A Royal World Apart Read online

  She looked at Mak. “You’re the first person to really treat me like I matter since she died. And yeah, you do it reluctantly, and you make sure I know sometimes just how reluctant you are, but you at least ask me what I want. No one else does. Ever. So, to me, this is more than business. Sorry.”

  Mak didn’t say anything, his focus on something that went beyond the view, beyond the mountains. Silence stretched between them, the air turning thick despite the elevation.

  “Her name was Marina. As I mentioned, I married her without her family’s blessing. We ran away together when we were seventeen. I told you, I’ve made some very bad decisions.”

  “Was marrying her such a mistake?”

  “I think it was. Marina and I were married for two hours when a man who spilled a hot drink on himself crossed into our lane and hit us head-on.”

  Eva’s stomach dropped, her fingers going numb. “Did … she die then?”

  “No,” he said. “But sometimes I wonder if it would have been a kindness to her if she had.” He leaned forward, elbows rested on his thighs. He looked down, his focus on his hands, tented in front of him.

  He didn’t speak, he didn’t move. His face looked leaner, somehow. Harder.

  “What … happened?” Her words put a crack in the silence, but Mak still didn’t move.

  “She couldn’t feel her legs and I … I was fine, I was cut, but nothing more. I’m not sure how that happened. She was talking to me though. And she was rushed to the hospital and taken into surgery. They knew then that the chances of her ever walking weren’t good. She told me I wouldn’t want a wife who couldn’t give me children. Who couldn’t do everything a wife should do. And I promised her that I would always be with her.” He looked up at her, his gray eyes dull, flat. “I promised.”

  It seemed too wrong to ask for more information, to make him tell her the rest. But she wanted to know. She wanted so badly to understand him. To know who he was beneath all of that control.

  “Then what?” She knew she was pushing. But she needed to. She didn’t know why, only that she did.

  “Three days after the accident she was being moved from one bed to another. She threw a clot and that caused a major bleed in her brain. It left her with … brain damage. She couldn’t speak anymore. Sometimes she was lucid, sometimes not. She would be in pain sometimes … and she couldn’t tell anyone. She couldn’t even scream. She couldn’t tell me. Death would have been kinder.”

  “How … how long …?”

  “Ten years.”

  “Mak …”

  “I’m not telling you this to get sympathy,” he said, his voice rough. “If you have any to give, spare it for Marina, not for me. For someone who lost too much, too young.”

  Eva swallowed hard, trying to keep tears from falling. Trying to keep her composure. “You loved her?”

  His eyes never left hers, the lack of emotion, the void there, speaking louder than a cry of pain ever could. “For all of her life.”

  “Did anyone help you care for her … did.?”

  “Her family disowned her the moment she walked out of their house with the intention of marrying me. It was my fault. But that meant I was her family. I swore to take care of her, and I did. In the end that meant having twenty-four-hour nursing care in our home.”

  “But at first … did you have help? Or were you all alone?”

  “I couldn’t afford help. I did everything I could to build my business and take care of my wife. She deserved to be cared for. She deserved the best that she could have, to be as comfortable as she could be. I made sure that she was.”

  She couldn’t comprehend it. How a man, a boy really, could endure the loss of so much and come out of it so strong. So successful.

  “How did you get started in security?”

  “I was always big.” he said, a half smile curving his lips. “And I lived in a tough neighborhood. I knew how to take care of myself, how to take care of those around me who were weaker. It seemed like a natural job to apply for. I did good work, so I started helping with more critical clients. I made a name for myself and eventually left the company I worked for to start my own. It’s a dangerous job, but if you’re willing to take risks, you can work your way into good money very quickly. And that was what Marina needed.”

  “So everything … everything was for her.”

  “Everything in my life was about her until then, why should it change after the accident? She was my wife. She sacrificed everything, her family, dreams for her future, to marry me. I could do nothing less for her.”

  Eva felt that her heart would break. Felt tears stinging her eyes that she knew she couldn’t keep from falling. Tears she knew Mak wouldn’t cry for himself.

  Someone had to.

  “Eva.” He leaned forward and brushed his thumb over her cheek, wiped a tear away. “Don’t. Not for me.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Come here.” He tugged her to him, putting her on his lap, his arms around her, hands sliding over her hair.

  “I’m supposed to be comforting you.”

  “You’re the one who needs it.” He paused for a moment, his arms tightening around her. “It isn’t that I don’t feel, Eva. I have. I loved a woman very much. I grieved for her in stages. Every time she lost a bit of herself I lost a bit of myself with her. Eventually, I felt so much pain … there was no way to feel more. And now … now everything is just numb.” He shifted, his hands warm on her skin. “It’s better this way.”

  She put her hand on his forearm, fingertips drifting over his skin. For the moment, he was allowing this intimacy. Allowing a connection. She didn’t know how long it would last. Didn’t know why it was happening now. But it was. And she wasn’t about to be the one to cut the contact, not when she craved it so much. Not just physically, but emotionally.

