Marrying Her Royal Enemy

by Jennifer Hayward

  “Bore me, then.”

  “I have to take another call in a few minutes. I’ll join you after that.”

  Heat streaked through her veins at being stonewalled yet again. She turned on her heel and left. In their suite, she undressed and slipped on a more modest ivory negligee than her armor of the night before. Standing in front of the mirror, she brushed her hair with jerky, violent strokes, sending a cloud of electricity up in the air.

  Her husband walked in minutes later, tawny gaze fixed on her.

  “I thought you had a call.”

  “I made it quick.”

  She kept brushing.

  “Stella—”

  She threw the brush on the dresser and turned to face him. “Talk to me, Kostas, or go back to work.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “It’s nothing you need to be concerned about.”

  “I think it is. You’re distracted. Your conversation with Nik looked intense.”

  A weighted silence. “It’s Houlis,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to say anything until I had something substantial. I’m receiving intelligence reports he is getting desperate, that he may act before the elections. That phone call was with my security chief putting contingency plans in place.”

  Ice swept her veins. “He stood there and wished us well yesterday.”

  “Civility for civility’s sake.”

  She pressed her lips together, a chill chasing up her spine. “Do we have enough support to repel him if he does act?”

  “I believe so, but we won’t know for sure until the time comes.”

  Until the times comes. Thee mou. “The pushback you’re receiving on your modernization plans... Is that giving Houlis an opening he can exploit?”

  That cast-iron look of defiance he’d been wearing for weeks passed across his face. “Perhaps. But it’s the right thing to do. Backing down on my plans would only cast my leadership into question. Give Houlis an excuse to pounce.”

  “Heading into the last weeks of the election with an unhappy public will also do that.”

  “I am not negotiating this point.” Spoken with an iron core.

  Diavole, but he was impossible. She gave up. “What are the security plans if something does happen?”

  “The plan is to have Houlis and his supporters in jail before a coup can take place. As for you, Nik and I have an extraction plan.”

  “An extraction plan?” Her hands clenched by her sides. “I am the queen of this country, Kostas. I’m not going anywhere if something happens. We are a team. I knew this was a possibility when I signed on.”

  His expression hardened. “If your life is in danger, you go.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “We agree to disagree.” She held his gaze, a belligerent tilt to her jaw. “I’m tough—as tough as you.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, mouth curving. “You are.”

  She rested her hands on the edge of the dresser. “You can’t carry this alone, Kostas. You aren’t alone anymore. I am here with you.”

  Something flickered in his impassive gaze. “All right,” he said quietly. “I promise you will know everything I know. But there’s nothing more we can do at the moment. We’ve taken every precaution we can.”

  She studied the stoic, unfazed look on his strong, infinitely strong face. He had a bounty on his head and yet he was unfazed. As if it was just one more obstacle he had to surmount. But this was the man, she reminded herself, whose own father had considered him a threat—to be managed or eliminated. She wondered what kind of an iron interior you would need to have to deal with that. Likely the one that made her husband close himself off when any kind of threat, emotional or physical, put his existence in peril.

  She walked over to the bed and sat down. Understanding him, getting through to those locked-away places she needed to know, meant finding out more about how that iron interior had been shaped.

  “What was your life like?” she asked. “Being your father’s protégé? I can’t even conceive of it.”

  He blinked at the change in subject. “You want to make this relationship work,” she said quietly, “let me in, Kostas. I’m trying to understand you.”

  He leaned back against the dresser, long legs splayed out in front of him. “I didn’t know any different a life. My studies came first, my grandmother insisted on that. When I wasn’t with her or my tutor, I was with my father, shadowing his steps. Which, in reality, meant I was in the care of his bodyguards and security team.”

  “You didn’t have a nanny?”

  “My father didn’t believe in them. He said they made you soft.”

  Of course he had. “What about friends? Were you allowed to have them?”

  “The question was did they want to be friends with me. I was the dictator’s son, my father was the man who would throw one of their parents in jail one day, or exile another the next. I didn’t have a lot of friends as a result of it. Sometimes the children of the palace staff were ordered to play with me when no one else would.”

  Christe mou. Her heart contracted into a tight ball.

  “When my father did spend time with me,” he continued, “he was focused on the propaganda—maintaining our legacy. I was his most important disciple. It was all about control and power—over the people and the military junta who backed us. We needed to be impenetrable, stronger than all the rest. Emotion was anathema, a weakness never to be shown.”

  “Emotion is not a weakness,” she countered. “It’s a strength. It’s how you become a balanced ruler, how you connect with the people. Your grandmother knew that.”

  “Yes, but she and my grandfather were the exception to the Laskos dynasty. The rest of my ancestors governed with the same fear and intimidation my father did, perhaps to a slightly more moderate degree.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, asking the question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to. “The physical and mental controls he used on you...what were they?”

  “It depended on the mood he was in. When he was on a dark, depressive swing and I’d displeased him, he would ignore me for days, lock me in my room. Sometimes he’d have his henchmen administer whatever punishment they thought fit.

