Pretender to the Throne

by Maisey Yates

  “But they don’t want it,” she said.

  He nodded slowly. “I know it. And I find myself in an impossible situation where I feel I must become a better man to make up for the fact that Stavros won’t be the one on the throne, and I don’t know how to be better.”

  Her heart ached, her throat tightening. This was too much. He was making her feel too much. Not in the delicious pleasure-pain way that came through sex. This was all in her heart. A heart she’d kept protected for so long that every lash of emotion felt like being hit with a battering ram.

  “It doesn’t seem like something we can solve tonight. Maybe we can—” She was going to say “have sex,” but this time he cut her off with a kiss. And when he swept her into his arms, and into bed, she could focus on that.

  On the sensations he created on her skin, not beneath it. The smooth and sensual, the rough and hard. And she let it all fill her. Until she was conscious of nothing more. Until the pain in her heart was overshadowed with sweeter physical pain, and much sweeter physical pleasure.

  And when it was over, they didn’t talk. They held each other until they fell asleep.

  Layna’s last thought before drifting off was that it was very strange not to be alone.

  * * *

  This was the second time in his life that Xander Drakos had woken up with a woman in his bed. The first time had been the previous afternoon, when he and Layna had napped after their pretty intense sex session.

  And now, here it was, morning. He’d slept with her all night long, with her curves pressed up against him, his arms tight around her. Very tight. Like he was afraid she might escape.

  But she wouldn’t. Layna was so constant. So faithful.

  If anyone could teach him how to be a better man, it was her. She didn’t have royal blood and she was the epitome of steadiness and temperance. Well, maybe not really. But she did a wonderful job of acting like she was and maybe that was enough.

  All he’d had practice at was indulging his more selfish whims.

  Layna had spent years denying hers.

  Perhaps he could learn something about restraint from her.

  He shifted and looked down at the top of her head, at the golden highlights he could see, revealed by the shaft of sunlight breaking through the drapes.

  “Layna,” he said.

  “What?” she mumbled sleepily. She wiggled against him then startled, drawing back to look at him, blinking like a mole who’d just come out of her burrow. “I forgot you would be here. Or that I would be here. With you.”

  “I was quite surprised to wake up with someone myself, but I find I don’t mind it.”

  “You’ve slept with lots of women,” she said.

  “I’ve had sex with a lot of women,” he said, heat bleeding over his cheekbones. “I don’t sleep with them.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  “They never mind. They’re usually staying in the same hotel.”

  “That’s right. I forgot you didn’t have a home.”

  “And if I had, I wouldn’t have brought them to it.”

  “You are quite something, you know?” she asked.

  “That’s the thing, Layna, I do know, which leads me to what I was going to ask you.”

  “Which is?”

  “Make me better.”

  “What?”

  “I need to be...better. I have to be able to justify the fact that I’m the one taking the throne and not Stavros.”

  “No,” she said, “you don’t. You don’t have to justify anything. Not to me. I talked to Jessica and Eva last night and they explained very clearly why they don’t want it differently. Eva doesn’t want her children raised in this environment and Jessica can’t stand the idea of her husband being king while his children can’t inherit because they’re adopted. There. You’re absolved.”

  “No, Layna, I’m not. Because that’s not what ruling is. It’s not being comfortable or making everyone happy. It’s doing what’s best. Stavros knows this. He would accept it if I were to leave.”

  “You said you wouldn’t run,” she said. Not accusing, just a fact.

  “Is it running if you’re simply trying to protect your country? Your people.”

  “What is it you need to do to feel like a better man?”

  “I guess it’s too late for me to join the church.”

  She blinked. “A bit. If you still plan on marrying me.”

  If he left, he would have no reason to marry her. Which drove home the point that he had to stay. Whatever happened. She was too important to him, and he didn’t want to stop and examine why.

  But she was changing him. Just being near her was changing him, and he needed that. Needed to be with her. Otherwise, what was there? Nothing more than that endless haze of neon lights and booze. And the idea of going back there now felt like the equivalent of walking into hell of his own free will.

  He held her tighter. “And I am planning on it,” he said. “You have my ring and my word.”

  “I’ve had both before.”

  “The man I was,” he said. “Not the man I am now. And I’m vowing to change.”

  “So you’ll stay.”

  “Yes. And does it matter to you so much that I do?”

  She frowned. “I want you to have a place in the world, Xander. Everyone should. I don’t want you to go back to the life that you were living. I don’t want you separated from your family.”

  “And you tell me, since I imagine you know more about this than either of us, where is truth in all of this?”

  “I don’t know, Xander. Maybe there is no place for it.”

  “Seems like that might be heresy.”

  “Maybe. But isn’t all of this? Life dealt us both an impossible hand. We either fold or we cheat. I’m becoming convinced of that.”

