Sofía returned the dress to the rack and pulled out a white chiffon gown for her inspection.
“Too virginal.”
Her sister-in-law flicked through the row of dresses and held up an elegant, midnight blue lace number.
She shook her head. “Just...not right.”
Alex eyed her. “What are you, Goldilocks?”
At least there was a happy ending to that story. She ran a hand through her hair. “Sorry, I know I’m being a pain. It’s been a bad week.”
Sofía folded the dress over her arm. “You don’t have to do this, you know. Nothing has been done that can’t be undone.”
Her sister-in-law should know. She’d been an ambitious, career-driven dress-shop owner in Manhattan before she’d fallen in love with Stella’s brother, been swept up in romance and taken the unlikely path of becoming queen. But the road to happiness hadn’t been an easy one for her and Nik.
“I’m doing the right thing.” She said the words more vehemently than she felt them at the moment.
“For you or for your country?”
“For both.”
Alex stayed quiet and she knew why. Her sister was blissfully happy with Aristos, who’d mellowed out from his jungle-cat personality to something approaching civility of late. Stella was happy for her, she really was, but it was like being slapped in the face with her own romantic futility every time she saw them together.
A knock on the door brought their heads up. Her brother strolled in, jacket over his arm, tie loose. He gave his wife a kiss, then glanced at the dress rack. “How’s it going?”
Alex made a face. “How’s it not going, you mean.”
Nik took in Stella’s dark look. “Can you give us a second?”
His wife and Alex left, clearly happy for a breather. Her brother turned his ever-perceptive gaze on her. “Everything okay?”
“Never better.”
“This was your decision, Stella.”
“It’s not that.” She waved a hand at him. “I needed a challenge like this. I was dying inside going through the motions. It’s this media circus that’s getting to me. You’d think I’d solved world hunger instead of getting engaged.”
“Think of it as good for Carnelia. People are excited.”
“I know.” She raked a hand through her hair. Strode to the window to look out at the glittering, sun-dappled Ionian Sea, across which her fiancé was attempting to manage the media firestorm he’d created. She wondered how he was doing. She’d talked to him on the phone a few times, but she’d mostly been working with Takis, his personal aide, on logistics, while Kostas attempted to hold a faltering country together.
“Kostas is a good man. Survivor’s guilt is a hell of a thing to deal with. Give him some leeway.”
She turned around. “You absolve him of any responsibility?”
“I have chosen to let go. You should, too.”
She wasn’t sure she was as enlightened as he was.
“I wanted to mention something else. Darius is going to accompany you to Carnelia. Permanently.”
“I can’t ask him to do that—he lives here.”
“He wants to go. His loyalty to you has always been unquestionable.”
She adored Darius. He’d kept her sane at times when it felt as if her life was just too much. “Does Kostas know about this?”
“He’s in full agreement. I trust Kostas implicitly—he will take care of you. It’s when he’s not there I want an Akathinian, a known quantity, with you.”
“Why? You think I’m in danger?”
“I think it’s a smart precaution. You’re walking into a very tricky political situation.”
She didn’t like how he hadn’t answered the question. But then she’d known taking on this challenge was full of risk.
“Kala.” Fine.
Nik’s gaze softened. “I think you’re very courageous to do this, Stella. I’m proud of you. Remember you are not alone. You are never alone. We’re with you every step of the way.”
Her heart softened. Her rock, Nik was. Passionate, idealistic like her, the yin to Athamos’s rock-steady yang, she’d had to get to know him in pieces. He’d been sent off to join Athamos at boarding school when Stella was four, leaving her with only her nannies and tutor to keep her company while her mother immersed herself in her charity work as her marriage imploded.
She’d seen her brothers on holidays, had eagerly eaten up any time she’d had with them, missing them desperately when they left. When she’d gotten old enough to travel by herself, she’d visited Nik frequently in New York, hoping someday to join him there with her studies. But her parents had axed that dream.
She held his gaze now, as Constantinides electric blue as her own. “S’agapao.” I love you. “You know that.”
“Ki ego s’agapao.” I love you, too. He enfolded her in a warm hug. “Now pick a dress. The party is days away.”
Sofía and Alex returned with coffee and biscuits. Stella eyed the tray. “You think it’s my blood sugar.”
“We’re working all angles,” said Alex.
She smiled. Eyed the dresses. Felt her old fighting spirit rear its defiant head.
“I’m thinking the sapphire blue.”
She was going to dazzle. She was going to shake things up. She was going to seize every ounce of her destiny and accomplish what she’d set out to do. The king had no idea of the storm headed his way.
* * *
Her storm surge was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm by the time she made landfall at the Carnelian palace. Perched on a chain of mountains overlooking a vast green valley in one direction, with the Ionian Sea in the other, the cold and forbidding Marcariokastro was every inch the imposing medieval castle.
It conjured up the dark, suspenseful tales of her childhood, with its square ramparts, circular, capped turrets, moat and drawbridge, although the moat and drawbridge, it was to be noted, were no longer in use. Instead, a beautiful, pastoral lake surrounded the castle.
Stella had visited the massive, gray stone castle with her family years ago when relations between Akathinia and Carnelia had been peaceful; friendly, even. It had seemed a place of immense excitement and mystery to her then, its dungeon and weaponry rooms and long, stone labyrinth of hallways the perfect place for hide-and-seek.
She had always been the bravest of the kids, lasting the longest in
