by Maisey Yates
“Not anymore,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice. No hint of how he felt about the subject. Yet he still wore his ring.
“Why?”
He flicked her a glance for the first time. “I did not realize we had to become friends in order for me to protect you.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” she said, annoyance coursing through her. “You aren’t protecting me. Not really. You’re keeping me out of trouble. Or perceived trouble. I’m an adult woman. I’m twenty, you know. Almost twenty-one.”
“Ancient,” he said, his tone dry.
“Anyway, no, we don’t have to be friends. I suppose us being friends would be impossible, actually, seeing as we’re working with opposing agendas.”
“And what is your agenda, Princess?”
They pulled up to a wrought-iron gate, guards stationed out along the perimeter of the pale stucco wall that stretched around the palace, backed by the Aegean Sea.
“If I told you, Mr. Nabatov, it would be much too easy for you to gain the upper hand.”
CHAPTER TWO
“IT was online, on every trashy news website you could think of, before you ever left the casino, Eva.” Her father paced in front of her, his hands locked behind his back, his expression fierce. “Rolling dice, men on your arm. You looked like a common college student.”
An insult from her father’s lips. There was no mistaking that. Anything common, as far as Stephanos Drakos was concerned, was beneath the hallowed royal family of Kyonos.
“Father …”
“Your Highness,” Makhail stepped in, his voice smooth, confident. “Eva was meant to be under the supervision of one of my men, who has been dismissed now for his carelessness. I have decided I will take on the task of guarding the princess myself.”
Bloody gallant of him. So gallant she’d like to smack that smug expression right off his face. Instead, she cleared her throat and addressed her father. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered that I don’t need twenty-four-hour … nannying?”
“Not for a moment,” King Stephanos replied.
Makhail turned to her, his gray eyes glinting. “I am not a nanny, Princess.”
“You do carry a bigger gun than most nannies,” she said.
He arched one brow. “Among other things.”
“Charming,” she said tightly.
“How do I know I can trust you, Mr. Nabatov, when you seem incapable of keeping an agent in my daughter’s presence?”
Makhail turned his focus to the king, his expression hard. Fierce. Almost frightening. “They were fools. I am not. And your options are limited, Your Highness. Typically, when we protect someone, they have the good sense to want that protection. Princess Evangelina does not.”
“That’s because I’m being protected from myself,” she said. “It’s insulting.”
“You behave like a child, and you shall be treated like one,” Stephanos said. “I am in the process of arranging a union for you that will benefit Kyonos, benefit your people. You disdain it.”
“I … I just want to have a bit of my own life … a bit of …”
“You are royal, Eva. It is not that simple,” the king said.
Eva bit back her response. Because, as much as she hated it, he was right. Every privilege, every ball, had a price. Every ounce of gold dust came with a twenty-pound iron weight attached to it. It didn’t matter whether she accepted it, it simply was.
Still, the outright refusal burned in her throat. Desperate to escape. Words she knew she could never speak.
“Am I dismissed?” she asked.
“You may go,” her father said, nodding his head.
She turned on her heel and walked out into the hall, covering her face with hands, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to keep tears from falling. She wasn’t weak. She didn’t have time for weakness. Even more importantly, she couldn’t afford to show it.
Not to her father, certainly not to the press. Least of all to Makhail, her brand-new jailer. The only person who understood her, even a little bit, was Stavros, her brother. And at the moment, he had his own problems.
She stalked down the long, empty corridor of the palace, making each step count, her high heels clicking loudly on the marble floor. If she had any idea what she wanted, things would be so much easier.
Making scandal, derailing her father’s plans to find her a suitable husband, that had kept her busy for the past few months, but she had no end plan with it.
What else could she do?
She knew what she wanted. She also knew she would probably never have it. A man who loved her, just her. A man she loved just as madly in return. A marriage that had nothing to do with politics or trade.
It was nothing more than a fantasy. Some little girls dreamed of being princesses. She’d just dreamed of being. Of living on her own terms, making her own goals, goals she could aspire to. It wasn’t possible, but she’d clung to the hope. For too long.
And any freedom she had had a timer ticking on it. The marriage was being arranged. And when she was married … it would all be gone, any hope squashed beneath the weight of it. She would go from being beneath her father’s control to being beneath her husband’s.
It was bleak.
“Princess.”
The deep, rich voice, flavored by a Russian accent, could only belong to one man. She turned and saw Makhail standing there, looking every inch the secret agent in his black suit.
“Yes?”
“I have finalized arrangements with your father.”
“Have you?” she asked, stiffly. “He says you have six months.”
She tried to ignore the sick, sinking feeling in her stomach. “So I’ve been sentenced, then?”
“Is that how you feel about it?”
She laughed, and she wasn’t sure why. She didn’t feel amused. Far from it. “How would you feel? Being offered as commodity to a total stranger? To bear his children and … sleep with him.”
