Marrying Her Royal Enemy

by Jennifer Hayward

  Fire disintegrated the ice in her eyes. “Yes, but you were the ringleader. I’ve heard the stories about you two in flight school—they’re legendary. You egged him on until neither of you could see straight past your obsession to win. But you weren’t collecting points to be top dog that night, you were gambling with your lives. How can I forgive you for that knowing Athamos was following in your trail? In your suicidal jet wash?”

  “Because you need to,” he growled. “Because bitterness won’t solve anything. I can’t bring him back, Stella. I would if I could. You need to forgive me so we can move on.”

  “It’s too late for forgiveness.”

  He closed his hand over hers on the table. She yanked it away, glaring at him.

  “What was so important you couldn’t have come to us and explained what happened? What was so imperative you needed to walk away without putting us out of our misery?”

  “I should have.” He closed his eyes, searching for the right words. “What happened that night rocked me...shattered me. I needed time to process what had happened. To pick up the pieces...”

  “And that was more important than the precious peace and democracy you preach?” She fired the words at him, her hand slicing through the air. “While you were finding yourself, we were living in fear, terrified your father would annex Akathinia back into the Catharian Islands. How could you not have intervened?”

  His fingers curled around the edge of the table. “My father was the king. Short of overthrowing him, spearheading a mutiny against my own flesh and blood, the only thing I could do was try to reason with him. It wasn’t working near the end. He was losing his mental faculties, suffering from dementia. I had to bide my time until I took control.”

  “So you put yourself into a self-imposed exile?”

  “I went to Tibet.”

  “Tibet?” Her eyes widened. “You went to live with the monks?”

  “Something like that.”

  She stared at him as if searching for some sign he was joking. When he said nothing, she sat back in her chair, eyes bleak. “Did your sojourn afford you the forgiveness you craved? The absolution? Or perhaps it was peace you were looking for. Lord knows we’ve all been searching for that. We didn’t even have a body to bury.”

  He brought his back teeth together. “Enough, Stella.”

  “Or what?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I am not your subject, Kostas. You can’t fly in here, interrupt the first vacation I’ve had in years and order me around like your dictator of a father loved to do. You’re the one walking on very thin ground right about now.”

  He was. He knew it. “Tell me how I can make this right,” he growled. “You know we need to.”

  The waiter arrived to pour their wine. Dispensing the dark red Bordeaux into their glasses, he took one look at their faces and melted away. Stella took a sip, then cradled the glass between her palms, eyes on his. “What happened that night? Why did you race?”

  His heart began a slow thud in his chest. Every detail, every minute fragment of that night was imprinted on his brain. He had promised himself he wasn’t ever going there again, and yet if he didn’t, Stella would walk out on him, he knew that with certainty.

  “Athamos and I met a Carnelian woman named Cassandra Liatos. We both had feelings for her. She was torn, liked us both. We decided to settle it with a car race through the mountains—the winner got the girl.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You had a pink-slip race, except the prize was a woman?”

  His mouth flattened. “I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. One of us had to back off. Cassandra couldn’t make the call, so we did.”

  “So she was merely a pawn in the game between two future kings?” A dazed look settled over her face. She rubbed her fingertips against her temples and shook her head. “That wasn’t my brother. He didn’t treat women as objects. What was wrong with him?”

  His gaze fell away from hers. “It was not a rational night.”

  “No, it was a deadly one.” The rasp in her voice brought his eyes back up to hers. “Where is Cassandra now? Were you with her after Athamos died?”

  “No. It was...impossible to move on from there.”

  Stella looked out at the sunset darkening the horizon to a deep burnt orange. The convulsing of her throat, the slow deliberate breaths she took, told him how hard she was fighting for control. When she eventually returned her gaze to his, she was all hard-as-ice composed.

  “Are you done? Have you said all you need to say? Because if you think I’m going to marry you after hearing that, Kostas—sign on to be another one of your pawns—you are out of your mind.”

