A Christmas Vow of Seduction Read online

  “I thought the entire royal family was killed during the revolution.”

  Her insides grew cold. That always happened when she thought of her parents. Of her older brother. Her memories of them were soft around the edges now, worn like old, weathered photographs. But what remained, as sharp and terrible as ever, was the coldness she’d felt when she learned of their fates.

  It hadn’t been sadness in its simplest form. It had been death itself. A chill that had stolen through her, replaced all of her blood with ice. It had taken months to thaw. Months for her to feel anything at all again beyond the frost that had taken up residence in her chest.

  “Obviously I wasn’t,” she said, the words strange, thick on her tongue. Because they’d never felt right. None of it had ever seemed right. “Everyone else...my mother, father, my brother, they were all killed. My mother’s personal maid had family living in the forest, people who practiced the old way of life. And she brought me to them. They have kept me, protected me, for years.”

  “Until now, clearly.”

  She picked up a piece of bread and tore a chunk from it. “Obviously not through any fault of their own. They were ambushed and I was kidnapped.”

  “And can you be returned to them?” he asked.

  She weighed that question and all of the possible implications. If she told him yes, would he help her? Or was he intent on...marrying her.

  The idea of marriage was ludicrous to her. Foreign. She was not in any way ready, or suited, to be a man’s wife. She had no interest in such things.

  The very idea was her worst nightmare. Wearing a crown again. Placed on a throne.

  A target would be on her back, and she would be up on a pedestal where she was an easy target.

  She had lived through that nightmare once. She had no intention of entering into it again.

  She should tell him to take her home.

  And have the only people on this earth who tried to protect you destroyed?

  That bitter, familiar cold lashed at her again. She couldn’t go back. It was too dangerous. It was selfish. They would protect her with their lives, and it was very likely their lives would, in fact, be the cost.

  She had lost too much already. Too many people who had believed deeply in their convictions cut down. To hear Raz speak of her parents, her father had been a man of conviction. Who had fought to change antiquated ideas in Tirimia, who had made a pact with Raz’s tribe to preserve their sovereignty within the nation.

  For that, he had been killed. Out of loyalty and respect to her father, Raz had risked the tribe to protect her, to raise her.

  She wouldn’t put them at risk again.

  This was something she would have to figure out on her own. She would have to rescue herself.

  “No,” she said. “I cannot be returned to them. It would be far too dangerous.”

  “Wonderful,” he said, his tone at odds with the word.

  “I will not be marrying you, of course,” she said, taking a grape from the platter and holding it between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Is that so?” he asked.

  She nodded, keeping her expression grave. “I have no desire to marry.”

  “Why is that?” he asked, reaching out and plucking the grape from her fingers. “Concerned over having your grapes sampled?” He put the fruit in his mouth and she found herself transfixed, trying to untangle the wealth of meaning in his words while watching his lips, his jaw, work slightly as he chewed.

  Why was the way he chewed interesting? It shouldn’t be. She’d never found chewing fascinating in her life.

  “I don’t know you,” she said, looking away and picking up another grape, biting into it with no small amount of fierceness. “And that’s just for a start.”

  “We have nothing but time to work this out. You could list your reasons. Extensively.”

  “I won’t have a complete list until I know you better.”

  “I think what you just described is marriage. Two people who truly don’t know each other and are somewhat blind to each other’s faults until time and proximity force them to really get a good look at the poor choice they made.”

  “You make it sound so appealing,” she said, shifting her position, tucking her feet beneath herself and leaning forward, taking a piece of fig from the platter.

  “I’m not a great believer in the institution.”

  “Then why should we marry?” she asked.

  “Because,” he said, his tone weary, “my brother has said it shall be, and so it shall be. There are a great many perks to being the spare in the royal family, Zara. Not the least of which is that I have been able to cast the mantle of responsibility off for the past thirty-two years with very few consequences. While Kairos has always been bound by duty, honor and all manner of other words that make me feel like I’m about to break out in hives. The downside,” he added, leaning in, studying the platter, but not taking any more food, “is that I am also beneath his rule.” Andres looked up then, his dark eyes meeting hers. He was close now. So very close.

  And he did, in fact, smell like the cologne she had found in the bathroom.

  “I see,” she said, barely able to force the words out past her constricted throat. “Are you going to tell me you’re a prisoner too?”

  He straightened and she nearly sighed in relief. For some reason, having him so close to her was disturbing in ways she couldn’t quite work out.

  “No,” he said, “I’m not a prisoner. Just a prince. That means there are certain expectations I’m obligated to fulfill. Make no mistake, I’ve spent the past decade and a half steeped in debauchery and generally ignoring all of my responsibilities. We all have to face a reckoning, eventually. You are mine.”

  Arrogant. That was what he was. To sit there and call her his reckoning when she’d been dragged here against her will. To speak of his duty as such a burden when her father had lost his life upholding the crown in Tirimia, fighting for what was right.

  What did this man do with his position? Nothing, from the looks of things.

