here.”
“Honesty,” he countered as he came to a halt in front of her, “is something you will always get from me, Stella. Whether you like what I have to say or not.”
Another veiled reference to his humiliating rejection of her? A current of awareness zigzagged through her as she took him in. In a short-sleeved shirt and trousers today, the fading light of the sun illuminating the deep lines etching his eyes and mouth, there was a life experience imprinted on the hard contours of his face that lent him a somberness she didn’t recall. A knowledge.
If those deeply embedded marks that had taken purchase on him made her wonder what the forces had been that had changed him so, had driven him to Tibet on a soul-searching expedition, she pushed that curiosity aside. She was here to negotiate her future.
“I’m good with honesty,” she drawled, holding his dark gaze. “It’s always been my forte. Along with sticking to my principles and reaping the messes I sow.”
He ignored the gibe. “What changed your mind?”
“You were right. Notorious dissident that I am, I cannot turn my back on our two countries. Nor on my big dreams, because yes, I do still have them. But there are conditions attached to my becoming your queen.”
He leaned against the rail and folded his arms over his chest. “Let’s hear them.”
“I will not be a figurehead...smothered by the patriarchal establishment. You will give me real power and status.”
“Do you have any advance thoughts?”
“A seat on your executive council.”
His gaze flickered. “That would be most...unusual.”
“Say yes, Kostas, or this isn’t happening.”
He gave her a long look. “Kala. You can have a seat on the council. But I warn you it will not be an easy ride. Akathinia may be enlightened, but Carnelia is still stuck in the Dark Ages.”
“I like a challenge. Clearly. Second, I will continue my work with the current organizations I support unless my schedule proves to be excessive.”
“I have no problem with that. You do great work. What you cannot do is waltz around active war zones. It’s too risky.”
Heat lanced through her. “I do not waltz, Kostas. The photograph of me with those children raised millions of dollars toward the support of a regional disarmament treaty.”
He tilted his head. “An unfortunate choice of words. But the fact remains, I need my queen alive.”
Not because he cared, because she was of value to him.
“Third,” she continued, “you will not take a mistress. Should you do so, I will have the power to divorce you immediately. It will not require a decree signed by government.”
“I’m not your father, Stella. I have no intention of indulging in affairs. Why would I when I have a woman like you in my bed?”
Her gaze rested on his. “Speaking of which, this will be a political marriage. As such, I will not be under duress to sleep with you.”
His gaze narrowed. “That might be a problem given the fact I need to produce an heir quickly in order to secure the Laskos line. Also, your fourth point seems to be in direct contradiction to your third. I can’t have a mistress, but we aren’t going to have sex?”
She waved a hand at him. “The heir—we can make that happen.”
“How does that work?” He took a step closer, dwarfing her with his height and breadth. “We have conjugal visits? I seek you out when the temperature is right?”
She tilted her head back to look up at him, every cell in her body going on high alert at the proximity of such blatant masculinity. “Something like that.”
A dark glitter filled his gaze. “Setting yourself up as a martyr, Stella? The sacrificial lamb sent to slaughter for the king’s pleasure?”
Her chin lifted. “I would not be the first princess to sacrifice myself to the call of duty. History is littered with them. We are valued for our beauty and poise, our compassion and empathy, but in the end are viewed as nothing more than glorified broodmares.”
He gave her a long look. “I am offering you far more than that. This would be a true partnership.”
“Along with the heir you so urgently require.”
He flicked a hand at her. “What happens when you are not acting as my broodmare? When I have normal male urges?”
Her cheeks flamed at the erotic image that spurred in her head. She knew what he looked like from that night she’d waited for him in his bed...knew how heart-stoppingly virile he was in every respect. It made the blood coursing through her veins fizzle with heat. Singe her skin.
Diavole, but this was not how this was supposed to go. She lifted her chin higher, a belligerent expression on her face. “That’s not for me to figure out, Kostas. That’s your job.”
“Is it?” His gaze touched her fiery cheeks. “I think when you let go of the past, when you finally forgive me, when you acknowledge how good we are together, we will be as potent a match in the bedroom as we will be ruling my country.”
“No,” she said, even as a pulse of electricity ran between them, magnifying the sizzle in her blood. “That isn’t going to happen. Women are objects to you. I am a means to an end. I would be stupid to forget that and cede power to you.”
“You will be my wife, the woman by my side, not an object.” His dark lashes arced over his cheeks. “And who said you would be ceding power? Just because I walked away from you that night didn’t mean I didn’t want you, Stella. That I haven’t replayed that scenario in my head with a far different outcome. You would have equally as much power over me if we went to bed together, maybe more.”
Her stomach muscles coiled. It was a seductive, beguiling thought to imagine he might want her. That her desire for him hadn’t been as one-sided as she’d imagined it to be. That by exploring that revelation, she might wipe away the rejection that stung even now in a place that had never healed. But her head, the part of her she was operating with now, realized his tactics for what they were. Negotiation. Manipulation.
She lifted her chin. “It will be an act, conceiving your heir. Nothing more. I’ve lost my taste for megalomaniacs housed in beautiful packages.”
“Megalomaniacs?”
“Yes—you.”
He studied her for a moment. “Are you including Aristos Nicolades in this esteemed group?”
She lifted a brow. “Following my love life, Kostas? Aristos was simply the last kick at the can.” Her voice took on a nonchalance that hid the steel underpinning her insides. “I’ve decided to make myself as impenetrable as you when it comes to relationships, as unaffected, because I’ve found, in the end, it’s just not worth it.”
He frowned. “That’s not you, Stella. You live by your passion.”
“Not
