An air of incredulity surrounded Stella. ‘Am I supposed to lay my happiness down on the altar as I’ve done everything else? Marry a man I can’t stand for the sake of duty?’

‘You don’t hate me, Stella. You know that’s a lie. And it wouldn’t be like that,’ Kostas said. ‘You told me once your dream was to become a human rights lawyer, to effect widespread change. Becoming my Queen would allow you to do that. You would be altering the course of history. Bringing happiness to a people who have suffered enough. Can you really tell me that’s not worth it?’

Her lips pursed. ‘Pulling out your trump card, Kostas? Now I know you’re desperate.’

‘We both know that isn’t my trump card. We’ve proved we could be very good together. More than good.’

Jennifer Hayward invites you into a world of …

Kingdoms & Crowns

Young royals in reckless pursuit of passion!

When a centuries-old battle between the kingdoms of Akathinia and Carnelia is reignited the nation’s young royals find themselves on the brink of war. But their kingdoms aren’t the only thing at stake …

Soon these young monarchs are facing an unexpected royal baby, the appearance of a lost princess and an alliance with the enemy.

Can love conquer all? Find out where it all started in:

King Nikandros and Sofía Ramirez’s story Carrying the King’s Pride

Princess Aleksandra and Aristos Nicolades’s story Claiming the Royal Innocent

Available now!

Marrying Her Royal Enemy
Jennifer Hayward

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JENNIFER HAYWARD has been a fan of romance since filching her sister’s novels to escape her teenage angst. Her career in journalism and PR, including years of working alongside powerful, charismatic CEOs and travelling the world, has provided perfect fodder for the fast-paced, sexy stories she likes to write, always with a touch of humour. A native of Canada’s East Coast, Jennifer lives in Toronto with her Viking husband and young Viking-in-training.

A special thanks to Captain Steve Krotow, USN (ret.), for his insight into naval aviation. You were so helpful and fascinating! Now I really want to land on a carrier someday.

And to my brother Andrew for being the most awesome brainstorm partner.

Contents

COVER

INTRODUCTION

Kingdoms & Crowns

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEDICATION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

SO THIS WAS what freedom tasted like.

Princess Styliani Constantinides, or Stella, as she had been known since birth, lifted an exotic rum-based cocktail to her lips and took a sip, the contrasting bitter and sweet flavors of the spirits lingering on her tongue before blazing a fiery path down to her stomach, where they imbued an intense feeling of well-being.

The perfect combination for this particular moment as she sat in her friend Jessie’s tiny, local bar on the west coast of Barbados, halfway around the world from her home in Akathinia, contemplating her future.

Sweet, given the burnout she’d been suffering from after the hundred-plus public appearances she’d done last year, in addition to her work chairing the boards of two international youth agencies. Bitter because her brother Nik had accused her of running away from the issue at hand.

As if it had been just yesterday she’d ditched her Swiss finishing school to spend a month in Paris when she’d thought the stifling formality of her studies might suck the very life out of her. As if every sacrifice she’d made since then had meant nothing...

“How’s that?”

The testosterone-laden, dreadlocked bartender rested his forearms on the gray-veined marble bar and cocked a thick, dark brow at her.

“On the nose.” The smile she gave him was the first real one she’d managed in months. He offered a thumbs-up in return, then moved on to serve another customer.

Relaxing back in her stool, she cradled the tulip-shaped glass in her hands and studied the fiery jewel tones of the cocktail glowing in the fairy lights of the beachside bar. She deigned to disagree with her brother, the king. She was not, in fact, running, so much as drawing a line in the sand. She may have given up her childhood dream for her country and sacrificed the freedom that was like oxygen to her, but her brother’s latest request was over the line. Untenable. Out of the question.

She wouldn’t do it.

Her breath left her in a long, cathartic exhale. Pulling in another lungful of the salty ocean air, she felt her limbs loosen, the band of tension encircling her skull ease, the tightness in her chest unwind. The release of pressure unshackled something inside of her that had been knotted and twisted for weeks.