  “You speak of being a prince with such disdain. I am a princess, forced into hiding because of the title. My parents were killed because they were royalty, and yet you stand here, perfectly whole, complaining of being forced into marriage by your brother. How terribly sorry I am for you that your life of extended pleasure is being interrupted by duty. My parents died for duty.”

  “Am I supposed to regret that that isn’t an option for me? Should I go offer my neck to the guillotine rather than my hand in marriage?”

  “My parents are dead,” she hissed.

  “And I am sorry. But I am not sorry that I don’t face the same peril. This is not the same country, nor am I in the same position.”

  “You have your life and your opportunities and still you speak with such disrespect of the position.”

  “And still, you will be my wife.”

  “Never,” she hissed, knowing that now, with hair tousled and her posture mirroring that of an angry cat, she was looking every inch the feral creature he clearly thought she was.

  “What are your options, agape?” he asked, the endearment strange to her ears. “You said yourself you cannot return home. Where will you go if you don’t stay here with me?”

  Words churned through her mind, but when one would rise to the surface, it would slip back beneath just as quickly, before she could grab hold of it.

  “Nowhere,” he said, answering for her. “You can speak of life and death all you want, as though it is all that matters, but here in this position you see that. There are many shades of gray within living and death, and unhappiness through a forced marriage is most certainly one of them. But you’re like me. You’ve hit a wall. You have no choice.”

  “There is always a choice,” she said, not sure where the words came from, but certain, even as she spoke them, that they were true. “I live because of that truth. Because rather than giving up, my mother’s maid chose to save me. Because rather
than sending me back, the clan chose to care for me. We always have choices.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said, his dark gaze far too assessing. “Then this is my choice, and I’m making it. I owe my brother a debt, beyond the typical royal duty. I’m in no position to refuse his demands. And I choose to obey them.”

  “What of my choices?”

  “They are somewhat crippled in this situation. I won’t lie.”

  “Crippled? They are completely incapacitated.”

  He shrugged as though he were pushing her protests off his shoulders. “Perhaps. But this is the reality. Whether you want to or not, you, Princess Zara Stoica, will be my wife by Christmas.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “PRINCE ANDRES.”

  Andres looked up, at the servant who was standing in the doorway of his brother’s study, the other man’s expression concerned. Andres and Kairos had spent the evening playing cards and drinking Scotch. Possibly both avoiding the women in their lives.

  Andres still had a hard time believing he had a woman in his life in any capacity other than his bed. In addition to the fact that she was his fiancée and not simply a lover, he did not want her in his bed. Not now.

  He could no more imagine bedding that creature than he could imagine willingly sticking his hand into a badger den. Just another reason he’d tasked his brother’s staff with placing her in a different wing of the palace.

  He had spent the earlier part of the night discussing the marriage with Kairos. And Kairos’s expectations. Of course, they would be figureheads for the nation. Actively involved in political and social events. A counterpart to himself and Tabitha, particularly important since it could potentially be up to them to produce heirs.

  That meant they had to be at least half as respectable as Kairos and Tabitha, a feat Andres couldn’t imagine either of them managing.

  A concern only deepened by the very worried look on the servant’s face. “Princess Zara refuses to be moved.”

  Andres dropped his cards onto the table in front of him. “What do you mean she refuses?”

  The man cleared his throat. “She was quite...adamant. She says she is comfortable.”

  Kairos made a dismissive noise. “Unsurprising. She is already unwilling to leave your bed.” Kairos sounded...envious. Kairos had it very, very wrong.

  “That is not it,” Andres said darkly.

  Kairos raised an eyebrow, and Andres recognized his own features looking back at him. It was rare that he saw the similarities between himself and his brother, but he saw them now. “My wife quite happily has her own room.”

  “Mine most certainly will,” Andres said, his voice a growl. “Perhaps a gilded cage is in order. One with a very firm lock.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t know how you expect me to make a princess of her.”

  “She is a princess,” Kairos said, his tone bland.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I thought, perhaps, it might cost you so much energy to tame her that you might tame yourself in the process.”

  Andres glared at his brother, anger roaring through him. If only Kairos weren’t so far from the truth. It was the very idea of managing to tame both of them that made it seem so impossible. He said nothing else. He stormed toward the door, and the servant stepped out of his way.

  “If you cannot remove her,” Andres tossed back as he walked down the hall, “I will do it myself.”

  He walked to the staircase, taking the marble steps two at a time before striding down the hall toward his chambers. He pushed the doors open and was met with an empty room.

  His future bride was nowhere to be seen. He stalked through the room and approached the bathroom, flinging the doors open wide.

  He heard a squeak, then a splash. He looked toward the bath where he saw a very wet, indignant woman.

  “What are you doing in here?” she demanded, as though she were the royalty in the room.

  He supposed, in all fairness, she was one part of the royalty in the room. However, the only thing she had ever ruled over was a campfire, if the information he had received on her background was correct.