  “When he was in his manic phases, he would teach me the skills he thought I needed to master. I was a good shot for my age, for instance, but he wanted me to be the expert marksman he was. If I didn’t hit all the targets the first day we went shooting, we’d go back the next until my hands were bruised, my shoulder and arm numb from holding the gun. By the end of that second day I would be hitting those targets. I was so good I rivaled the sniper’s shots in the military.”

  Her insides recoiled. “But not worth the price you paid, surely. No child should have to live up to those unreasonable standards of perfection.”

  “No,” he agreed, with a nod. “I’m merely telling you how I was conditioned. It’s not a way I choose to be, it’s who I am.”

  She shook her head. “You feel, Kostas, just like you’ve never lost your sense of right and wrong. Just like you never let that monster claim your soul. The passion you have for your people, how overwhelmed with emotion you get every time you see those big crowds that show up for you, the pain you have felt over Athamos’s death...it speaks to the depth of feeling you are capable of experiencing. You may choose not to allow yourself to feel, but that is another thing entirely.”

  His mouth twisted. “I feel, but only so far, Stella. Whether it’s because I’m not capable of it, or I don’t allow it, the end result is the same. Don’t expect miracles from me.”

  “I’m not looking for miracles,” she said quietly, “I’m looking for you, Kostas. I know you are in there somewhere.”

  His face transformed into a blank, unyielding canvas. “Be careful what you wish for. You might not like what you find. You have unrealistic views of me, Stella.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Perhaps I once did, but not now. Now I realize it w
as unfair of me to hold you to the standards I did. Unfair of everyone to do it. All of us have our human failings—I, more than anyone—but you need to forgive yourself for yours, truly forgive yourself so you can rule with a clear head.”

  His cheekbones hardened into sharp blades. “I have forgiven myself.”

  She studied the tense set of his big body; how everything seemed to be locked away behind metal bars. “Have you?”

  A frozen silence passed. She watched him retreat back into that impenetrable facade of his. “I have more work to do,” he said, levering himself away from the dresser. “Don’t wait up for me.”

  Her skin felt too tight and her chest knotted as he walked out of the room. He had needed to hear that, she told herself. He still wasn’t thinking clearly about the impact of his aggressive plans on his people and the irreparable harm he was doing himself in the process.

  She crawled into bed, physically and mentally exhausted. Kostas’s words echoed in her head. Be careful what you wish for. You might not like what you find. You have unrealistic views of me, Stella.

  Frustration curled her toes. She did not have unrealistic expectations of him. Hadn’t she just told him that had been unfair of her? Or had Tassos been right? Had Kostas shut down just now because he felt he didn’t deserve to be forgiven? That the mistakes he’d made had been unforgivable? Or were there other demons plaguing her husband she would never be privy to?

  Curled up in the massive bed with its luxuriously soft silk sheets, she felt chilled, apprehensive and alone—more alone than she’d ever felt in her life. And that was saying something. She’d thought it couldn’t get any worse. Perhaps it was because last night with Kostas she’d felt that elusive emotional connection she’d been searching for her entire life.

  Where once it had seemed unobtainable, it had been organic with her husband, as if it had just taken the right connection to slot into place—the connection she’d always known was special. Dangerous to her.

  The irony of it was undeniable. She’d found that bond with Kostas, the one man she could never explore it with because he wanted no part of it.

  An ache wound itself around her heart. What he had told her about his childhood had chilled her, had given her so much more insight into what made him tick. But it had also made her wonder if it wasn’t so much that Kostas didn’t want love, but that he didn’t know what it was. That he’d been taught it was a weakness, any emotion was a weakness, a vulnerability to be exploited.

  He was afraid of it. If he let someone in, if he admitted his master plan was wrong, if he became anything less than impenetrable, it might all fall apart.

  She bit her lip, the salty tang of blood filling her mouth. It might all fall apart anyway if he kept this up; if he refused to bend. But what more could she do than she’d already done? She could only stand by his side, be that unconditional support she knew he needed, ignore the fact that with every day that passed, her true feelings for him were bubbling closer and closer to the surface, threatening to complicate an already too-complicated scenario, the very thing she’d said she’d never do.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KOSTAS SAT IN his office finishing up work, knowing Stella was likely back from her meeting with the charity, but he elected to push on until dinner. Avoiding his wife was easier than talking about forgiveness and absolution, something he couldn’t stomach.

  He sat back in his seat and rubbed a hand across his brow. It had been like this since their confrontation in the bedroom. Better to withdraw now and save his wife more pain in the long run, than continue to let her uncover too much of him. Ask for the things he’d warned her he could never give.

  A knot tied itself down low. He was hurting Stella with his withdrawal, could see it in her eyes when that tough facade slipped for just a second. Knew it was the last thing he should do to a woman who’d been marginalized by the people she’d loved, who’d experienced enough rejection for a lifetime. But what choice did he have?

  He’d tried to make it up to her by allowing her to attend an executive council meeting yesterday as the council prepared to transition to its postelection membership. It had been good to see her light up, to see her brain working frantically as she scribbled notes, had assuaged his guilt just the slightest little bit. But she was looking for more than that from him—she always had been.

