by Maisey Yates
“You have no idea the sort of headline we will create,” he said. “Before the accident I mostly made waves here in Europe. But, the wider world will be interested in my return from the darkness, I have no doubt. As the deadline for my return approaches. Just as they will be morbidly interested in what horror the accident has brought upon me. I’m certain that there will be a salacious tabloid headline to that effect any day now. But, to emerge shortly thereafter, with a beauty such as yourself on my arm...well, that will be a story.”
Again, he held off mentioning his wife. She didn’t need to know.
“Of course, there can be no question about you making contact with your boyfriend. I can have nobody on the outside able to call the validity of this relationship into question.”
“My father certainly won’t believe it,” she said. “And, even though he’s likely in the hospital at this moment, he probably still has access to a phone.”
“Really?” Tension gathered in his stomach, and he couldn’t quite work out why. “You think your father won’t believe that you came to speak to me, that I enticed you to stay. That I offered you beautiful clothing, jewelry...pleasure. That you were swayed by such things?”
She looked away. “Of course he won’t believe that.”
“Because I’m ugly? I assure you, Belle, a man in my position does not need to be beautiful. And a man with my skills doesn’t need physical perfection to bring a woman to completion.”
This time, when her cheeks turned red, he had a feeling it was from something else. The same thing affecting him. Molten heat that was coursing through his veins. For the second time in the space of twenty-four hours desire stirred inside him. What he was saying to her...he believed it to be true. Of course he could bring a woman pleasure in the dark. He didn’t need his face restored in order to find all the places on her body that would make her cry out, that would make her wet with her need for him.
Again, the issue here wasn’t vanity, but the desire to do so. It had been absent for long enough that he had thought it was another casualty of the accident. Another side effect of his loss.
Now he wondered. Now, with his body roaring back to life, he more than wondered.
In fact, he didn’t wonder a damn thing. He was starving. That was what he was.
“I don’t intend to find out,” she said, her tone clipped.
“That’s right. Because you have a boyfriend. How is he? Pretty?” She made a small, outraged squeak at that. “But does he know how to make you scream?”
She stood up quickly, holding her book up against her chest. “You’re awful.”
“I’m the monster who took you prisoner. If you expected me to be anything different, you were only going to be disappointed.”
She gave him a look of pure umbrage, then made a movement like she was going to storm out of the room. He reached out, taking hold of her book, his fingertips brushing against hers, sending trails of lightning up his arm and down through the center of his body.
“You lost my place!” she shouted, her tone indignant.
“I’m sure you’ll find it again.” He turned the book over in his hands. “What is this?”
“Anna Karenina.”
“Doesn’t she get hit by a train?”
“Yes. At this moment it’s something of a fantasy of mine. As it’s preferable to my current situation.”
He reached out, sifting his fingers through her hair. He expected her to pull away, to jump back. She surprised him by freezing instead. Her mouth dropped open, her eyes turning glassy. “I don’t think that’s true,” he said.
“What? That I’m having a fantasy?”
“Oh, I believe that you’re having a fantasy. I just don’t think it has anything to do with being hit by a train.”
He slid his hand to her cheek, drawing his thumb across her silken skin, brushing the edge of her lips. That seemed to mobilize her. She jolted, then pivoted to the side, stepping away from him. “I’m only here because I wanted to save my father. For that, I’ll do anything. For right now, our only agreement is that I make an appearance with you at whatever event you feel I need a gown for. If you want something else, you’re going to have to come out and say it. If you require my body, then I can lie down and take it, but you had better rest assured that it will be under sufferance. But don’t play this game where you act as though you might be able to seduce me. That would be impossible.”
“I’ve never had to force a woman into my bed yet,” he said.
“I suppose that’s hard for you to know, considering you’re royalty and all. How can anyone refuse you?” She drew in a sharp breath and took a step away from him, and he thought for a moment that she was finished. But then she continued. “Also, I’m curious if you’ve propositioned a woman since...you know. You might find it more difficult now.”
Her eyes glistened as she said the words, the color high in her cheeks, almost as though she felt guilty for landing such an unerring blow.
He was hardly going to let such an insult stand. He reached out, grabbing hold of her arm and dragging her back toward his body. She lost her balance, falling against his chest, her palms pressing against his muscles. She looked up at him, eyes wide.
He gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, holding her steady, and his mouth crashed down on hers.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS A PUNISHMENT. There was no doubt about that. There was nothing ambiguous in the way his lips met hers, nothing gentle, nothing tentative. It had nothing to do with giving, nothing to do with pleasure. He tasted like rage. Maybe even hatred.
Belle was too stunned to do anything. Too shocked to fight back. So she stood, immobilized, trapped in his strong arms, pinned beneath the hard wall of his body.
He shifted, angling his head, forcing her lips open, his tongue sliding against hers. She gasped, and the action allowed him deeper access.
