he was comfortable with it. If only because it was so much fun.
Petras was never half as much fun. It was where his brother, Kairos, used an iron fist, not for the people of Petras, but for Andres himself. As though he were still a boy needing to be taken in hand, and not a man in his thirties.
Invariably, his stays in the palace followed a staid and steady routine. Visits to hospitals and other approved public appearances where his every word was carefully scripted. Stilted dinners with his older brother and his wife, which were as boring as they were uncomfortable; and long nights spent in his vast royal bedchamber alone, because Kairos didn’t approve of Andres bringing lovers to stay in the hallowed halls of the Demetriou family. Though Andres thought that had less to do with propriety and more to do with the fact that Kairos was out to punish him for his past misdeeds in a million small ways, every day, until he died.
Which made his discovery, upon entering his bedroom, all the more remarkable.
He walked in tearing at his tie—too tight and constricting, like everything here—slamming the door behind him. Then he froze. There, in the center of his bed, knees curled up against her chest, long dark hair cascading loose over her shoulders like spilled ink, was a woman. They both regarded each other for a moment. Then she scrambled to her feet, stumbling backward on the mattress until her back was pressed against the large ornate headboard that had never been any use to him, as he’d never had a woman in this bed.
Until now.
Though she had not been invited, neither did she look very excited to be there. Both of those things were a bit of an anomaly.
“Who are you?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
She tilted her head upward, her expression defiant. “I am Princess Zara Stoica of Tirimia.”
Andres knew very well that Tirimia was no longer a monarchy. In fact, the royal family had been driven from the throne during a bloody revolution back when Andres was a teenager. He hadn’t been aware there were any survivors, much less a princess who looked slightly more like a bedraggled creature than a woman.
Her bronzed skin was painted with gold, framing her dark eyes and eyebrows. Her lips were a deep shade of red designed to entice, but he had a feeling that allowing himself to be enticed could be a mistake. She looked much more likely to bite him than kiss him. Her hair hung down well past her backside, disheveled as though she’d been in a fight, or thoroughly pleased by a lover.
Because of the bed, it was tempting to imagine the latter. But judging by the expression on her face, it was most certainly the former.
“You seem to have the wrong palace, Princess.”
“I do not,” she said, her tone stiff. “I am a prisoner in my own country, and I was brought here as a gift to King Kairos.”
Andres’s eyebrows shot upward. His older brother wouldn’t know what to do with a woman as a gift, even if he weren’t bound by marriage vows. “In which case you’re in the wrong room.”
Her expression turned stormy. “He did not wish to keep me. He, in turn, gave me to his brother.”
Andres could not process the absurdity of the statement. This woman, was a gift for him? “Are you telling me that you’ve been regifted?”
She frowned. “I suppose.”
Clearly, she didn’t see the humor in this. But then, if he were the one being passed around like an unwanted present at a white elephant party, he might be humorless too.
“Would you possibly mind waiting here for a moment?” he asked.
Her expression turned stormier still. “I would not have been here at all if I had any other options. I have nothing to do but wait.”
“Excellent.” He turned on his heel and walked back out of the room, stalking down the hall, down the curved staircase that led to Kairos’s office. He would no doubt find his brother bent over important paperwork, looking grave and serious and not at all like a man who had just given his younger brother a woman as a gift.
Andres pushed open the door to the office without knocking, and as he had guessed, Kairos was indeed sitting there laboring over work.
“Perhaps you would like to explain the woman in my bed?”
Kairos didn’t look up. “Andres, if I were tasked with explaining every woman in your bed, I would never get anything else done.”
“You know what I mean. There is a creature upstairs in my chamber.”
Kairos looked up. “Oh, yes, Zara.”
“Yes. A princess of some kind? She claims she’s a prisoner.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Kairos said.
“Enlighten me.”
His brother actually smiled, the expression nearly knocking Andres to the floor. A smile on Kairos’s face was a rare sight. “She was given to me by dignitaries from Tirimia.”
“That much I gathered.”
“As you know, I’m trying to reestablish trade with them. They are our closest neighbor, and being at odds with them is pointless. More than that, it can be dangerous and costly.” Kairos’s expression turned serious again. “Our father didn’t see the point in mending bridges between the two nations. Here I sit, trying to restore Petras to its former glory, and this is one way I can accomplish that.”
“By accepting a woman as a gift like she was an expensive watch?”
“Yes, Merry Christmas a few weeks early.”
“Did you want me to keep her in my pocket and ask her the time?” Andres asked through clenched teeth.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re going to marry her.”
Anger settled like lead in Andres’s stomach. “Oh, I see. This is your belated revenge?”
“Again, don’t be ridiculous. I’ve got a country to run. I hardly have time to seek revenge to the detriment of the people. Now, make no mistake, I may enjoy your discomfort a bit, but it is no less necessary that you make this union a reality.”
“You have no reason to hold on to your anger where I’m concerned. You’re better off with Tabitha than you were with Francesca anyway.”
“That,” Kairos said, “is debatable.”
Andres had never been under the illusion that his brother and his wife were head over heels in love, particularly not given the circumstances surrounding the marriage. But this was the first time he had ever heard Kairos speak negatively about the state of things.
The fact that Tabitha, once his brother’s PA, had turned out to be such a suitable queen was one reason Andres had been able to absolve himself of his indiscretion with Kairos’s first fiancée five years ago in a Monte Carlo hotel suite.
He’d been so drunk that he hadn’t remembered what had transpired between himself and Francesca. But there were numerous photos, and some
