all.
He was fascinated.
“Explain this to me,” she said after a moment, her eyes meeting his and then falling, as if she could sense the direction of his thoughts. “My father signed me away to you? When I was twelve? And you are the sort of man who wants to honor that kind of archaic, misogynistic agreement?”
“Your father was the King of Alakkul,” Adel said swiftly, not rising to the obvious bait. “And I am his chosen successor. You are his only daughter, and the last of your bloodline. It is fitting that you become my queen.”
It was more than fitting—it was necessary, though he did not plan to share that with her. Not now. Not yet.
Her throat worked. Her eyes clouded over, though with temper or hurt, he could not tell. “How romantic,” she managed to say.
“Surely you have always known this day would come, Princess,” he replied, keeping his voice even, wondering why he felt the urge to comfort her. There was no point addressing that bitter note in her voice. “You have been permitted to live freely for years. But it was always on borrowed time.”
“Interestingly, I was under the impression that I was simply living my life,” she said, her gaze freezing into a glare. “I had no idea you were lying in wait!”
“You cannot tell me you do not remember me.” He saw the tell-tale brush of color on her cheeks, heard the catch of her breath. He remembered the sweet taste of their first, stolen kiss. The music of her sigh of pleasure when he touched her. He could see she did, too. “I can see that you do.”
“It might as well be a dream!” she said fiercely, though her flushed cheeks told a different tale. “That’s what I thought it was!”
“Life is often unfair, Princess,” he said, his voice low, his attention on the way she stood on the balls of her feet, as if she meant to run. Would she dare? “But that does not change the facts of things.”
“There are your facts, and then there are my facts,” she said in a low voice. She took a breath, and her silver-blue eyes turned to steel. He liked that, too. The warrior in him, who had fought and trained and gladly suffered to achieve all that he had done, sang his approval. “You can go ahead and sue me for your money. I won’t pay it. And whatever the courts in your tiny little country might say, the court of public opinion will have only one word for a king who chases down a defenseless woman like this. Bully.”
Adel smiled then, because she was so much more than he had dared imagine, when he’d thought of her growing up so far from her people, her traditions, him. She was not her mother’s daughter at all, as he had feared, no matter how that worthless woman had tried to poison her against all that was hers.
“You will make a magnificent queen,” he told her, though he doubted she wished to hear such things. “It is your birthright.”
She shook her head, as if he’d insulted her, and turned her back on him. It was a deliberate dismissal. And yet he felt it like a caress, shooting through him, desire and admiration coursing through his veins. Finally, something in him whispered. A woman who is worthy. A woman who is not afraid.
“Find another queen,” she threw back over her shoulder as she opened her car door. “I’m not interested in the job.”
Adel moved closer, putting out his hand to hold the door of her car open as she went to get in. He did not crowd her—but he also did not step back when she whipped back around to face him. He stood there for a moment, waiting until her breath came faster, and her gaze dropped to his mouth. He could feel the tension wind between them, and longed to close the distance between them—longed to take her mouth with his and reintroduce himself in the best way he could.
“I spoke of facts, Princess,” he said, when she dragged her gaze back to his. “Let me share a few with you. I have every intention of marrying you, as we both swore to do in our betrothal ceremony twelve years ago. That is a fact.”
“Your intentions are your business,” she replied calmly, though her eyes flashed blue steel. “They have nothing to do with me.”
“If you do not honor your obligations,” he continued as if she had not spoken, “I will not simply be forced to take measures to secure the bride price owed to me. I will also have no choice but to have your deceitful mother arrested and returned to Alakkul, where her theft of so much money and so many jewels—not to mention her kidnapping of the Crown Princess—will no doubt result in an extremely long and unpleasant jail term. If not death. As your husband and your king, of course, I would be willing to forgive such criminal acts on the part of your relative. But why would I extend such a courtesy to a stranger?”
“And again,” she said after a long moment, her mouth trembling slightly, as if he’d hurt her. “What words do you think come to mind when you say such things?”
“I cannot compromise,” he said softly. Fiercely. “I will not.”
“And that is what kind of man you’ve grown into,” she replied in the same voice, as something like an ache, a need, swelled in the warm summer air between them. Adel wanted to touch it. Her. “So much for the boy who promised he would never hurt me, that he would lay down his life to avoid it.”
He wanted to smile—did she not realize how much she revealed with that memory? How much room she gave him to hope? But he refrained.
“I wish I could place your feelings above all else,” he said, inclining his head slightly. “But that is not who I am. I cannot pretend that I will not do anything and everything in my power to secure you. And thus the throne. I owe nothing less to the people of Alakkul.” He moved slightly, closer, unable to keep his distance as he should. She was too much—too magnetic, too proud. Too … everything he’d dreamed. “Your people, Princess.”
“You can call me Princess all you like,” she said, strong emotion cracking across her face, in her voice. “That doesn’t make it so. I left all of that behind. I have no interest in a foreign country I can hardly remember.”
“What will spark your interest, I wonder?” he asked, hearing the danger in his own voice, even as he saw her awareness of it, of him, in her gaze. “Are you as cold-hearted as you would like me to believe? Are you prepared for the consequences of your refusal? Not just to your faithless mother,” he said coldly when she began to speak, “but to the very people you claim to care nothing about. If you do not take the throne with me, I will have to fight for it. That is not a euphemism. I am talking about civil war.”
She rocked back on her feet, and dragged in a deep, ragged breath. Her eyes were unreadable when they met his again, dark gray now instead of blue.
“Why ask me at all?” she demanded, her voice strained. “Why pretend that I have a choice to make if I do not?”
He wanted to trace the shape of her delicate cheekbones, the bold line of her nose, the full swell of her lips. He did not understand what he felt then—tenderness? Affection? Need? All of the above at once?
“Here is what I will promise you,” he said abruptly, called somehow to fix the darkness of her expression. “I will honor you and respect you, a claim I do not make to many without cause, but one I made to you twelve years ago. I will not take lightly the sacrifice you are making today. I doubt I am an easy man, but I will try to be fair.”
He