When was the last time she’d felt she could breathe? As if the forces conspiring to turn her life upside down were not in control, but she was. As if the insanity that had driven her to this Caribbean paradise had simply been a vexing nightmare that an airplane ticket purchased under an assumed name and a lifetime of skill in eluding her bodyguards could fix.

A smile curved her lips. It had been a compelling game. Almost as fun as the ones she and Nik had used to play on the palace staff. Convincing Darius, her ex–special ops bodyguard, to let her leave the palace alone and dropping an arch hint she was headed for a secret tryst, when, in fact, a man was the last thing she wanted in her life, had summoned a blush to the hardened serviceman’s cheeks and an agreement to “overlook” her departure from the palace. Boarding a commercial flight in a Harvard T-shirt and sunglasses and making the getaway from the pink-sanded Mediterranean island paradise she called home had been even easier.

The only rain on her very slick parade had been the text from Nik. She’d sent him one to say she was fine, that she needed time to think. His blunt, admonishing reply had made her turn off her phone.

Her brother could, of course, find her if he wanted to. But she knew he wouldn’t. Once her twin royal rebel, Nik knew the price it had cost her to clip her wings. He himself had made the ultimate sacrifice in taking their brother Athamos’s place as king, giving up the life he’d loved in New York when Athamos had been killed in a tragic car accident that had rocked Akathinia. He would allow her this time to find her head, herself. If she even knew who she was anymore.

“Need a menu?” The bartender waved one at her.

“Please.” There were no paparazzi lying in wait to chase her from the bar, no Darius watching her with eagle-eyed precision from ten feet away, nor did anyone have a clue who she was in jeans, a T-shirt and sunglasses. Since Jessie wouldn’t be free until the dinner rush was over, she might as well eat and enjoy the superb sunset from one of the patio tables.

“I hear the calamari is spectacular.”

The low, textured voice came from her right, delivered by the male who slid onto the stool beside her. She froze, breath jamming in her throat. The hairs on the back of her neck rose to attention, a sense of unreality washing over her. It couldn’t be. Except that voice carrying a Carnelian accent, infused with a Western inflection, that richly flavored, deeply masculine tone, could belong to only one man.

Noooo. Every muscle in her body tensed in rejection, her heart shutting down in coordination with her breathing as the earthy, sensual scent of him slammed into her senses. Her toes curled in her shoes, ordering—begging—her to run. But she had never been, nor would she ever be, a coward, so she looked up at the king of Carnelia instead.

Tall and muscular, he dwarfed the stool he sat on, as if he went on forever, the sheer brawn of him riveting; intimidating. But what was perhaps more hazardous to a woman’s health was how all that sheer masculine power was cloaked with a civilized veneer that had always set him apart from his savage of a father. That had once made her believe he was different.

Kostas Laskos lifted a hand to capture the bartender’s attention, an unnecessary action when everyone in the bar was staring at him. The women because his hawkish, striking face, set off by his short-cropped black hair, was just that arresting. The men because anyone that dangerous was to be inspected and sized up immediately.

“The oldest Mount Gay you have,” the king requested.

Diavole. Her stomach retracted in a visceral reaction only this man had ever been able to elicit. Stunning, as he had been the last time she’d seen him, in ceremonial uniform at the Independence Day ball in Akathinia, tonight in jeans and a shirt rolled up at the elbows, he was compelling in a way the sunset staining the sky outside was—an utterly unavoidable, spectacularly beautiful product of nature.

His long, powerful fingers claimed her attention as he lowered them to his side. He had lethal hands—ones that could snap a man’s neck as easily as they had crushed her eighteen-year-old heart. Hands that purportedly seduced so skillfully that women lined up for him to do it, but she wouldn’t know because he had saved his cruelest rejection for her.

Her teeth sank into her lower lip, the effects of him reverberating through her. He had kissed her with that beautiful, sensual mouth of his, the only soft part of Kostas that existed, to comfort her after her dreams had come crashing down around her. He had stripped her of her innocent defenses, shown her what true fire could look like, then walked away, making a mockery of her teenage idolization.

