to fill her look with mock disdain. “How do you propose to get me past all the guards and barriers? How do you think you’ll manage that without someone noticing? Especially when I’ll be fighting you every step of the way and creating a scene and doing everything else I can think of to ruin your silly kidnapping scheme?”
“I’ve got a plan.” He favored her with a knowing grin.
“Oh, I see.” Eyes wide, she turned with a shrug, as though asking the world to judge him. “He’s got a plan. Say no more.”
He followed her. “You scoff, Pellea. But you’ll soon see things my way.”
She whirled to face him and her gaze sharpened as she remembered his last visit. “How do you get in here, anyway? You’ve never explained that.” She shook her head, considering him from another angle. “There are guards everywhere. How do you get past them?”
His grin widened. “Secrets of the trade, my dear.”
“And just what is your trade these days?” she asked archly. “Second-story man?”
“No, Pellea.” His grin faded. Now they were talking about serious things. “Actually, I still consider myself the royal heir to the Ambrian throne.”
She rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that one.”
He turned and met her gaze with an intensity that burned. “I’m the Crown Prince of Ambria. Hadn’t you heard? I thought you understood that.”
She stared back at him. “That’s over,” she said softly, searching his eyes. “Long over.”
He shook his head slowly, his blue eyes burning with a surreal light. “No. It’s real and it’s now. And very soon, the world will know it.”
Fear gripped her heart. What he was suggesting was war. People she loved would be hurt. And yet…
Reaching out, she touched him, forgetting her vow not to. She flattened her palm against his chest and felt his heartbeat, felt the heat and the flesh of him.
“Oh, please, Monte,” she whispered, her eyes filled with the sadness of a long future of suffering. “Please, don’t…”
He took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the center of her palm without losing his hold on her gaze for a moment. “I won’t let anything hurt you,” he promised, though he knew he might as well whistle into the wind. Once his operation went into action, all bets would be off. “You know that.”
She shook her head, rejecting what he’d said. “No, Monte, I don’t know that. You plan to come in here and rip our lives apart. Once you start a revolution, you start a fire in the people and you can’t control where that fire will burn. There will be pain and agony on all sides. There always is.”
His shrug was elaborate on purpose. “There was pain and agony that night twenty-five years ago when my mother and my father were killed by the Granvillis. When I and my brothers and sisters were spirited off into the night and told to forget we were royal. In one fire-ravaged night, we lost our home, our kingdom, our destiny and our parents.” His head went back and he winced as though the pain was still fresh. “What do you want me to do? Forgive those who did that to me and mine?”
A look of pure determination froze his face into the mask of a warrior. “I’ll never do that. They need to pay.”
She winced. Fear gripped her heart. She knew what this meant. Her own beloved father was counted among Monte’s enemies. But she also knew that he was strong and determined, and he meant what he threatened. Wasn’t there any way she could stop this from happening?
The entry gong sounded, making them both jump.
“Yes?” she called out, hiding her alarm.
“Excuse me, Miss Marallis,” a voice called in. “It’s Sergeant Fromer. I just wanted to check what time you wanted us to bring the tiara by.”
“The guard,” she whispered, looking at Monte sharply. “I should ask him in right now.”
He held her gaze. “But you won’t,” he said softly.
She stared at him for a long moment. She wanted with all her heart to prove him wrong. She should do it. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it?
“Miss?” the guard called in again.
“Uh, sorry, Sergeant Fromer.” She looked at Monte again and knew she wouldn’t do it. She shook her head, ashamed of herself. “About seven would be best,” she called to him. “The hairdresser should be here by then.”
“Will do. Thank you, miss.”
And he was gone, carrying with him all hope for sanity. She stared at the area of the gate.
There it was—another chance to do the right thing and rid herself of this menace to her peace of mind forever. Why couldn’t she follow through? She turned and looked at Monte, her heart sinking. Was she doomed? Not if she stayed strong. This couldn’t be like it was before. She’d been vulnerable the last time. She’d just had the horrible fight with her father that she had been dreading for years, and when Monte had jumped into her life, she was in the mood to do dangerous things.
The first time she’d seen him, he’d appeared seemingly out of nowhere and found her sobbing beside her fountain. She’d just come back to her chambers from that fight and she’d been sick at heart, hating that she’d hurt the man she loved most in the world—her father. And so afraid that she would have to do what he wanted her to do anyway.
Her father’s health had begun to fade at that point, but he wasn’t bedridden yet, as he was now. He’d summoned her to his room and told her in no uncertain terms that he expected her to marry Leonardo. And she’d told him in similar fashion that she would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the altar. No other way would work. He’d called her an ungrateful child and had brought up the fact that she was looking to be an old maid soon if she didn’t get herself a husband. She’d called him an overbearing parent and threatened to marry the gardener.
That certainly got a response, but it was mainly negative and she regretted having said such a thing now. But he’d been passionate, almost obsessive about the need for her to marry Leonardo.
“Marry the man. You’ve known him all your life. You get along fine. He wants you, and as his wife, you’ll have so much power…”
“Power!” she’d responded with disdain. “All you care about is power.”
His face had gone white. “Power is important,” he told her in a clipped, hard voice. “As much as you may try to pretend otherwise, it rules our lives.” And then, haltingly, he’d told her the story of what had happened to her mother—the real story this time, not the one she’d grown up believing.
“Victor Halma wanted her,” he said, naming the man who had been the Granvillis’ top enforcer when Pellea was a very small child.
“Wha-what do you mean?” she’d stammered. There was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and she was afraid she understood only too well.
“He was always searching her out in the halls, showing up unexpectedly whenever she thought