  “A gambling metaphor. You know me so well.”

  “Well, you were asking about the church, I thought I’d bring in the casino.”

  “Since we’re aiming for heresy?”

  She sat up, the blankets clutched to her chest. “Not exactly aiming for it.” She pushed her hair off of her face.

  She didn’t seem so self-conscious of her scars around him anymore, and he found he quite liked that.

  Especially since he didn’t see them the same way he had at first. When he’d first seen them they’d looked like they weren’t real. Like they were a mask over the face he remembered. Now it wasn’t that way. He saw them as a part of her face. They didn’t bear extra notice, not more than those mesmerizing eyes, or the shape of her nose. The stubborn set of her chin.

  They weren’t an intruder on his eyes or on her beauty. They were a part of who she was, what she’d been through.

  Sometimes looking at them hurt, because it was a reminder of how much she’d been hurt. It was a reminder of her pain. But also a reminder of her strength.

  “You’re staring,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

  “Because I like to look at you.” He let his eyes drift down lower. “But I do wish you’d drop the sheet. I could compose poetry about your breasts. And I don’t even like poetry.”

  She surprised him by letting the sheet fall to her waist, her full, rose-tipped breasts on display for him.

  He smiled. “Damn. I’m glad to be a man.”

  “That’s the best you have, Drakos?”

  “Shall I compare your nipples to a summer’s day?”

  “Okay, you can stop now.”

  “I don’t think I can. Not ever.”

  She let out a long breath. “Xander, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

  Stay with me.

  It was the first thought in his mind. It was the thing he wanted above all else.

  “Reform me,” he s
aid, his throat tight.

  “Sometimes,” she said, looking away from him, “I’m not really sure I want you reformed.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her for that. And then more. Until everything faded away. And when they were done, Xander wasn’t alone anymore. He was with Layna. And he felt it all the way through.

  And he had never felt more alive. He had never felt more.

  “Actually, Xander,” she said, her voice a whisper, “I think you’re already the best man I’ve ever known. You make me...you know you make me feel like I just might be...beautiful.”

  Light burst through him, bringing pain along with it. Like the sun hitting his face after a night of hard drinking. Only this didn’t feel like stale regret. It was hope. It was something bigger, better than he’d ever known before. He didn’t want to hide. He wanted to push off all the layers of rock and dirt, everything he used to hide himself, his secrets, from the world, to protect himself from the painful truths in his life, and emerge the man he was supposed to be.

  But he could never do it, so long as everything was covered. He could never be free until he cut the ropes that bound him in the darkness.

  With Layna by his side, the idea of it didn’t seem so impossible.

  * * *

  “I have to tell him.”

  Layna looked up from her lunch and at Xander, a strange sense of dread filling her chest. “You what?”

  “I have to tell him.”

  And she didn’t ask who or what, because she knew. Somehow she knew what he was thinking without him saying it.

  “But why, Xander?”

  “Because he’s my father. Or, he thinks he is, and for all intents and purposes and everything that matters to me, he is. And moreover he’s the king, and he has the right to choose who his successor is. With all of the information given to him.”

  “Xander, don’t do this. He won’t have a choice—”

  “There is always a choice, Layna, and this is the thing I’ve been hiding from. It was horrible to lose my mother, but I couldn’t fight against my father’s anger, I couldn’t stay because I was far too afraid that the truth would come out and then things would be...then they could never be fixed. I have to tell him everything, all of it. So that I can have forgiveness. So that I can have my life. So I can be free.”

  “But, Xander,” she said, a desperate fear clawing at her now and she didn’t know why. Didn’t know why this was so terrifying. Only that it was making her feel like she was clinging to the ledge of a cliff, her hold slipping with each passing moment. “If you do this, he might send you away. He might...you might never be king. You won’t even be a prince. You’ll be the royal bastard.”

  “I’m the royal bastard whether anyone knows it or not,” he said, his voice quiet. “And I can’t keep hiding behind a lie. Because that’s the key, I think. To reforming. To...to changing and being a man who’s actually worth something. I have to stop hiding. And that doesn’t mean leaving Monaco and returning to Kyonos, clearly I’ve done that already.”

  “It means taking less than you deserve because you’ve had a sudden attack of conscience,” she said, shocked at the words coming out of her own mouth. Shocked at the vehemence behind them. She didn’t know why she cared so much. Why it felt so vital and frightening.

  “I can’t argue with you about this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t change my mind.”

  “You’re just running,” she said, anger and fear swirling in her and making her panicky. “You’re running again.”

  “No, Layna. I’ve finally stopped.”

  Xander got up from his seat at the table and walked out of the room.

  * * *

  His father was awake this time when he went to see him.

  “Xander?”

  “I suppose you didn’t hear that I was back,” Xander said, standing in the doorway.