“I imagine I would not enjoy it,” he said, his tone wry. “But then, I have never been interested in sleeping with men.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Listen, Princess …”
“Eva. Just Eva, please. If we have to deal with each other for the next few months it will be easier.”
“Then you can call me Mak.” It wasn’t a friendly offer. More like a prisoner exchange.
“I don’t want to,” she returned, keeping her tone intentionally tart.
He chuckled. “Why is that?”
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “It humanizes you. I would prefer to stay angry with you for as long as possible.”
His lips curved into a smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He took a step, then another, slowly circling around her, like a predator who had found some very tempting prey. “I am certain I will find many ways to make you angry, Eva. You won’t need to manufacture reasons.”
“On that we can both agree.” She turned to face him as he moved to her side. “Stop circling me, I’m not a gazelle.”
He paused. “Excuse me?”
“You look like … like you’re stalking me or something. But I am no one’s prey.”
“I believe it.”
“Tell me then, Mak,” she said his name with as much disdain as she could muster. “What is on the agenda? Has my father lined out every single activity I’m approved for over the six months? Galas and tea parties?”
“Something like that.”
“Lovely,” she said dryly.
“Not for either of us and I see no reason to pretend otherwise. I am not a babysitter, so unless you want me to be incredibly irritable during our time together, I suggest you stop acting like a child.”
She stiffened, anger coursing through her veins, her temper, quick at the best of times, ready to snap. “I am not acting like a child. I’m being treated like one.”
“What do you think, Eva, that you’ll find the answers to life in a casin
o? In a bar? That somehow that sort of freedom means more than doing your duty to your country? If so, you really are a child.”
He turned his back to her and for some, strange reason, she felt compelled to ask him to stay. To make him stay. “Wait.”
He turned back to her. “Yes?”
“Where are you staying? Do you … do you have a home on Kyonos?”
“I shall be staying here.” He smiled slowly. “All the better to protect you.”
“Are you supposed to remind me of the big bad wolf?”
He arched one dark eyebrow. “Do I?”
Come to think of it, he did. “What big teeth you have,” she said, forcing her voice to stay in a monotone.
His dark eyebrow arched. “I won’t say the rest. It would hardly be appropriate.”
A little thrill zinged through her. It certainly would not. And what was happening? Had he … flirted with her? Had she just flirted with her bodyguard?
He was gorgeous. In a very understated sort of way. He certainly wasn’t pretty, he was far too rugged for that. But he was … masculine. And somehow, just being near him, made her feel very, very aware of her own femininity. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw and she imagined it would feel rough beneath her palm.
She found herself brushing her fingertips lightly over her own cheek in response to the thought, feeling the smooth skin there. Craving its opposite.
She dropped her hand to her side, flexing her fingers, trying to get rid of the phantom impression of his scruff, and took a deep breath, attempting to clear her head.
“Hardly,” she said, trying to swallow. Her throat felt tight. Too tight.
“This doesn’t have to be hard, Eva,” he said, his accent shaping her name differently than she’d ever heard it before. It was … intriguing.
“It can’t be anything but. You and I have opposing goals, Mak.”
“What is your goal, Princess?” he asked, his eyes hard on her. Far too perceptive. He made her want to wrap her arms around herself, to try and cover as much as she could. Because she felt as though he could see beneath her filmy dress. More disturbing, she felt that he could see inside of her. See her fears, her desires. Things she’d never shared with anyone. “And be honest. None of this talk about you not telling me. Do you intend to take yourself out of the running for a dynastic marriage by ruining your image?”
“It had crossed my mind. Or perhaps, I simply wanted to start as I intend to go on.”
“Meaning?”
“The lucky royal who takes me as a wife should have an idea of what he’s getting into. He should know I’m not simply some docile piece of arm candy.”
He treated her to that look again. Cool. Assessing. Penetrating. He spoke slowly, as though each word was chosen carefully. For the purpose of irritating her, she imagined. “I doubt anyone could possibly believe you’re docile.”
“Then my job is at least half done,” she said, trying to play it a whole lot cooler than she felt. “I’m tired now. I think I’ll go to my quarters.” She turned away from him and started walking back down the hall.
She could hear heavy footfalls behind her. She turned and saw Mak following behind her. “I said I’m going to my quarters. You aren’t invited,” she said, even as her stomach tightened, thinking of inviting him in.
“I’m simply ensuring you arrive as you should,” he said, completely unperturbed by her prickly responses. She was usually very good at putting her guards off. The palace guards had given up on her, Makhail’s guards hadn’t been able to keep up with her.
And Makhail was … calm. Maddeningly so. As though he felt nothing. Nothing more than a mild amusement over the disaster area that was her life. As though the idea of her being sold into marriage was nothing.
“Think I’m going to knot the bedsheets together and rappel out the window?”
“You’ve done it before.”
Heat rushed into her cheeks. “Once. And I was fourteen. Did you read my file? Oh, theos, have I got a file?” She’d never, ever felt more like one of her father’s assets in her life. Not a person, a thing. A thing that was catalogued, like the antiquities, like the artifacts from the temples of Kyonos. She was another item from the royal collection.
