seat of the limo. “Thank you, Hawk. Tonight was incredible. I will never forget it.”
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, brushing them across her knuckles in a caress that sent a bolt of longing straight to her center.
“Nor I.”
Thierry leaned forward, his intention to kiss her cheek obvious, but at the last minute Mila turned her head, allowing their lips to brush one another. It was the merest touch, sweet and innocent, and yet in that moment she felt something expand in her chest and threaten to consume her. It shook Mila to her core.
Words failed her and she pulled away, blindly reaching for the door handle and stumbling slightly as she left the private cavern of the vehicle. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she did she might ask for more and it wasn’t the time or the place to do that.
She moved swiftly through the hotel lobby and to the elevator and swiped her key card to head for the penthouse. In the elevator car she reached up and tugged the blond wig loose and locked her gaze with her reflection in the mirrored walls. She’d been a stranger to Thierry tonight and he’d enjoyed her company. But would he enjoy it quite so much when he met the real Angel, or would he remember the gauche and chubby girl for whom he’d shown a moment of disdain? Only time would tell.
“Of all the stupid, irresponsible, brainless things to do! What if the media catches wind of this? Did you even stop to think about that? You’ll be crucified and all of Sylvania will reject you before you even cross their border.”
Mila sat back in her chair waiting for her brother’s tirade to subside. It didn’t look as if it would be soon, though. He was working up another head of steam as he paced the priceless Persian carpet on his office floor. She kept her head bowed, her tongue still in her mouth. It was no easy task when she’d become used to offering her opinion—and having it respected.
“You were raised to behave better than this. What made you sneak out like nothing more than a common tramp? Was this idea concocted by that friend of yours in America? Sally what’s-her-name?” Anger and disgust pervaded his tone.
That got her riled. “Now wait a minute—!” she protested, but Rocco cut her off with a glare.
“You are a princess of Erminia. Princesses do not sneak out of hotel rooms in the dead of night and stay out until dawn with strangers.”
Unless you live in a fairy tale, Mila amended silently, remembering her favorite bedtime story about the twelve dancing princesses. But this, her life, was no fairy tale. Besides, Prince—no, King, she reminded herself—Thierry wasn’t a stranger to her anymore. At least, not completely. But she’d endure Rocco’s lecture. For now, it suited her not to tell her brother whom she’d spent her night with. The secret was hers to hold safely in her heart. She didn’t want to share it with her brother who would no doubt worry about the political ramifications of her and Thierry’s impromptu date. Ramifications that would sully her memory of that wonderful, magical night.
Rocco strode to the large arched window set deep into the palace wall, which offered a view of the countryside beyond it. Mila looked past him to the outside—to freedom. A freedom she’d never truly taste again. The anonymity of life in the United States had been a blessing, but now that she was back home for good she was expected to kowtow to protocol—and that meant doing whatever it was her brother decreed. She began to wonder if perhaps it might not have been better not to have known the freedom she’d experienced after all. The comparison made coming home this time so very much harder.
“So, Rocco, what are you going to do? Throw me in the dungeons?”
Her brother turned and she was struck by how much he’d aged since she’d last seen him a year ago. As if stress and worry had become his constant companions, leaving lines of strain on his face and threads of gray at his temples. And some of that strain, and no doubt several of those gray hairs, were due to her, she acknowledged with a pang. She loved her brother dearly, and had no desire to hurt him or cause him distress, but she just wished he’d listen to her once in a while—really listen as if she and what she had to say had value.
“Don’t think I won’t do it,” he growled. “Such flippancy is probably all I can expect from you after allowing you so much leeway these past seven years. I should never have been so lenient. Our advisers recommended that you marry the prince immediately when you turned eighteen but no, I had to allow you to persuade me to send you away—for an education, not so you could bring our family name into disrepute.” He pinched the bridge of his aquiline nose and drew in a deep breath before continuing. “I felt sorry for you back then, Mila. You were no more than a schoolgirl, entering into an engagement with an older man—someone you had barely met, yet alone knew. I understood that you felt stifled by that and, I hazard to say, somewhat terrified at the prospect of what came next. You were so much younger than your years, so innocent.”
He sighed and turned away for a moment. Mila bristled at his description of her. Innocent? Yes, of course she’d been innocent. Given her strict and restrictive upbringing there had been little opportunity to learn anything of the ways of the world and the people within it. It was part of why she’d begged her brother for the chance to study abroad. What kind of ruler could she be if she couldn’t understand her people and the struggles and challenges they lived with every day? Rocco continued to speak.
“And so I agreed when you asked me for time until your twenty-fifth birthday. I thought it was the best thing to do for you and that it might help to make your eventual union a happier one. I should have known it would come to this—that the lack of structure in your life overseas would corrupt you and deviate you from your true path.”
Lack of structure? Mila bit her tongue to keep herself from saying the words out loud. While her life in Boston had not been like her life here in the castle, how on earth did Rocco think she’d attained the measure of academic recognition she’d achieved without structure? And even aside from her scholastic successes—won through hard work and discipline—she’d also dealt with the social restrictions of a team of bodyguards, not to mention a chaperone who vetoed nearly every opportunity to relax or try to make friends. She had barely even socialized with any of the other students on campus.
But her brother was on a roll now. If she tried to explain, he would not listen, and she knew it. To say anything while he was still so angry with her would be a complete waste of time. Instead, she let his words flow over her, like the water that, during a heavy downpour, spouted from the gargoyles positioned around the castle gutters.
“Even I cannot turn back time. You are home now and you will prepare for your marriage. Your wedding takes place four weeks from today. And there will not be one wrong move, one misstep, or one breath of scandal from you. Do you understand me? Too much rides on this, Mila. The stability of our entire nation depends on your ability to do the job you were raised to do.”
The job she was raised to do. There it was—the millstone around her neck. The surety that she had no value as a human being beyond that of being a suitable wife for a powerful man.
“And the late king’s funeral this week? Am I not to attend that with you as a mark of respect?”
“No. You will stay here.”
She wanted to argue, to say she had every right to be there at her fiancé’s side as he bid a final farewell to his father, but she knew the plea would fall on deaf ears. Mila shifted her gaze to look her brother straight in the eyes. She hated seeing him like this—so angry and distraught—so she said