  His father lifted a hand. Strange to see King Stephanos like this. So diminished and pale. But he was awake. Perhaps he would recover. Then, at least, the need for Xander, or Stavros to rule wouldn’t be so pressing.

  Then, at least, he might have some time left with this man. Time he’d wasted in fear.

  “Are you back?” his father asked, adjusting his position in the hospital bed, fiddling with the lines from his IV.

  “Yes. I am. But...and I know that this is a bad time to drop bombshells on you....”

  “Xander, from where I’m sitting, there may be no time. I’m only glad you’re here.”

  “You seem better,” Xander said.

  He nodded. “Better. I can speak again. Though it took a while. It was a bad stroke.”

  “I know.”

  “So say what you need to,” he said, “and then I’ll tell you what I need to say.”

  Xander took a breath. “It’s about me. And mother.”

  King Stephanos closed his eyes and nodded. “Yes, we need to talk about that.”

  “Not the things you might think. There was a reason for the crash. And that is that we were fighting, and I was reckless.”

  “Xander...”

  “No, I need to finish. It was my fault, but I could never truly explain it to you. Not when the circumstances...not when I felt I couldn’t tell you the truth of the matter. It seems cruel to tell you now, and if it weren’t for the way things work in our family, if it weren’t for the importance of royal blood, I wouldn’t. I found out that day that I am not your son. She was certain of it.”

  King Stephanos nodded slowly. “I had suspected, of course. You were born quite early and yet quite healthy.”

  “You suspected?”

  “Yes. But I was hardly going to accuse my new bride of faithless behavior. In truth, Xander, ours was a marriage of convenience. In the beginning. I do think we grew to love each other very much.”

  Xander nodded. “She did love you.”

  “There is no reason to condemn her for a sin that’s thirty-seven years old.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t feel that way at the time.”

  “Of course you didn’t. How could you?”

  “You understand now why I had to leave,” Xander said.

  “You had to leave because of me,” the king said, his voice heavy with regret. “I was hurting and I said things to you... I was not a loving father.”

  “But you aren’t my father at all,” Xander said.

  King Stephanos frowned. “Xander, no matter what, you are my son. No matter the revelations, or the years that have gone by, or angry words that passed between us, you are my son.”

  * * *

  Layna hung up the phone, her hands shaking. She had no idea how the reporter had gotten her line here at the palace. No idea why he’d felt the need to call and tell her they were doing a story, why he’d needed to recite the ugly things being written about her.

  That they had photos of her, standing on the balcony off of Xander’s room in a thin nightgown, her hair pulled back revealing the worst of her scars, no makeup on her face. And that they were publishing the photos.

  Does he make love to you in the dark?

  That was when she’d hung up. Her fingers had felt numb.

  She hated this. Hated the way they were exploiting her. The way it made her feel. At first, she’d helped Xander’s reputation, but was she helping him now?

  He said he needed her, but when his rule was taken over by gossip about her looks, about their marriage, how would he feel then?

  She sat down in her office chair and tried to catch her breath, failing as it dissolved into a sob.

  What would happen when he didn’t need her anymore? When he knew he didn’t? When he could have any woman, why would he want her?

  And he’d gone to confess all to his father. If
that lost him his spot on the throne...he would never keep her with him. Never.

  Despair washed over his as every word, every insult from the media, from now and fifteen years ago, played back through her mind.

  Xander might not leave her now, but one day...

  She’d survived losing him once. She couldn’t do it again.

  * * *

  Xander walked into the palace with a strange, buoyant feeling in his chest. He felt lighter. He felt like he could breathe for the first time in fifteen years. And more than that, this felt like a place he could live. A position he could have.

  Because his father, the man who would always claim him as his son, had said that Xander was the man he wanted on the throne.

  The truth truly did set you free. Interesting. He wondered if Layna would be amused by his epiphany.

  Layna. He needed to see Layna.

  He needed to have Layna. With none of his walls between them.

  He prowled through the halls and opened her bedroom door. She wasn’t in the suite of rooms that were set aside for her. He walked out and continued on, toward the place she was using as her office.

  He found her there, sitting behind a desk, staring off into space. She started when the door hit the wall.

  And as soon as he saw her, every thought left his head completely. He’d forgotten why he was there. Where he’d just been. He forgot everything.

  He could only stare at her, at her eyes, her high cheekbones. The extra fold by her mouth where her scar tissue was thick, a fold that deepened when she tightened her lips, like she was doing now. At her asymmetrical brows and her neat, feminine hands.

  At Layna. All the pieces of her that combined to make the woman that had changed him on every level. That had changed him in a fundamental way he could neither name nor deny.

  And he needed her. Needed to be close to her, inside of her, right now. Needed to affirm what he was feeling. To have her brand his body with her touch the way that she had branded his soul.