  He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “It was a mistake. I made a mistake, one I will pay for the rest of my life. What I am proposing between us is a partnership, not a chance for me to lord it over you. An opportunity to restore peace and democracy in the Ionian Sea. To heal the wounds we have all suffered.”

  Her mouth curled. “So I should save you after everything you’ve done? Allow myself to be used as a symbol you can flaunt to the world in some PR exercise you are undertaking to restore Carnelia’s credibility?”

  The animosity emanating from her shocked him. “When did you become so cynical? So unforgiving? Where is the woman who would have done anything to fight for a better world?”

  “I am fighting for a better world. Every day I do that with my work. It’s you who seems to have lost your compass. You are not the man I once knew. That man would have stayed and fought your father tooth and nail. He would not have jumped ship.”

  “You’re right,” he said harshly, bitter regret staining his heart. “I’m not the man I was. I am a realist, not an idealist. It’s the only thing that’s going to save my country from the mess it’s in.”

  She regarded him over the rim of her glass. “And how do you intend to do that? Save Carnelia?”

  “My father has driven the approval ratings for the monarchy to historic lows. I plan to hold elections to turn Carnelia into a constitutional monarchy in the fall, which will include a confirmation by the people they wish the monarchy to stay in place. There is a very real possibility, however, before I can do that, the military junta who backed my father will seize control. You marrying me, joining Akathinia and Carnelia together in a symbolic alliance, would be a powerful demonstration of the future I can give to my people if they afford me the opportunity. A vision of peace and freedom.”

  An air of incredulity surrounded her. “You’re asking me to marry you, to walk into the enemy’s lair, where a powerful military faction might take control at any moment, and transform a country, a government, with you?”

  “Yes. You have the courage, the strength and the compassion to help me take Carnelia forward into the future it deserves.”

  Her eyes flashed. “And what about me? Am I supposed to lay my happiness down on the altar as I’ve done everything else? Marry a man I can’t stand for the sake of duty?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t hate me, Stella. You know that’s a lie. And it wouldn’t be like that. You told me once your dream was to become a human rights lawyer, to effect widespread change. Becoming my queen would allow you to do that. You would be altering the course of history, bringing happiness to a people who have suffered enough. Can you really tell me that’s not worth it?”

  Her lips pursed. “Pulling out your trump card, Kostas? Now I know you’re desperate.”

  “We both know that isn’t my trump card. We’ve proved we could be very good together. More than good.”

  A deep red flush stained her chest, rising up to claim her cheeks. “That was ten years ago and it was just a kiss.”

  “One hell of a kiss. Enough you jumped into my bed in flimsy lingerie and waited for me until one o’clock in the morning, while the entire party thought you were ill.”

  A choked sound left her throat. “You are such a gentleman for bringing that up.”

  “No,” he countered softly, “
I was that when I tossed you out. You were Athamos’s little sister, Stella. Eighteen. I was the son of the dictator. Kissing you was the height of stupidity when I knew the pedestal you put me on. I tried to end it there, but you wouldn’t take no for an answer. Sometimes cruelty is kindness in its most rudimentary form.”

  Her sapphire eyes blazed a brilliant blue beam at him. “You should have spared me the pity kiss, then.”

  “It was far more complicated than that between us and you know it.” She had been wrecked by her parents’ refusal to allow her to accept the Harvard Law School admission she’d been granted, where Nik had studied. Devastated, as her dream had evaporated. He had not been prepared for the chemistry that had exploded between them.

  “Would you have preferred I’d taken you?” He held her stormy gaze. “Walked away with a precious piece of you and broken your heart?”

  “No,” she huffed, fingernails digging into the armrests of her chair. “You did me a favor. And now that we’ve confirmed you’re a heartless piece of work I’d never consider marrying, I think we’ve said all there is to say.”

  He studied the emotion cascading through her beautiful eyes, regret sinking through him. He had hurt her. Perhaps more than he’d thought.