She waited. Waited for something like horror to overtake her. Waited for a surge of adrenaline, the kind that was supposed to come when you were in situations that were deadly. That gave you the strength to lift cars, and all other manner of things. Surely, some of that should come to her rescue now. Give her the strength to fend off one hard-bodied prince.
But it didn’t. Instead, something else stole over her. A betraying heat, a kind of strange, languid feeling that started in her stomach and spread outward toward her limbs. It made her want to melt against him, and without being aware that she’d made the conscious thought to do so, she found herself doing just that. Curving her body around his, going pliant against the mountain that was Prince Adam Katsaros.
It was that strange feeling from before. That she had been calling fear. That prickling heat that spread over her skin. It came together here. In a brilliant flash. When his lips met hers, it became so very horribly clear.
His mouth might be too damaged to smile, but it had in no way affected his ability to kiss.
She had never imagined a kiss could feel like this. So raw, and rough and devastating. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t sweet; there was no connection in it. She had kissed only one other man, Tony, and the thing that she liked about kissing him was that it made her feel close to someone.
This was not that. This was hard, and it was angry, and it had breached her defenses and touched her in places she didn’t know a simple meeting of mouths could reach.
And it made her heart beat so hard she thought it might tumble out of her chest. Made it impossible for her to think, impossible for her to breathe. Her knees went weak, and she curled her fingers around his shirt, keeping herself from melting into the ground as best she could.
He reached up, forking his fingers through her hair, curling his hand into a fist and growling as he tugged hard, changing the angle of their kiss yet again to something so impossibly deep it made her head swim. He growled again, and something in that sound pierced through the fog that had surrounded her.
What was she doing? Allowing this...this monster to kiss her like t
his? He had taken her father prisoner, and then he had taken her prisoner, as well. She had a man waiting for her back home who cared about her, who would be horrified to see her in this position and would never subject her to such a thing.
And here she was, betraying him, betraying herself. Allowing herself to be swept away on some crazy tide of physical need.
She pushed him, at his chest, his shoulders, but he was immovable. So she bit his lip.
He roared, pulling backward, his dark eyes fierce. “You will regret that,” he said.
“My only regret is that I was in a position where it was possible to put my mouth on you in any capacity.”
“And yet,” he said, that ruined face of his contorting into a sneer, “you trembled in my arms.”
She hated him even more for that, because it was true. Because she had felt...well, she didn’t even know what it was. Some dark, sexual need she had not even been aware she possessed the capacity to experience.
“That’s what prey does in front of a predator,” she spat. “It trembles. Because it knows it’s going to get eaten.”
He laughed, and the dark sound reverberated in her. Made her shiver. “Yes, indeed. A few more moments and I would have devoured you whole.”
“You disgust me,” she said, wishing very much that speaking the words would make them true. “No wonder you’re alone! No wonder you’ve been hiding away from your country. Your face is the least of your problems. It’s not the thing that makes you a beast.”
She whirled around, running down the corridor as quickly as possible. She was blinded by anger. Blinded by fear. But the worst thing was, it wasn’t him she was afraid of. She ran, not looking back, taking twists and turns in the labyrinthine set of halls that carried her to unfamiliar places she hadn’t yet seen before.
Finally, she stopped, satisfied that he wasn’t coming after her. She put her hand on her chest, trying to catch her breath. She looked around, stunned by the darkness around her. By the strange sense of abandonment here in this portion of the palace.
She took a cautious step forward, looking up at the paintings that lined the walk, seemingly laden with dust.
It was like she had wandered into a different building. No evidence of staff here at all, no evidence that anyone had set foot here in years. She moved over to a door and pressed it open slowly, looking inside and finding furniture that had been upended. A table lay on its side, a couch fallen over onto its face.
She closed the door again and continued on down the hall.
Then she saw another door, with a sliver of light coming from beneath it. Her breath caught in her throat, her limbs still shaking from the kiss, from the run, from...everything.
She looked back behind her, then back at the door. She tested the handle and found that it gave. She looked over her shoulder again, then quickly stepped inside.
The source of light was two wall sconces above the fireplace, casting a dim glow in the room. The curtains were drawn tightly shut, also covered in a slight film of dust that suggested they hadn’t been opened in a long time.
There were bookshelves that were half-empty, a chair with a broken leg turned over onto its side. One of the walls had a dark stain at the center, something that resembled an explosion of liquid, as though a glass had been thrown against it, the liquid spraying out.
She took another step forward, and saw a glittering trail of crushed glass that supported that theory. She wondered how long it had been there. Because, nothing about it looked recent, and yet, no one had cleaned it up.
She made her way farther into the room, her heart thundering so hard that she could feel the pulse echoing in her temples. She took another step, something crunching beneath her foot. She looked down and saw a vase, or, the remains of one. And there were roses, shriveled up and blackened, spread out among the broken shards.
She bent down, picking up one of the dried buds, brushing her fingertip over the shriveled and darkened edges.
She turned around, and saw a framed photograph facedown on the table the vase had likely fallen off. She reached out, touching the gilt edge gingerly, tilting it upward.
