A Royal World Apart Read online

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes.” She smiled, trying to project a false positivity she didn’t feel. “It’s a lovely evening. Freezing.”

  “The trick is to hurry inside when you’re done with the tub.” He pulled his hand out from behind his back. “And remember your towel.” He waved the aforementioned item back and forth.

  “Oh. Thank you,” she said, slightly embarrassed. Because again, she’d betrayed herself a bit. She was distracted, and she was projecting that distraction. And thanks to her little display earlier, he was well aware that he was a part of the distraction.

  “I am supposed to protect you, I imagine letting you get frostbite would negate my other efforts.”

  Frostbite seemed friendly compared to some of the other trouble she could get into with him. “Possibly. No one would want to marry a princess with blue toes.”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  “Have you heard from my father?” she asked. She didn’t really want to know. She’d never seen her father so angry. It wasn’t the yelling, because he didn’t do much yelling. It was what he didn’t say. It was the look in his eyes. That fact that he hadn’t quite been able to look at her.

  And it made her wonder if even her father believed the story about her. Why not? He didn’t know her. Not really. He knew who he wanted her to be, what he wanted her to do, but he didn’t really know her. If he did, he would know that while she might go out and have drinks with a group of friends, she wasn’t going to go and get naked with them all after.

  “I talked to him briefly to let him know we’d arrived. He still doesn’t know the location, neither does he want to.”

  She hesitated. “Did he say anything about Bastian?”

  “Concerned for the future of that alliance, are you?”

  “Not especially. Well, of the possibility of it going forward.”

  “He didn’t mention it.”

  She blew out a breath. “No. Of course he didn’t. Why would I want to know about my future? Insignificant things like who I’m going to marry? I shouldn’t concern myself with such trivialities.”

  “Here you go sounding like a spoiled child again,” he said, his tone even, maddeningly calm.

  “Really? I must be a spoiled child because I have money, and because I have money, and have always had it, I should be happy, is that it?”

  “Money might not buy happiness, Eva, but it buys a hell of a lot of things that keep a person alive. Some might say that brings a bit of happiness.”

  “So because of other people’s problems, people who have less in the way of creature comforts, I’m not allowed to have any problems of my own? This isn’t first-world problems here, this isn’t me complaining about my flying pony refusing lay golden eggs.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You imply it. With every word. Every time you call me spoiled,” she spat. “Forgive me if simply being thought of as a collectible isn’t enough for. I can just see my father making the presentation to my gaggle of suitors: Collect three of the ten most important items in Kyonos and gain a valuable alliance! Pick from the Coat of Arms, the Crown Jewels, the Princess and this lovely settee!”

  “Eva …”

  “What? I’m spoiled again? To want personhood? To want to have my feelings, my desires at least matter to someone? Damn you, Mak. You’re just like the rest of them.”

  She stood up, her heart pounding hard, angry tears forming in her eyes. He walked over to the hot tub as she got out and held up the towel. She wanted badly to resist the gesture but it was far too cold. He wrapped the thick white fabric around her and held her near him for a moment, his eyes locked with hers.

  “I say you’re a child because of the way you go about it. If you marched into your father’s office and said to him what you just said to me, then I might respect the way you feel.”

  “Right. Just walk in and tell him. And then what? I don’t … I’m afraid of losing that connection with him. What little I have …”

  “And you don’t think this damaged your connection with him?”

  “I’m certain it did. I already told you this wasn’t exactly my plan.”

  “Regardless of your personal feelings—” He said the word as if it was an illness of some kind. “—can’t you see the benefits your marriage could provide your people? If you marry Bastian, how will your country profit?”

  “Military alliances. Trade agreements.”

  “And you think your personal notion of happiness outweighs that?”

  “Is it wrong if I think it does? I didn’t ask to be born a princess.”

  “We don’t ask for a lot of what life gives us.”

  “My feet are cold,” she said. “Let me go.”

  For a moment, he simply looked at her, his grip tightening almost imperceptibly. And she found herself wanting to lean into him, into his heat, into the temptation that his hard body represented. Then he released his hold on her suddenly. She stumbled back and clung to the towel, trying to get control of her breathing, hard to do when each sip of air chilled her lungs. She turned away, walking past him and back into the chalet.

  She took the stairs two at a time and stalked down the hall, headed to her room.

  “Trust me, Eva. Feelings are overrated.”

  She turned back sharply. Mak was at the top of the stairs, his face shadowed.

  Anger fired through her veins, making her reckless. Or perhaps just heightening her honesty. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you are a robot, not a man. You feel nothing. I could never live that way and I would never want to. Maybe if you were capable of feeling you would understand.”

  He stalked toward her, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his lip curling into a snarl. She backed against the wall and he stopped in front of her, his palm planted above her head. “You think I have no emotions? No desires?” She couldn’t answer, the air pulled from her body, deserting her. “You’re very, very wrong.”