  Pushing his attention back to his schedule for tomorrow, he perpetuated his avoidance strategy; how that knot twisted itself into a dozen more tangled iterations.

  Takis knocked on the door and entered for their final debrief of the day. Working through a few urgent items, they finished with his latest approval ratings that had just come in. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up at the look on his aide’s face. Dipping his head, he scanned the numbers. They were disastrous. “You’re sure these are accurate?”

  Takis nodded. “We expanded the poll. The numbers came back the same.”

  He threw the report on the desk, his heart plummeting. The goodwill he’d amassed since becoming king had vaporized in the wake of that damning editorial and the increasing public discontent that had followed. In fact, he was back to where he’d started. Given they were three and a half weeks away from the elections, it was a disaster.

  A disaster his wife had warned him about when he’d shut her down in the bedroom.

  “I need time to absorb these.” He looked up at his aide. “We’ll pick this up in the morning. Discuss a strategy to counter them.”

  Takis nodded and left. A low, rough word escaped him. How could he have been so shortsighted? Have so vastly misjudged public sentiment as to allow this to happen?

  A buzzing feeling settled over him as he attempted to absorb the disaster he’d created. Stella had been right all along. He should have listened to the people, should have compromised, should have found a middle ground. Instead, in his need to be right, to correct his mistakes, to prove to his father, a dead man, that he had been wrong about him, that he would lead this country to its freedom and self-determination, he had sewn the seeds of his own demise. Given the military an opportunity to hang him.

  Rising to his feet, he walked to the bar stored in a hidden cabinet and poured himself a drink. Carrying it to the window, he took a long sip of the smoky, aged whiskey as he looked out at the dark mass of the Ionian Sea spread out below the rugged cliffs that bounded Carnelia.

  It was his people’s voice he had been fighting for. Their voice that needed to be heard. But somewhere along the way he’d forgotten that, the principle swept aside by his blind ambition to save this country.

  He took another sip of the whiskey, welcoming its fiery burn down his throat. He struggled with his father’s legacy, he knew. Always had. His father had drilled his propaganda into him with such force and regularity, it had been impossible for him to escape his legacy completely.

  Confused, caught between what his grandmother was teaching him and what his father was drilling into his head, he had kept his developing thoughts to himself. Closed himself down. Shaped himself into that impenetrable force his father had been. Made himself unbreakable in order to survive.

  The knot in his gut expanded. His arrogance, his need to become impregnable, had become an obsession, defined his existence. Usually, he managed to keep it under control, rein himself in when he knew he was swinging too far to the other end of the pendulum, but that self-awareness had disintegrated the night Athamos’s car had plunged over that cliff on a hot Carnelian night borne of temporary insanity. Then nothing had made sense anymore.

  Are you punishing yourself? Stella’s words floated back to him on a quiet mental whisper. Was he? He thought he’d put Athamos’s death behind him, forgiven himself for his own self-preservation so he could accomplish what he needed to do. But now, as he stared out at the sea from which they had pulled the crown prince’s car, the sky as solid a black as it had been the night he and his rival had raced, lit by a sea of stars, he wondered if he had. If Stella was right—that he had made this countr
y his penance... If the one thing he’d never told anyone was the one thing he could never forgive himself for...

  A darkness rose up inside of him, an all too familiar, corrosive guilt that had once threatened to eat him alive. He’d been operating on autopilot ever since Athamos’s death, determined to lift this country from the ashes, to salvage something from the wreck of his life, his wife the only thing that came close to jolting him out of it.

  He had lost his passion. His idealism. Stella was right. He didn’t even recognize himself anymore.

  The sight of Athamos’s car careening off the road ahead of him filled his head. The squeal of brakes as his rival attempted to steer away from the deadly drop to the cliffs below. The heart-pounding silence that had followed.

  His heart pounded in his chest at the memory, so violently he thought his ribs might bruise it. That night was a hell he would never fully escape, a stain on his soul that would forever mark him. But somehow, he knew, he had to find the lessons his guru had preached. Some he knew he’d learned. Others he was sure were yet to come.

  It occurred to him as he looked out into the dark, star-strewn night that perhaps part of truly moving on was not becoming what he had been, but what he would become. Something better than before. Something worthy of the second chance he’d been given. Something that would make up for all of it.

  He would make this right.

  * * *

  Stella regarded her husband over the very old, very good bottle of Bordeaux he’d unearthed from the castle’s wine cellar, the agony he was clearly in threatening to crush her heart, steal her breath. The emotional knives that had been turning inside of her the entire meal, making it impossible to eat, forced her to finally lay down her fork and knife.

  Her husband, who had consumed only a few bites of his meal himself, finally spoke. “Aren’t you going to say, ‘I told you so’?”

  She shook her head. “I think you’ve punished yourself enough already.”

  He took a sip of his wine. Pushed the glass back onto the table. “I called Aristos before dinner and asked his advice on how he’s dealt with public opposition to his properties.”