She hated him.

He was watching her, analyzing her every reaction to him in that deadly way of his. She forced herself to speak past the blood pounding in her ears. “Shouldn’t you be home ruling over that band of ruffians you inherited, or did your jet run out of fuel?”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “You know why I’m here.”

She set down her glass with a jerky movement, liquid sloshing precariously close to the sides. “Well, you can refuel and be on your way. I gave Nik my answer. I wouldn’t marry you if you came with a dowry of a hundred billion euros.”

“I think you have that the wrong way around.”

“I think I don’t. I’m the prize in this scenario, am I not? Or you wouldn’t have flown halfway around the world to harass me.”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d given me the time I’d requested.”

“I refused what was on offer.”

His whiskey-soaked gaze glittered. “How can you know what you don’t want when you don’t even know what’s on offer?”

She pressed her fingers against her mouth. “Let’s see... Hmm. A barbarian for a husband, living in the enemy’s lair, a union with a man who didn’t even have the guts to try to stop his father when he tried to take Akathinia? No, thank you.”

His jaw tightened. “Watch yourself, Stella. You don’t have all the facts.”

“It’s a year and a half too late. I no longer care.” She pushed away from the bar and slid off the stool. “Go home, Kostas.”

“Sit down.” The words left his mouth with the fine edge of a scythe. “Do me the courtesy of hearing me out. The time for tantrums is long past.”

Customers turned to stare. Jessie, who was seating a table, looked over, eyes widening as she took in the man beside her. Stella waved her off and sat down because she didn’t want to cause a scene and blow her cover. Not because of the inherent command in the king’s voice.

Kostas pinned his gaze on her. “Have dinner with me. Listen to what I have to say. I promise if you do, I will leave and accept whatever decision you make.”

Accept whatever decision she made? Had he always been this arrogant? How could she once have thought herself so blindingly in love with him she’d willingly made a complete fool of herself over him?

Heat smoked through her, singeing her skin. “Kala,” she drawled in her most agreeable voice. “You’re right. This conversation is long overdue. Why don’t you order us a good bottle of Bordeaux, find a table, and we’ll discuss it over dinner like two civilized adults?”

She slid off the stool and sashayed toward the washrooms.

* * *

Kostas knew the moment Stella turned on her heel that she wasn’t coming back. He knew her. Had known her since childhood, when the royal families of Akathinia and Carnelia had crossed paths at official celebrations, at the dozens of royal occasions that marked the season in the Mediterranean. His family had had a measure of respectability then, as his father’s tendency toward a dictatorial rule had been less pronounced.

He had watched Stella grow from an undeniably attractive teenager into a spirited, often recalcitrant young woman who spent so much of her time flaunting the rules he wasn’t sure she could see past her insurgency. Except of late. The past few years had seen the Akathinian princess turn herself into a respected global philanthropist, her rebellious edge muted if not entirely eliminated.

And for that, he was glad. It was her will he had always respected, found himself irresistibly drawn to. Her strength of character. It was a quality he required in a wife, a woman who could accomplish extraordinary things with him—change the very fabric of a nation that had suffered greatly. Few would have the courage to take on the challenge he was about to offer her. Stella had been born with it.

He caught the proprietor’s attention, secured a private table outside on the edge of the patio, then returned inside to lean against the wall opposite the washrooms, arms crossed over his chest. When Stella emerged and headed directly for the exit, he cleared his throat.

“I thought you might need help finding the table,” he offered in as benign a tone as she had drawn him in with. “Château Margaux okay?”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed, a series of emotions flashing across her arresting face as she formulated an alternate game plan. “Lovely,” she announced, swishing past him into the restaurant.

He followed, a surge of amusement filling him as he contemplated her better-than-average backside, set off to perfection in formfitting blue jeans. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt alive, awake to the zest of a life he’d lost his taste for. It figured Stella would be the one to snap him out of it.