“Of course you have a file. And considering you burn through guards at such an accelerated rate, it’s a good thing too. It made it much easier for me to know you.”
She gritted her teeth, tightening her hands into fists. “You can study that file all you like, read it cover to cover. You still won’t know me.” She turned her back on him and took short, quick steps down the hall, ignoring the sound of him still behind her.
When she reached the door to her quarters, her hands shook as she entered the code that would unlock the door.
“I make it my business to know people,” Mak said. “I profile them. It makes it easier in this business if I understand human nature. You think you’re so special that I can’t figure you out?”
She turned to him, her heart raging in her chest. “I’m not a list of characteristics. I am a person. I …”
“You are spoiled. Selfish. Characteristics brought on by a life with every amenity you could possibly imagine—and some most people can not—at your fingertips. You feel persecuted while surrounded by luxury, because you know nothing else. Because you don’t know what it is to go without food or shelter. Oh, I think I know you, Eva. Better than you know yourself, quite possibly.”
His assessment made her feel ill. Made her tremble from the inside out. Was it so wrong to want more out of her life than being an object? She wasn’t an artifact, which made being wrapped in silk and put on display boring and unsatisfying.
She sucked in a breath and met Mak’s eyes, ignored the shiver that worked its way through her as she did. “You can continue to think all of that if you wish. Frankly, you underestimating me works to my benefit.”
He chuckled, low and slow. “Perhaps you are simply overestimating yourself.” He moved closer to her and her heart kicked into high gear. He leaned in, his palm pressed flat against the door to her rooms, his face so near hers she could hardly breathe. For one moment, it all stopped. There was only Mak, his face filling her vision, his scent teasing her. “Sleep well, printzyessa.”
He pushed back from the door and turned away from her, walking down the hall, his abandonment leaving her cold. His recent nearness leaving her shaking.
“Bastard,” she said, loud enough for him to hear.
He didn’t turn. He just laughed.
She pushed the door open and closed it firmly behind her. This was a disaster. A nightmare. She’d been downgraded to a maximum-security playpen.
She hated that man. That ridiculous, gorgeous, awful man.
Eva toyed with the idea of climbing out the window. For all of two seconds. She didn’t have anywhere she wanted to be, and frankly, it would be rebellion for rebellion’s sake and that was just stupid.
The casino stuff, that night she’d gotten into one of Kyonos’s most exclusive and racy nightclubs, that had been for the benefit of the press. And even though she’d lost her bodyguard detail, she’d been sure she was safe.
Sneaking out in the dead of night didn’t have the same benefit.
She sank into the sofa that stretched across the entryway to her quarters, which was structured very much like a luxury apartment without a kitchen. It was a way for her to have privacy without actually having it. An illusion of independence.
She closed her eyes, her head resting on a plush white cushion. She could feel the noose tightening around her neck. Duty. Honor. She should care about both of those things more than she did.
She just wanted her own life.
And in her position, wanting that made her selfish, terrible when it would be seen as normal, responsible, for someone else to want to take control of their existence. It was also completely impossible.
CHAPTER THREE
EVA in her fitted black slacks, white blouse and long string of pearls that
hung low, knotted beneath her breasts, was a very different Eva from the one he’d encountered the night before. With her glossy brown hair tamed into a sleek bun, her makeup light and subtle, she looked every inch the proper princess.
But he knew better. He could not get the image of her as she had been last night out of his mind. Angry, and more than a little bit hot. She had plagued his dreams. Another strange occurrence. Even in sleep he had control. It had been necessary, for so long, for him to have control in every way. And he had gone into a business that took that and used it, made the most of it.
He couldn’t afford to lose it now.
He had been forced to take to the beach early in the morning, running until his lungs burned and his muscles shook, until he was certain the desire for her had been replaced by utter exhaustion. It was a technique he had used often in the past. It had not worked today.
“Good morning, Mak,” she said, looking up from her breakfast, her tone telling him there was nothing good about seeing him at all. So, she wasn’t so different from last night’s Eva.
“Morning.”
“What’s on my agenda for the day?”
“You are housebound.”
Her head snapped up, her expression fierce. “Is that the way it’s going to be, then?”
“There is a ball coming up at the end of the month.”
“Ah yes, a ball. What is the function of those balls do you suppose? To trot me out before potential suitors.”
“And for women to parade themselves before your brother, right?”
“True. As long as Stavros is single there will be balls. And minor royals gagging to marry a future king.”
“And your brother is as interested in marriage as you are, I take it?”
“Less.” She looked up at him again and for the first time, he saw a vulnerability in her eyes. He also saw her beauty, beauty that was impossible to ignore. “Although he’ll do it. And he’ll do it without argument. That’s how he is. He does what’s best. Feeling … well, feeling never comes into it for Stavros. Is it really house arrest until I’m engaged? Is that my only option?”