  He dipped his head, his lips claiming hers. Hot. Insistent. She sucked in a breath and he took advantage of the action, dipping his tongue into her mouth. She closed her eyes, the sensations shocking her, thrilling her. She could taste his anger, but she could taste his passion too. And she wanted more of it. All of it.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, the towel falling at her feet, and held him closer. His arms came around her waist, his body pressing into her, the wall hard and stable behind her. And thank God for it, or she would have lost her balance completely.

  His hands were hot and rough on the bare skin at her waist, his body hotter, harder against hers. She could feel the heavy length of his arousal pressing against her stomach and she arched into it, into him. She’d dreamt of this, of this kind of passion, this kind of need.

  But it had been only that. Fantasies with the hazy edge of dreams around them, softening them, holding them at arm’s length. There was nothing soft about this. Nothing distant. It was all harsh breathing, heavy heartbeats and uncontrolled groans of pleasure. It wasn’t refined. It wasn’t civilized.

  It was perfect.

  He abandoned her mouth and trailed fire down her neck with his lips and tongue, kissing her collarbone, lower, teasing the curve of her breast with his tongue.

  She forked her fingers through his hair and held him there. “Yes, Mak. Yes.”

  He pulled back sharply, his eyes wild, feral and completely uncontrolled. She shouldn’t have found satisfaction in it, but she did.

  “No.” He took a step away from her.

  “Mak…”

  “No more,” he bit out.

  “I … I …” She wished she could make her brain connect with her mouth, but sadly, her brain seemed to be on vacation and her mouth couldn’t form words on its own. Even if it could, she had no idea what she would have said.

  “This cannot happen,” he said, his voice harsh. “It will not happen again.” He turned and walked away from her and she sagged against the wall, her legs like jelly.

 
; She didn’t know how long she stood there, shocked, needy, angry, sad. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to kiss him again.

  “Too bad,” she said into the empty hallway.

  She wasn’t kissing a man who didn’t want her.

  Except Mak did want her. She was certain of that. But it was possible there were too many things between them for him ever to admit it.

  She could follow him. She had almost no doubt that if she did, if she went to him and pressed herself against the hardness of his body, took another kiss, that she could make him give in.

  Fighting the temptation to do so almost wasn’t worth the effort it took. So much easier, so much more pleasurable to find herself back in Mak’s arms.

  The only thing that stopped her was wondering what the price would be for Mak. How much it could cost him in honor.

  It was the only thing that saw her turning and heading to her room, rather than following Mak into his.

  Mak cursed into the emptiness of his office. Every foul word in every language he spoke.

  Kissing her had been a mistake.

  But it had lit him on fire. He had felt more, in that moment than he’d felt for the past ten years. More desire, more need. More frustration.

  Because having Eva was impossible. But she was the one his body wanted. The one he wanted. But his honor was at stake, and it was the only thing he had left in the world. Everything else could be taken, he knew that for a fact.

  He’d had it all taken.

  But that he’d kept. He intended to continue to hold onto it and he was not going to let one spoiled princess, with curves that were enough to make a grown man weep, challenge that.

  He poured himself a glass of whiskey. Better drunk than aroused. That was a mantra he hadn’t had to say in a while. He’d mastered his needs too long ago.

  Now though, now they seemed to need to be put into place again. And if that didn’t work, he would simply deadbolt himself in his room.

  The other alternative was finding Eva and taking her into his arms again. Claiming that soft, sweet mouth. Not stopping there. Uncovering every inch of perfect skin. Maybe she was still wearing that bikini. He could release the knots holding it to her body and reveal her breasts. Hold them in his hands. Taste them.

  He gritted his teeth against the sharp spike of longing, so intense it was more pain than pleasure. What was it about this woman? Kissing her, wanting her, was an impossibility. Did he hate himself so much that he would choose to want, to need, the one woman who was forbidden to him?

  He’d kept control this long. He wasn’t going to let Eva strip him of it.

  As he lifted his glass to his lips, his hand shaking, he acknowledged, just for a moment, that it was very likely she already had.

  “Good morning,” he said, when he came into the dining room after an awful night’s sleep.

  “I hate that,” Eva snapped, her coffee mug frozen by her lips.

  “Hate what?”

  “Good morning. You keep saying that to me. I haven’t had a good morning since I met you.”

  “You are good for a man’s ego.”

  She turned her shoulders, angling them away from him. “Find someone else to stroke it, I have a headache.”

  “You certainly woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

  She glared at him and he couldn’t suppress the slight feeling of amusement that made him feel. Eva had no pretense. She didn’t have the ability to pretend to feel something she didn’t. She simply was whatever she felt. She embodied it.

  Right now she was anger. It was etched in every line of her petite frame, her brown eyes shooting sparks, her hands curled around her mug like claws.

  “I’m glad you find it funny.”

  “I didn’t say I found it funny.” He found nothing about her frustration funny. Because nothing about his own was remotely amusing.

  “You do though, I can tell.”

  He sat at the small breakfast table, taking the chair across from her. “Are you upset because I kissed you?” Her eyes narrowed. “Or are you upset because I stopped?” He shouldn’t have voiced the last part. It didn’t matter. It shouldn’t anyway. And yet he found this infuriating princess had burrowed herself beneath his skin, and he wasn’t certain how to excise her.

