he thought it would not be the latter.
“B-but—” Sonja started to protest.
Rocco halted in his tracks and fought back the urge to sigh heavily. Was there a woman left in Erminia who listened to him anymore? It seemed that everywhere he went women contradicted him. First his sister, then the courtesan and now his most trusted adviser. “I am still King of Erminia, am I not?”
“Of course you are.”
“Then I believe I am entitled to decide who will stay here as my guest. I know you have been at my right hand since my father died, and at his before that. But do not forget your position.”
She inclined her head. “I apologize, of course.”
“And yet I sense that you continue to think I’m making a mistake.”
“Keeping a courtesan is probably not the best decision when you’re trying to woo a bride.”
This time Rocco did sigh. “I am aware of that.” And once his bride was chosen, he fully intended to dedicate himself solely to her, with no outside affairs. But with that future awaiting him—a lifetime of uncertain happiness with a bride bound to him by duty rather than love—could he really be blamed for taking this chance to indulge himself while he was still free? “Now, is there anything else that urgently requires my attention?”
“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow,” Sonja admitted.
“By the way. Ms. Romolo is no longer my prisoner. Please ensure her electronic devices are returned to her and that she has access to the internet.”
“Is that wise?”
He gave her a look that spoke volumes as to his frustration that she should continue to question his authority. In response, Sonja bowed her iron gray head again and murmured her acquiescence.
“Thank you,” Rocco replied through clenched teeth and continued to his suite of rooms on an upper floor in the castle.
He strode through to his bedroom. The formal suit he’d worn for traveling home from Sylvain today felt like little more than a straitjacket. He ripped his red silk tie, woven with the Erminian heraldic coat of arms of a rearing white stallion, from beneath the starched white collar of his shirt and let it drop onto a chaise by the window. No doubt his valet—who he’d left in the palace in the capitol, preferring to see to his own needs here at the lake—would have had a fit if he could see the lack of respect Rocco had for his clothing. But, as each layer fell from his body, he felt a little more free, a little less like a king.
Naked, he grabbed a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt from his bureau and yanked them on together with socks and a well-worn pair of running shoes. If he didn’t get some exercise soon, he’d go mad, or at the very least, lose the temper he was famous for keeping such a tight rein on.
Today had been frustrating but he’d handled it—as he always did. But the next few hours were for him and him alone—well, as alone as one could be with a security detail shadowing your every step. Rocco pounded down the back stairs of the castle, ignoring the team as they trailed him, and set out on the castle driveway pumping his legs as hard as he could.
Ten kilometers later he was wrung through with sweat but only just beginning to breathe hard. He cut back his pace to a more leisurely jog and let his thoughts fill with the joy that had been incandescent on his sister’s face at her marriage to King Thierry just a day ago.
Rocco could still barely believe it had all gone ahead, especially after Thierry had called off the wedding. Without the unification of their countries, war along their border had seemed imminent—fed, no doubt, by the subversive movement that wanted Rocco removed from his throne and their pretender crowned in his place.
It was only months before that Rocco had even learned of this supposed pretender, who claimed to be an illegitimate child of Rocco’s father, the late king. The pretender’s name and identity was a closely held secret, but his movement had gained an uncomfortable number of followers, agitating for change even if it came at the cost of open war.
Erminia had tread a very fine line to avoid hostilities—especially with Andrej Novak, his head of the military and Sonja’s son, strongly advising they substantially increase the presence of their armed forces on the border. The situation had worsened after the scandal had broken of Mila’s actions, kidnapping Ms. Romolo and taking her place. And when Mila had flown to Sylvain personally to meet with Thierry and plead for another chance, only to be turned away, Rocco had expected armed conflict to begin within a matter of days. But then Mila was kidnapped while returning home to Erminia, and everything changed.
Rocco’s heart lurched in a way that had nothing to do with his exercise at the memory of those terrifying days when his sister had been missing, held captive in an abandoned fortress by men demanding that Rocco renounce the crown in exchange for Mila’s safe return. Thankfully, King Thierry and a covert operations unit managed to safely extract her, though with their focus on the princess, the kidnappers were able to flee, unidentified.
The thought of those kidnappers—and their political allies—along with the pressure they kept raising on Rocco to try to convince him to turn over his throne sent a bolt of anger through him that caused him to pick up his pace a little again. Behind him, he heard a collective groan from his security detail and he couldn’t help but smile. His team was fit and strong and fast, but he made it his goal to be equally so, and if he pushed them just a little bit more each time, then so much the better.
He needed every boost to his spirits he could get now that the political maneuvering of his enemies had created a new problem for him. Marry, or lose the throne. The very idea was so outmoded it was ridiculous. Of course he’d always planned to marry. He’d even, many years ago, been on the verge of becoming officially engaged. But Elsa, the young woman he’d met while in university, had shied away from his proposal. A commoner, she’d loathed constantly being under the microscope of media and the world at large when she accompanied him to state functions.
At least that had been her excuse. With the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight, Rocco could see that perhaps she simply hadn’t loved him enough. In which case, it was just as well their relationship had gone no further.
Which brought him squarely back to the predicament he now faced. In a year he would be thirty-five. According to an ancient law, only recently uncovered and exposed by his opponents in the country’s parliament, to remain monarch he needed to be married and have produced legally recognized offspring by the time of his thirty-fifth birthday. If not, he could be ejected from the throne—leaving it open for the pretender.
Rocco had been forced to do a great deal of soul-searching in the months since the threat had become so very real. Would he give up the throne voluntarily? Perhaps, if the new ruler could be relied upon to be a fair and reasonable man—one devoted to his people and the betterment of his country. But with Mila’s kidnapping, it had become abundantly clear that the pretender to Rocco’s birthright was not a benevolent man.
No, he had a duty to his people to defend his position and to see to it that the threat against them all was neutralized with the least harm done. And if that meant marrying a woman he barely knew, would possibly never love? Well, so be it. To that end, he’d asked his advisers to prepare a dossier of women suitable to assume the role of his consort. European princesses and women of noble birth abounded, as did the rumors of their behavior and sexual proclivity that, unfortunately, had narrowed his options. His principles meant too much to him for him to be able to accept a bride with a lower standard of behavior.