  She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of him, surrounding her, comforting her. She hoped he was finding comfort in her, because no matter what he might say or think, he had feelings. Feelings so deep his body protected him from them by hiding the extent of them. By making them numb instead of exposing him to the full trauma.

  It was like emotional shock.

  But she wondered how much of it was a blessing and how much of it was a curse. She could see why he thought it to be a good thing, and really, who was she to argue? He was the one who had to live with it. The one who’d had to endure watching the woman he loved die by inches over the course of a decade.

  It was a pain she couldn’t begin to fathom. A pain that really did make her seem petty and childish for complaining about her lot.

  She turned her head and pressed a kiss to his cheek, his stubble rough and pleasant beneath her lips. She rested her forehead against him, his body growing stiff beneath hers. Tense.

  She put her hand on his face and turned him so that his eyes met hers, his lips so close to her own it would take nothing for her to lean in and taste him. She started to, and he held her away, his eyes intense.

  “No.”

  “Mak …”

  He held her steady, his hands on her arms, and removed himself from his seat, depositing her in his place. The tram swung and her heart leap into her throat.

  “Would you at least try not to kill us both while you run away from my scary, scary kissing?” she asked, putting her hand on her chest, feeling her heart throb beneath her palm.

  When he looked at her, his eyes were blank, his mask firmly in place. “Trust me, printzyessa, it’s in your best interest for me to stop things.”

  “Really?” she asked, crossing her arms.

  “Yes,” he bit out. “You want a kiss, Eva. You want hearts and rainbows and whatever it is you imagine love to be. You don’t want sweaty sex and lust. It’s not you.”

  She swallowed, her throat dry, her stomach tight. She was suddenly very aware of her breasts in a way she couldn’t remember ever being before. “Is … is sweaty sex on offer?”

  “No,” he said.

&n
bsp; “Then why bring it up? It’s a tease. A cruel one.”

  He chuckled, dark and humorless. “How do you think I feel?”

  “It’s impossible to tell. But you don’t seem to be that bothered by it either way.”

  “My emotions might be numb, but I can assure you, my body is not.”

  “You seem to assume that just because I am emotional my physical desire can’t be separate. It can be. It is.”

  “And you desire me?” he asked, his face looking leaner, harder for a moment. More predatory.

  The answer wasn’t easy, whether she answered honestly or not. She decided to go with honesty, because she really didn’t see the point in lying. Not when she’d been the one doing the kissing a moment earlier. “Yes.”

  He swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He let out a short breath, his top lip curving. “Isn’t that interesting.”

  “I’m not sure if I’m flattered by that.”

  “You probably shouldn’t be.”

  “Too late. I am.” She nodded. “Yes, I’ve decided that I am.”

  Mak looked down at Eva, his heart beating so hard he thought it would burst out of his chest. He wondered why he was still being tested like this. Hadn’t he passed already? Hadn’t he stayed faithful to his wife every moment of their marriage? Hadn’t he turned away from every temptation placed in front of him?

  And now he was free. His marriage was dissolved by death and he was free to be with a woman if he chose to be.

  But he wanted Eva. And she wanted him. And he couldn’t touch her. No matter how much he ached for her. It was torture, a new pain, fresh after so many years of blank nothingness in his chest.

  But the futility of it … it was enough to make him want to rage at whoever controlled things. At least the things in his life.

  “It doesn’t matter either way.” The words stuck in his throat, but he forced them out. For his own benefit as much as hers. “Nothing can happen between us. You’re under my care, you’re stuck here with me … it would be unethical.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do,” he said. “Anyway, you’re bored. You’re stuck here with me. Wouldn’t you feel the same about any man you were here with?”

  She jerked back as though he’d slapped her. “No. But now that I know that’s what you think of me, I suppose it’s a good thing we aren’t going to do … anything.”

  “Enjoy the view. That’s what we’re up here for.”

  She looked out the window for a moment before looking back at him. “I don’t like heights.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before we came up here then?”

  “Because I appreciated the offer. And I thought I would try it. I’m all about having new experiences. Especially since I have to cram as many as possible into the next six months.”

  “It isn’t as though your life is ending after you get married,” he said.

  “It feels like it.” She blinked rapidly. “Do you know, and I’m sure this is slightly too much information, but here you are, that my underwear is chosen for me? It’s true. I mean, yes, I do go shopping in boutiques occasionally, but not often enough to supply my entire wardrobe. For the most part, it’s delivered. A whole new set of clothes every season, complete with undergarments. I’m not consulted, they have a stylist handle it all for me. He works off my color wheel, whatever that is. Whatever it means practically, I’m not allowed to wear brown near my face, that much I know.”

  She leaned forward and tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. He had to fight himself, fight every urge in his body, to keep from going to her, to keep from sliding his fingers through the silken strands.

  “Anyway, I don’t have any freedom now,” she said. “I don’t imagine it will change when I get married. It’ll just be new people ordering my clothes. That’s … the thought of that makes me feel sick.”

  Mak felt his throat tighten, his chest aching, echoing what Eva had just said. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, Eva, but it doesn’t matter what underwear you’re wearing.”