  “I told you,” she said, “I’m not into ego-stroking this morning.”

  His stomach tightened. “A good enough answer for me.” One his body should not be rejoicing in.

  She cleared her throat, her expression comically composed now. “So, what are we going to do today?”

  “I thought you’d put in a vote for board games.”

  “Only if things get desperate.” He wondered what constituted desperate. He felt fairly desperate at the moment. Overwhelmed by a need that could never be met, obsessed with a woman he could not have and stuck in the snow with that same woman for the next couple of weeks. Desperate about summed it up.

  “There’s a cable car that runs up the mountain if you’re interested. We could take lunch.”

  “How high does it go?” she asked.

  “About a thousand feet. It’s a pretty decent trip.”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s … that sounds a bit adventurous.”

  “Too adventurous for you, Eva?”

  He was baiting her. And she would take it, that much he knew. That, and that he was a fool. Putting himself in a cable car with Eva, with no way of escape, was one of the stupidest ideas he’d ever had. And he’d had some stupid ideas in his life.

  “No,” she said.

  Confirmed. She’d taken the challenge. And he was an idiot.

  “Good. I have some work to do, operatives to make contact with, but I’ll meet you back in the entryway in about three hours.”

  And by that time, he had to get a rein on his libido. Otherwise he might undo everything he’d spent the past decade trying to rebuild.

  Eva tried to keep her stomach from climbing into her throat as the small cable car, powered by a motorized pulley, crawled up the mountain. Snow-capped trees, a river and a small village were growing smaller and smaller with each passing moment. It was like the ascent of a plane in slow motion. With the creak of the pulley system to provide a disturbing sound effect.

  The cable car was elegant and warm, designed to cater to those with money and power. She supposed she and Mak qualified as having both. At least, she did, in theory. Actually, her father had the money and the power. She had essentially nothing that was her own.

  Disturbing.

  Mak was sitting across from her in one of the plush, velvet-covered seats, leaning back, one leg extended in front of him. The extent of his relaxation irritated her.

  But then, that was normal. She was edgy, emotional, and he was all calm and cool.

  “About last night …” she said, mainly to get a reaction. And she wasn’t disappointed.

  Every line in his body tightened, his eyes blazing heat for a moment before the flame flickered and died. Before he was able to put a damper on it with that ironclad self-control.

  The fact that he had to make an effort helped a little bit.

  “It doesn’t bear talking about, Eva.”

  “I think it does,” she said.

  “You pushed me too far,” he said, his voice rough.

  “You’re attracted to me. You can call it whatever you like, blame me, but the truth is, if you didn’t want it, that wouldn’t have happened.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t deny it.”

  Shock slammed into her. “Oh … well …”

  “I never said I wasn’t attracted to you. I said it wouldn’t happen.”

  “Don’t you get tired of denying yourself things that you want?” she asked. She was tired of having the things she wanted denied for her. She hadn’t a clue why he seemed to do it voluntarily.

  “You have no idea,” he said.

  “Then tell me.”

  “I already told you that I don’t share. I don’t sit and spill my guts to everyone
that asks me my life’s story.”

  “I’m not just anyone.” Although, maybe she was. Maybe she meant nothing to him. But part of her, a stupidly optimistic part of her, likely the same part who’d thought a rebellion for the benefit of the press was a good idea, was certain she had to be. That she had to matter to him.

  “All the more reason to keep it to myself,” he said, not denying it. She shouldn’t have found satisfaction in that. But she did. “You’re my client, or, more to the point, your father is my client. Our relationships is a business association. Making it anything more is senseless.” He turned his focus to the view. She tried to do the same, but it offered her no comfort.

  “We don’t have to make it more.” Boldness surged through her. “It is more.”

  “Not to me,” he said, his voice flat.

  He was lying. That practiced emotionlessness was a put-on, and she knew it now. The calmer he seemed, the more he was hiding. That much she was certain of. She just wasn’t entirely sure of what he was hiding.

  “My mother died when I was young,” she said slowly. “She brought the laughter into our family. She was the one who gave hugs and stayed in my room if I had a nightmare. I don’t think I remember my father ever hugging me. Not once.

  He couldn’t even cry when my mother died. He doesn’t do emotion either. He can’t even do it for his own kids. Couldn’t show it for his own wife.”

  She swallowed hard. She’d never talked about this, not to anyone. Never to Xander, because Xander had left. Never to Stavros. Because beneath his easy charm he was all practicality and duty. Moving forward and doing what had to be done.

  Though she remembered seeing him cry for their mother. He’d shown that much emotion at least. So she hadn’t been alone.

  “I lost one of the only people who ever really made me feel like I was a person. Like I was more than duty to my country. My mother wanted me to have dreams. She used to talk to me about the things I would do in my life. And somehow, after she died, all of those things died with her. There was no talk of me going to college, of finding what I might be good at. No talk of me finding the man of my dreams, or traveling, or … anything. Some days I want her back so badly I’m afraid my heart will fold in on itself.”