The image in the frame made her heart stop.
There was a woman, pale, blonde and beautiful with a wide smile on her face. There was a man standing behind her, looking equally joyous. His large hand was resting on her stomach.
Her rounded stomach.
She looked at the man, stunned by his beauty. By his sheer masculine perfection. But that wasn’t what held her focus. It was his eyes. Those dark, piercing eyes that were all too familiar.
Adam. Before the accident.
She scanned the picture for clues. His left hand was on the woman’s stomach, a wedding band on his finger. His wife. His wife, who had been carrying his child.
She knew two things for sure. There was no wife, and there was no child.
She gasped, pressing her hand up against her mouth, dropping the frame. It made a loud cracking sound as it hit the surface of the table, and she scrambled to reclaim it, to make sure she hadn’t done any damage.
“What are you doing here?”
The low, steady voice, piercing the silence of the room made her turn, the picture still clutched tightly in her hand.
Adam was standing in the doorway, his face dark with rage.
“I didn’t...this is...these are your quarters, aren’t they?” These quarters that looked uninhabited, that bore the evidence of fits of uncontrolled anger. This was where he lived. And it wasn’t only her that wasn’t allowed here. She had a feeling not a single member of his staff had set foot here since...since his accident.
“Yes,” he said, his tone as dark as their surroundings. “I warned you not to come here.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said.
“Right, you simply found yourself in a part of the palace that was clearly separate and thought you would explore. Don’t you think,” he said, moving toward her, reminding her of a large predator, “that perhaps a place kept dark, with doors kept closed, should obviously be private?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“The picture,” he said, the words seemingly pulled from him, “give it to me. If you have damaged it in any way...”
She turned it so that it was facing her, and looked down yet again at the smiling faces. It wasn’t the scars that made him look so different than he did in this photo. It was the bleakness. Something was missing from him now, extinguished. Gone completely.
“It’s okay,” she said, her hands shaking as she extended them, handing the picture to him. “It’s fine.”
“Set it down on the table where you found it,” he said, not making a move toward it or her.
She complied, then moved away from it quickly, afraid somehow that by being near it she might do something to damage it. This thing that was clearly so precious to him. She felt awful, twisted up, shattered like the glass beneath her feet.
“I didn’t... I didn’t know,” she said, her tone muted.
“And are you satisfied? Are you satisfied with seeing my loss? This,” he said, drawing his hand across his cheek, “this is just a warning. A demonstration of what you will find if you look inside me. Honestly, it is a kindness. If I still looked like I did in that photograph, if I were unchanged...it would almost be worse. Better that I be destroyed both inside and out, yes?”
“You were married,” she said, not quite sure why it came out that way. It sounded flat and stupid in the silence of the room once it was spoken.
“Yes,” he returned. “You really should have looked me up before you came here. You might have learned some things.”
“I know,” she said, her breath freezing in her lungs. “But I... I just didn’t...”
“That is why I don’t allow paparazzi in my country. That is why I have no tolerance for it,” he said, something in his voice fraying, unraveling as he spoke. “Do you think I would allow that scum to set foot in this place? After what they did to me?” His voice rose, al
ong with his rage. “After they stole my wife from me?” He reached down, picking up a glass from the sideboard to his right. “After they stole my son?” He hurled the glass at the wall, and it shattered, leaving yet another pile of broken glass on the floor that she knew no one would do anything to clean.
She understood then. What she was seeing. It was the map of his grief. The evidence of moments when it had all become too much and he’d had to wreck his surroundings. Because his destroyed face wasn’t enough. Because his destroyed soul wasn’t enough.
“Adam...” It was the first time she had spoken his name out loud.
“Get out,” he said. “Never come back here. This is not for you.”
“I’m sorry...”
“Do you think I want your apology? Do you think I want your pity? Unless you can bring people back from the dead, you can save your breath. There is no resurrecting what is killed. There is no fixing this. There is no fixing any of it.” He grabbed another glass, hurling it at the opposite wall. It exploded just like the first, the sound making her jump.
He took a step toward her, curling his fingers around her arm, holding her tight, so hard that it hurt. “Go,” he said, “before I do something we both regret.”
He released his hold on her, and she stumbled back, brushing her fingertips over her arm where he had just held her. She lingered for a moment, and she felt...she felt torn. He was scary, so of course part of her wanted to run.
But he was also injured, and not in the way that she had initially thought. It was so much worse. So much deeper. And a part of her felt broken in response.
Without thinking, she extended her arm, reaching toward him. He jerked back, like a wounded animal. “Go,” he said again, his tone fractured.
And this time, she complied.
* * *
Adam considered taking dinner in his quarters. He rarely did that, because he did not allow anyone—even his housekeeper—to come into the section of the palace he had once shared with Ianthe.
But, then he realized that he was dangerously close to allowing Belle to dictate what he did in his own palace. The rest of the world had been closed off to him for long enough that he was hardly going to allow anything in his castle to be closed off to him, as well.