Guiding her to the table on the patio with his fingertips at her elbow, he held her chair out for her. She sat down, allowing him to push in the chair. He deliberately let his fingers brush her shoulders as he lifted his hands away, eliciting a visible flinch from the princess. A test. He recorded it with satisfaction. She wished it to be hate, but he knew it was anything but.

He fixed his attention on the woman sitting across from him while he waited for their server to uncork the impressive bottle of Bordeaux. Devoid of makeup, with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, the bold, strong lines of her face were a challenge in themselves. Not classically beautiful, but unforgettable when paired with her ice-blue eyes and blond hair.

Where every other woman had eventually faded to a blurry replication of the last, Stella had remained unique. The one he couldn’t group with all the rest. The one his twenty-three-year-old self had somehow resisted with an impressive display of self-control. Just.

The waiter left the wine to breathe. Kostas laced his fingers together on the table and addressed the land mine that lay between them. “I’m sorry about Athamos. I know how much you loved him. I understand the grief you and your family must be going through.”

“Do you?” She lifted her chin, fixing those spectacular blue eyes on him. “I don’t think you could possibly understand the grief we feel because you are alive, Kostas, and Athamos is dead.”

He drew in a breath at the direct hit. He had expected it. Deserved it. Had spent every waking moment since the night Athamos had died wishing he could turn back time. Wishing he could bring Stella’s brother, the former crown prince of Akathinia, back to his family. But he couldn’t. The events of that night would always be a waking nightmare for him. A reminder of his flaws. All he could do was forgive himself for his mistakes and attempt to move on before he destroyed himself, too. With a country resting its hopes on him, that wasn’t an option.

He held her cold, bitter gaze. “He was a friend as much as a rival, you know that. Our relationship was complex. I need to take responsibility for what happened that night, but both Athamos and I agreed to that race. We both made bad decisions.”

Fire disintegrated the ice in her eyes. “Yes, but you were the ringleader. I’ve heard the stories about you two in flight school—they’re legendary. You egged him on until neither of you could see straight past your obsession to win. But you weren’t collecting points to be top dog that night, you were gambling with your lives. How can I forgive you for that knowing Athamos was following in your trail? In your suicidal jet wash?”

“Because you need to,” he growled. “Because bitterness won’t solve anything. I can’t bring him back, Stella. I would if I could. You need to forgive me so we can move on.”

“It’s too late for forgiveness.”

He closed his hand over hers on the table. She yanked it away, glaring at him.

“What was so important you couldn’t have come to us and explained what happened? What was so imperative you needed to walk away without putting us out of our misery?”

“I should have.” He closed his eyes, searching for the right words. “What happened that night rocked me...shattered me. I needed time to process what had happened. To pick up the pieces...”

“And that was more important than the precious peace and democracy you preach?” She fired the words at him, her hand slicing through the air. “While you were finding yourself, we were living in fear, terrified your father would annex Akathinia back into the Catharian Islands. How could you not have intervened?”

His fingers curled around the edge of the table. “My father was the king. Short of overthrowing him, spearheading a mutiny against my own flesh and blood, the only thing I could do was try to reason with him. It wasn’t working near the end. He was losing his mental faculties, suffering from dementia. I had to bide my time until I took control.”

“So you put yourself into a self-imposed exile?”

“I went to Tibet.”

“Tibet?” Her eyes widened. “You went to live with the monks?”

“Something like that.”

She stared at him as if searching for some sign he was joking. When he said nothing, she sat back in her chair, eyes bleak. “Did your sojourn afford you the forgiveness you craved? The absolution? Or perhaps it was peace you were looking for. Lord knows we’ve all been searching for that. We didn’t even have a body to bury.”

He brought his back teeth together. “Enough, Stella.”

“Or what?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I am not your subject, Kostas. You can’t fly in here, interrupt the first vacation I’ve had in years and order me around like your dictator of a father loved to do. You’re the one walking on very thin ground right about now.”

