”
“It’s all I can do.”
There was a bleakness to that statement that touched something inside of her. This, for him, was as close to emotion as he could come. It was also bound up in his control. In that deep belief that he was a monster of some kind. He had told her he was not good, but that he had honor.
And she could see now that he was willing to leave her behind, embrace greed.
And on some level she had no one to blame but herself. Because hadn’t she appealed to that part of him when she had seduced him in the library? Hadn’t it been on the tip of her tongue to ask him why he was so content to let his brother have what he so clearly wanted?
But he didn’t need her goading him to embrace those things now. He emanated with them. With raw, masculine intent. With a deep, dark claim that she could see he was intent to stamp upon her body.
Unknowing he had already put one on her soul.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel it, she realized. It was that he didn’t understand it.
Perhaps she had not felt the depth of those emotions alone. It was only that he did not know how to name them. Only that he did not understand them.
“And what will it mean for me? To be your wife?”