  Her dark eyes widened. “Oh, really?”

  “No. Because no matter what you wear, you are Evangelina Drakos. There is no one, man, woman or king, who can change that.”

  She stood, her hands locked in front of her. “But who is that? If I don’t know … I can’t expect anyone else to care. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe no one has ever really valued me because they didn’t know who I was. How can you love someone you don’t know?”

  Propriety be damned, control too, if only for a moment. He moved to her and cupped her cheek, his eyes locked on hers. “Anyone who hasn’t treated you with the care you deserve is a fool, and the problem lies within them. Never with you. Never. You are strong, strong enough to fight against a system you were born into rather than simply accept it. You are beautiful and intelligent, and yes, you’ve made some mistakes. But haven’t we all?”

  Her dark eyes glittered. “Do you really see all of that, Mak?”

  He moved his thumb along the line of her high cheekbone. “Only a blind man could miss it.”

  She put her hand over his, her skin soft. He’d been touched more times in the past few days than he could remember being touched in the past ten years. He hadn’t realized how much it mattered. How much a touch could soothe, how much warmth it could bring.

  “I wish … I wish things were different,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  In that moment, she was giving him honesty. He could give nothing less. “So do I.”

  Telling Eva about Marina hadn’t been a part of the plan. Of course, a ride in the cable car hadn’t been a part of the plan either. Just as confronting her with the fire that was crackling between them hadn’t been part of the plan.

  Yet it had all happened.

  He was good undercover. The man no one questioned. The man who belonged at every event. And he felt naked. Exposed. And he was trapped in the damn tram until they made their way back down the mountain.

  Bitterness tore at the edges of those exposed parts of him. Bitterness, not over the past, but the present. That he wanted Eva so badly, with a hunger that made him ache to his bones, and that he couldn’t have her, seemed one too many things to ask. He was only a man, and after trying so hard for so long to be more, he was becoming more and more aware of the fact that he was not.

  He was human, even if sometimes he felt more like stone.

  “I expect you have … calls to make or something when we get back,” she said, staying to her side of the car.

  “I expect,” he said, not bothering to disguise the edge in his voice.

  “Mak …”

  He let out a breath. “Traditionally, I’m not the one who answers questions. I ask them. My clients don’t need to know me. I need to know them.”

  “And according to you, you can know someone from a file. Do you still think that’s true?”

  Spoiled. Scandalous. Shallow. He looked at Eva as the descriptions he’d read of her flooded his brain. “No.” She was none of those things. Well, she was a fit of two of them, but it only added to her charm.

  “Then maybe your methods need shaking up. Anyway, I thought we were through pretending I was only a client?”

  He looked at her dark, luminous eyes, the dull flush of rose staining her autumn-gold skin. “Then ask away.”

  “Would you do it again? Would you marry her again if you could go back and do it all over?”

  The question that plagued him. Not because the answer unsettled him, but because the possibility was a joke. It wasn’t possible. There was no change to undo a rash decision. No way to stop and turn onto a different road. No way to swerve out of the way of the oncoming car. To avoid one man’s brief loss of control.

  No way to atone for his own.

  “No,” he said, the word biting into his throat.

  “No?”

  “If I could go back, if I had a way of knowing what would happen, I never would have married her. I would never
have taken that chance with her life.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  He knew that. But sometimes the weight of the past decade was so crushing he felt as though he would give anything to go back and undo it.

  “There was no planning. It was impulsive. Foolish. I gambled with life, but it wasn’t mine that I lost.”

  “You aren’t a gambling man, Makhail. I’ll bet the only time you ever set foot in a casino was to drag me out of it.”

  He looked at her, at her sweet, caring smile. So much emotion. So much more than he could ever hope to give back. “Perhaps it wasn’t gambling. But I led with my heart, not my head. I’ll never do it again.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EVA couldn’t sleep. After Mak’s revelations in the cable car today, her mind was too filled with thoughts of him. Of what he’d suffered. And not only that, all the things he’d endured, only to come out the other side a man so strong it seemed there was no force on earth that could break him.

  She slid open the door that led out to the terrace just outside her room. She flipped a switch and fired up the large, freestanding heaters placed at intervals along the length of the terrace. They brought heat, cast shimmering waves of it that floated across her field of vision, distorting the stars, shining brightly in the deep blue of the sky.

  She was used to hearing the crashing of the waves, used to thick, salt-laden air that clung to her throat when she breathed in. Here, it was pure silence, the air thin and cold, drying.

  She folded her arms across her chest and looked out at the black expanse of trees.

  “What are you doing?”

  She turned and saw Mak, standing in the doorway. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. It was honest, anyway. “So you decided to go outside at night. In this kind of cold?”

  “The heaters make it bearable. What are you doing in my room?” She secretly hoped he’d come for her. That he would cross the terrace in an easy stride and pull her into his arms. That he would bring her in from the cold and blanket her in his heat.

  “I heard noise, so I thought I should check. I am here to protect you, after all.”

  “Valiant of you.” The still night air swallowed her words, made them seem muted.