He was. He knew it. “Tell me how I can make this right,” he growled. “You know we need to.”

The waiter arrived to pour their wine. Dispensing the dark red Bordeaux into their glasses, he took one look at their faces and melted away. Stella took a sip, then cradled the glass between her palms, eyes on his. “What happened that night? Why did you race?”

His heart began a slow thud in his chest. Every detail, every minute fragment of that night was imprinted on his brain. He had promised himself he wasn’t ever going there again, and yet if he didn’t, Stella would walk out on him, he knew that with certainty.

“Athamos and I met a Carnelian woman named Cassandra Liatos. We both had feelings for her. She was torn, liked us both. We decided to settle it with a car race through the mountains—the winner got the girl.”

Her jaw dropped. “You had a pink-slip race, except the prize was a woman?”

His mouth flattened. “I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. One of us had to back off. Cassandra couldn’t make the call, so we did.”

“So she was merely a pawn in the game between two future kings?” A dazed look settled over her face. She rubbed her fingertips against her temples and shook her head. “That wasn’t my brother. He didn’t treat women as objects. What was wrong with him?”

His gaze fell away from hers. “It was not a rational night.”

“No, it was a deadly one.” The rasp in her voice brought his eyes back up to hers. “Where is Cassandra now? Were you with her after Athamos died?”

“No. It was...impossible to move on from there.”

Stella looked out at the sunset darkening the horizon to a deep burnt orange. The convulsing of her throat, the slow deliberate breaths she took, told him how hard she was fighting for control. When she eventually returned her gaze to his, she was all hard-as-ice composed.

“Are you done? Have you said all you need to say? Because if you think I’m going to marry you after hearing that, Kostas—sign on to be another one of your pawns—you are out of your mind.”

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “It was a mistake. I made a mistake, one I will pay for the rest of my life. What I am proposing between us is a partnership, not a chance for me to lord it over you. An opportunity to restore peace and democracy in the Ionian Sea. To heal the wounds we have all suffered.”

Her mouth curled. “So I should save you after everything you’ve done? Allow myself to be used as a symbol you can flaunt to the world in some PR exercise you are undertaking to restore Carnelia’s credibility?”

The animosity emanating from her shocked him. “When did you become so cynical? So unforgiving? Where is the woman who would have done anything to fight for a better world?”

“I am fighting for a better world. Every day I do that with my work. It’s you who seems to have lost your compass. You are not the man I once knew. That man would have stayed and fought your father tooth and nail. He would not have jumped ship.”

“You’re right,” he said harshly, bitter regret staining his heart. “I’m not the man I was. I am a realist, not an idealist. It’s the only thing that’s going to save my country from the mess it’s in.”

She regarded him over the rim of her glass. “And how do you intend to do that? Save Carnelia?”

“My father has driven the approval ratings for the monarchy to historic lows. I plan to hold elections to turn Carnelia into a constitutional monarchy in the fall, which will include a confirmation by the people they wish the monarchy to stay in place. There is a very real possibility, however, before I can do that, the military junta who backed my father will seize control. You marrying me, joining Akathinia and Carnelia together in a symbolic alliance, would be a powerful demonstration of the future I can give to my people if they afford me the opportunity. A vision of peace and freedom.”

An air of incredulity surrounded her. “You’re asking me to marry you, to walk into the enemy’s lair, where a powerful military faction might take control at any moment, and transform a country, a government, with you?”

“Yes. You have the courage, the strength and the compassion to help me take Carnelia forward into the future it deserves.”

Her eyes flashed. “And what about me? Am I supposed to lay my happiness down on the altar as I’ve done everything else? Marry a man I can’t stand for the sake of duty?”

He shook his head. “You don’t hate me, Stella. You know that’s a lie. And it wouldn’t be like that. You told me once your dream was to become a human rights lawyer, to effect widespread change. Becoming my queen would allow you to do that. You would be altering the course of history, bringing happiness to a people who have suffered enough. Can you really tell me that’s not worth it?”