  She stood up in a whirlwind of motion, snatching up her purse, pushing back her chair, as if a hurricane was sweeping down the Atlantic headed straight for them.

  “Breaking our deal?” he drawled.

  “The deal was to hear you out. Suddenly, I find myself without an appetite.”

  He stood, then reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and extracted a card from the marina where he was staying. She flinched as he tucked it into the front pocket of her jeans. “Don’t make this decision because you hate me, Stella. Make it for what you believe in. Make it for Akathinia. If the military isn’t handcuffed, they will seek to finish the job they started when they took that Akathinian ship last year. Lives will be lost.”

  Her chin dropped, her lithe body tense, caught in the middle of a storm. “I know you,” he murmured. “You’ll do the right thing.”

  “No, you don’t.” She shook her head slowly, a wealth of emotion throbbing in those blue eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  KOSTAS COULDN’T KNOW her because she clearly didn’t know herself at this moment in time. The fact that she was even entertaining his proposition was ludicrous.

  Stella paced the terrace of Jessie’s oceanfront villa, smoke coming out of her ears. How dare he come here? How dare he throw that guilt trip at her? She had come to Barbados to get her head together, to figure out what she wanted to be. Instead, he had dumped the weight of two countries on her shoulders; issued that parting salvo that had her head spinning...

  If the military isn’t handcuffed, they will seek to finish the job they started when they took that Akathinian ship last year.

  Her stomach plummeted, icy tendrils of fear clutching her insides. Five crew members had died when a renegade Carnelian commander had taken an Akathinian ship during routine military exercises in the waters between Akathinia and Carnelia last year. If Kostas lost control of Carnelia and the military seized power, Akathinia was in danger.

  But to marry him to protect her country? Commit herself to a union of duty, something she’d vowed never to do?

  She halted her incessant pacing. Leaned her forearms on the railing of the terrace and looked out at the dark mass of the sea, a painful knot forming in the pit of her stomach. At least she knew the truth about Athamos now. It didn’t explain why Cassandra Liatos had been so special that he’d engaged in a death race with Kostas over her—why he’d been so foolish as to throw his life away over someone who didn’t know her own mind.

  Unless he’d loved her...

  Frustration curled her fingers tight. Had he? Was that the answer to the mystery that plagued her? She wanted to pound her fists against the big barrel of her brother’s chest and demand an answer, but Athamos wasn’t here. Wouldn’t ever be here again.

  Bitter regret swept through her, hot tears burning her eyes, threatening to spill over into the sorrow she’d refused to allow herself to feel lest it disintegrate what was left of her. Somehow she had to let him go. She just didn’t know how.

  She was pacing the deck again when Jessie came home, high heels clicking on the wood, a bottle of wine and two glasses in her hands.

  “What is Kostas doing here? He nearly blew your cover. I had to convince a regular you were a friend from church.”

  She could use a little higher guidance right about now. “He wants me to marry him.”

  Jessie’s eyes bulged out of her head. “Marry him?”

  “Open the wine.”

  Her friend uncorked the bottle, poured two glasses and handed her one.

  She took a sip. Rested her glass on the railing. “It would be a political match.”

  “Why?”

  “I am the symbolic key to peace and democracy in the Ionian Sea. A way for Akathinia and Carnelia to heal. A vision of the way forward.”

  “Are you expected to walk on water, too?”

  A smile curved her lips. “It would be a powerful statement if Kostas and I were to marry.”

  Jessie fixed her with an incredulous look. “You can’t commit yourself to a marriage of duty. Look what it did to your mother. It almost destroyed her.”

  All of them. Her parents’ marriage may have been a political union, but her mother had loved her father. Unfortunately, her father had not been capable of loving anyone, not his wife nor his children. The king’s chronic affairs had created a firestorm in the press and destroyed her family in the process.

  “Kostas worries about the military junta that backed his father. He plans to hold elections to create a constitutional monarchy in the fall, but he’s afraid the military will seize control before then if he doesn’t send a powerful message of change.”