  “This, Princess,” he said, his tone hard, “is my bathroom, in my bedroom. You were asked to move. It was brought to my attention that you refused.”

  “I am comfortable here,” she said, sinking farther beneath the water, her expression stormy, her actions proving her words to be a lie. She was anything but comfortable, at least at the moment.

  “What a terrible coincidence. I find that I am also comfortable here. As it is my room, with all of my things.”

  “I was brought here against my will,” she said. “I am out of my element. I am frightened.”

  Anger fired through him. He wasn’t sure why his reaction was so out of proportion with what was happening. It would cost him nothing to sleep in another room, and yet he found he couldn’t let this go. Probably because Kairos was already maneuvering him as though he were a marionette. He had no choice but to allow that, as Kairos was the king here in Petras. However, he did not have to let this little creature maneuver him too. And he would not. If she was to marry him, then she would need to understand that he was not to be trifled with.

  He had a reputation as a playboy in the media, as the more laid-back half of the two Demetriou brothers. But that only held as long as he went untested. As he was a prince, very few people had attempted to test him. But Zara seemed intent on doing so, and he could not allow it.

  “I do not believe you are frightened,” he said, moving nearer to the bathtub.

  She lowered herself deeper beneath the surface of the water, until her chin was submerged, her large, dark eyes pinned on his. “Of course I am. You are very large. Much larger than I am. You have invaded my space.”

  “Begging your pardon, Princess,” he said, moving closer to the bath, bracing his hands on the edge of the marble tile and leaning in. “It is you who have invaded my space. I did not invite you here. I did not get down on bended knee and propose to you, nor did I at any point surrender my own personal space to you for your continued use.”

  She squirmed, and he could see her crossing her legs beneath the water, raising her arms to cover her breasts as best she could. The details of her body were indistinguishable as it was, and her belated show of modesty only drew attention to that which she was trying to hide.

  She was beautiful. He could not deny that. Acres of smooth golden skin, wide, dark eyes that were just as pronounced now with all her makeup washed off as they had been when they were rimmed with black and gold. Her lashes were long and thick, her lips full, her cheekbones high, giving her a proud, sensual look that would certainly turn heads wherever she went.

  When it came to appearance, she was everything he might have wanted in a wife, in a princess. It was her manner that left much to be desired. In fact, her manner left everything to be desired.

  He had not often thought of what sort of woman he might take as his wife, because he had put off thoughts of a wife, even though he knew he would someday take one. Still, in the back of his mind he had thought he would probably marry a woman who exuded a kind of serene sophistication. One who would make his life easier. The perfect accessory to all events. As necessary and yet understated as a nice pair of cuff links.

  Zara was no more a cuff link than she was a fruit basket.

  “I’m distressed,” she said, her tone growing more arch by the second. “I was rooted out of my home only two months ago, held prisoner in the palace—”

  “So I have heard. And while I do possess a small amount of sympathy for you, I am unsure what you expect me to do about it. You said yourself, I cannot return you to your family. You do not wish to marry me. You have told me that, as well. So here I have a short list of the things you cannot do, and the things you do not wish to do. If you could tell me one thing that you do want, that might be of greater use to me than hearing everything I am unable to do.”

  “I find myself quite comfortable
in this room, in this bath, at least I was until I acquired your company. With that in mind, perhaps you might let me stay here, as it is somewhat familiar.”

  “Are you so fragile that moving down the hall will disrupt your sensibilities?”

  “I am quite fragile!”

  He had a feeling that, had she been standing on dry ground, she would’ve stamped her foot to add punctuation to the statement.

  “You are a great many things, but I would not characterize you as fragile.”

  “Leave me,” she said, issuing orders like a queen.

  “No,” he said, “I think not.”

  He reached beneath the water, uncaring if the sleeves of his shirt were soaking wet. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, straightening, holding her naked and dripping wet against his chest. He did not look at her, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead as he strode from the bathroom back into the bedroom.

  “What are you doing?” She began to squirm, surprisingly strong, and difficult to maintain a hold on as she did.

  She was also, he noticed, very soft. Soft to the touch, soft the way a woman should be.

  And joining the flame of anger in his stomach was a sudden burst of arousal that took him completely off guard. He tamped it down, ignoring it, his teeth clenched tightly together as he fought the temptation to look down at her naked body.

  This was not about sex. It was about reclaiming the territory that she had attempted to stake as her own.

  If he was to marry this little devil, he would have to show her that he would have the upper hand. That she would not be dictating to him.

  That went for his body, as well.

  He had to take utter control, of her, of himself. There was no other option. He would have to be firm with her. Starting now.

  “Let us get one thing straight,” he said. “This is not a hotel. This is my bedroom. This,” he added, tossing her down with no gentleness whatsoever onto the center of his bed, “is my bed. I do two things in this bed. I have sex and I sleep. If you intend to stay in my bed, you will partake in both of those things with me. Otherwise feel free to find a more suitable accommodation.”