Her lips pursed. “Pulling out your trump card, Kostas? Now I know you’re desperate.”

“We both know that isn’t my trump card. We’ve proved we could be very good together. More than good.”

A deep red flush stained her chest, rising up to claim her cheeks. “That was ten years ago and it was just a kiss.”

“One hell of a kiss. Enough you jumped into my bed in flimsy lingerie and waited for me until one o’clock in the morning, while the entire party thought you were ill.”

A choked sound left her throat. “You are such a gentleman for bringing that up.”

“No,” he countered softly, “I was that when I tossed you out. You were Athamos’s little sister, Stella. Eighteen. I was the son of the dictator. Kissing you was the height of stupidity when I knew the pedestal you put me on. I tried to end it there, but you wouldn’t take no for an answer. Sometimes cruelty is kindness in its most rudimentary form.”

Her sapphire eyes blazed a brilliant blue beam at him. “You should have spared me the pity kiss, then.”

“It was far more complicated than that between us and you know it.” She had been wrecked by her parents’ refusal to allow her to accept the Harvard Law School admission she’d been granted, where Nik had studied. Devastated, as her dream had evaporated. He had not been prepared for the chemistry that had exploded between them.

“Would you have preferred I’d taken you?” He held her stormy gaze. “Walked away with a precious piece of you and broken your heart?”

“No,” she huffed, fingernails digging into the armrests of her chair. “You did me a favor. And now that we’ve confirmed you’re a heartless piece of work I’d never consider marrying, I think we’ve said all there is to say.”

He studied the emotion cascading through her beautiful eyes, regret sinking through him. He had hurt her. Perhaps more than he’d thought.

She stood up in a whirlwind of motion, snatching up her purse, pushing back her chair, as if a hurricane was sweeping down the Atlantic headed straight for them.

“Breaking our deal?” he drawled.

“The deal was to hear you out. Suddenly, I find myself without an appetite.”

He stood, then reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and extracted a card from the marina where he was staying. She flinched as he tucked it into the front pocket of her jeans. “Don’t make this decision because you hate me, Stella. Make it for what you believe in. Make it for Akathinia. If the military isn’t handcuffed, they will seek to finish the job they started when they took that Akathinian ship last year. Lives will be lost.”

Her chin dropped, her lithe body tense, caught in the middle of a storm. “I know you,” he murmured. “You’ll do the right thing.”

“No, you don’t.” She shook her head slowly, a wealth of emotion throbbing in those blue eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”

CHAPTER TWO

KOSTAS COULDN’T KNOW her because she clearly didn’t know herself at this moment in time. The fact that she was even entertaining his proposition was ludicrous.

Stella paced the terrace of Jessie’s oceanfront villa, smoke coming out of her ears. How dare he come here? How dare he throw that guilt trip at her? She had come to Barbados to get her head together, to figure out what she wanted to be. Instead, he had dumped the weight of two countries on her shoulders; issued that parting salvo that had her head spinning...

If the military isn’t handcuffed, they will seek to finish the job they started when they took that Akathinian ship last year.

Her stomach plummeted, icy tendrils of fear clutching her insides. Five crew members had died when a renegade Carnelian commander had taken an Akathinian ship during routine military exercises in the waters between Akathinia and Carnelia last year. If Kostas lost control of Carnelia and the military seized power, Akathinia was in danger.

But to marry him to protect her country? Commit herself to a union of duty, something she’d vowed never to do?

She halted her incessant pacing. Leaned her forearms on the railing of the terrace and looked out at the dark mass of the sea, a painful knot forming in the pit of her stomach. At least she knew the truth about Athamos now. It didn’t explain why Cassandra Liatos had been so special that he’d engaged in a death race with Kostas over her—why he’d been so foolish as to throw his life away over someone who didn’t know her own mind.

Unless he’d loved her...