  “And you being the poster child of global democracy will give him that.”

  “Yes.”

  Jessie eyed her. “You aren’t actually considering this?”

  Silence.

  Jessie took a sip of her wine. Leaned back against the railing as she contemplated her. “Can we talk about the elephant in the room? You were in love with him, Stella. Mad about him. If this isn’t you repeating history, I don’t know what is.”

  “It was a childish crush. It meant nothing.”

  Jessie’s mouth twisted. “You two spent an entire summer with eyes only for each other. It was predestined between you two... Then you finally act on it and he slams the door in your face.”

  She shook her head. “It was never going to happen. It was too complicated.”

  “Does that discount you measuring every other man by him? This is me, hon. I knew you back then. I know you now. You looked shell-shocked when he walked into that bar. You still do.”

  “I can control it.”

  “Can you? You once thought the sun rose and set over him. He was the newest superhero to join the party, sent to rescue all of us from the bad guys.”

  What an apt description of her teenage infatuation with Kostas... Of the heroic status she’d afforded him for his determination to bring a better democratic way to his people. Her belief he was the only one who could recognize the bitter, alienating loneliness that had consumed her, because, she’d been sure, he’d carried it with him, too.

  But that had simply been a manifestation of her youthful infatuation, she conceded, her chest searing. Her desperate need to be understood, loved, rather than seeing the real flesh-and-blood man he had been.

  “I know his flaws now,” she said, lifting her gaze to Jessie’s. “His major fault lines...” She no longer harbored the airbrushed image of him that had once steered her so wrong.

  “The thing is,” she mused, her subconscious ramblings bubbling over into conscious thought, “I haven’t been happy in a long time, Jess. I’ve been restless, caged in a box I can’t seem to get out o
f. Everything about my life is charmed, perfect, and yet I’m miserable.”

  Jessie gave her a rueful look. “I was working my way around to that. But why? You do amazing work. Meaningful work. Doesn’t it give you satisfaction?”

  “Yes, but it’s not truly mine. Other than my support for the disarmament issue, it’s the sanitized, gilded, photo-op version of philanthropy the palace directs.” She shook her head. “You know I’ve always felt I have a higher calling. The ability to effect widespread change because of who I am, the power I have. And yet every time I’ve tried to spread my wings, I’ve been reined in. Athamos and Nik have taken precedence. I was the one left to toe the line.”

  Jessie was silent. “I hear what you’re saying,” she said finally. “But this is big, Stella. Irreversible. If you marry him, you’re going to be queen. You will be taking on a nation. You’re going to be walking into a very delicate situation with no real control.”

  But weren’t those the kind of challenges that made her feel alive, despite the inherent risk involved? Wasn’t this what she’d been craving all her life, a chance to make her mark?

  She and Jessie talked late into the night. When her friend finally pleaded exhaustion and drifted off to bed, Stella stayed on the terrace, tucked in a chair, the fat half crescent of a moon, tossed in a sea of stars, her silent companion.

  She didn’t question her ability to do what Kostas was asking of her. She’d walked through war zones to promote peace in countries where young people were the innocent victims of conflict. She’d met and challenged tribal leaders to find a better way than destroying each other. What she was afraid of was Kostas. What he could do to her in a political marriage with her as his pawn.

  Tonight had proved, a decade later, she was far from immune to him. In fact, it had illustrated the opposite; revealed the origins of her stunningly bad mistake with Aristos Nicolades last year.

  She had worked her way through a series of men whom she’d discarded one after another without allowing any of them to get close. When that had proved unsatisfactory, she’d fixed her sights on Aristos to prove she could win a man every bit as unattainable as Kostas; as elusive and undeniably fascinating. She’d sought to exorcise the ghost of her most painful rejection, to prove she was worth more than that. Instead, Aristos had broken her heart and, worse, fallen head over heels in love with her sister and married her.