Frustration curled her fingers tight. Had he? Was that the answer to the mystery that plagued her? She wanted to pound her fists against the big barrel of her brother’s chest and demand an answer, but Athamos wasn’t here. Wouldn’t ever be here again.

Bitter regret swept through her, hot tears burning her eyes, threatening to spill over into the sorrow she’d refused to allow herself to feel lest it disintegrate what was left of her. Somehow she had to let him go. She just didn’t know how.

She was pacing the deck again when Jessie came home, high heels clicking on the wood, a bottle of wine and two glasses in her hands.

“What is Kostas doing here? He nearly blew your cover. I had to convince a regular you were a friend from church.”

She could use a little higher guidance right about now. “He wants me to marry him.”

Jessie’s eyes bulged out of her head. “Marry him?”

“Open the wine.”

Her friend uncorked the bottle, poured two glasses and handed her one.

She took a sip. Rested her glass on the railing. “It would be a political match.”

“Why?”

“I am the symbolic key to peace and democracy in the Ionian Sea. A way for Akathinia and Carnelia to heal. A vision of the way forward.”

“Are you expected to walk on water, too?”

A smile curved her lips. “It would be a powerful statement if Kostas and I were to marry.”

Jessie fixed her with an incredulous look. “You can’t commit yourself to a marriage of duty. Look what it did to your mother. It almost destroyed her.”

All of them. Her parents’ marriage may have been a political union, but her mother had loved her father. Unfortunately, her father had not been capable of loving anyone, not his wife nor his children. The king’s chronic affairs had created a firestorm in the press and destroyed her family in the process.

“Kostas worries about the military junta that backed his father. He plans to hold elections to create a constitutional monarchy in the fall, but he’s afraid the military will seize control before then if he doesn’t send a powerful message of change.”

“And you being the poster child of global democracy will give him that.”

“Yes.”

Jessie eyed her. “You aren’t actually considering this?”

Silence.

Jessie took a sip of her wine. Leaned back against the railing as she contemplated her. “Can we talk about the elephant in the room? You were in love with him, Stella. Mad about him. If this isn’t you repeating history, I don’t know what is.”

“It was a childish crush. It meant nothing.”

Jessie’s mouth twisted. “You two spent an entire summer with eyes only for each other. It was predestined between you two... Then you finally act on it and he slams the door in your face.”

She shook her head. “It was never going to happen. It was too complicated.”

“Does that discount you measuring every other man by him? This is me, hon. I knew you back then. I know you now. You looked shell-shocked when he walked into that bar. You still do.”

“I can control it.”

“Can you? You once thought the sun rose and set over him. He was the newest superhero to join the party, sent to rescue all of us from the bad guys.”

What an apt description of her teenage infatuation with Kostas... Of the heroic status she’d afforded him for his determination to bring a better democratic way to his people. Her belief he was the only one who could recognize the bitter, alienating loneliness that had consumed her, because, she’d been sure, he’d carried it with him, too.

But that had simply been a manifestation of her youthful infatuation, she conceded, her chest searing. Her desperate need to be understood, loved, rather than seeing the real flesh-and-blood man he had been.

“I know his flaws now,” she said, lifting her gaze to Jessie’s. “His major fault lines...” She no longer harbored the airbrushed image of him that had once steered her so wrong.

“The thing is,” she mused, her subconscious ramblings bubbling over into conscious thought, “I haven’t been happy in a long time, Jess. I’ve been restless, caged in a box I can’t seem to get out of. Everything about my life is charmed, perfect, and yet I’m miserable.”

Jessie gave her a rueful look. “I was working my way around to that. But why? You do amazing work. Meaningful work. Doesn’t it give you satisfaction?”

“Yes, but it’s not truly mine. Other than my support for the disarmament issue, it’s the sanitized, gilded, photo-op version of philanthropy the palace directs.” She shook her head. “You know I’ve always felt I have a higher calling. The ability to effect widespread change because of who I am, the power I have. And yet every time I’ve tried to spread my wings, I’ve been reined in. Athamos and Nik have taken precedence. I was the one left to toe the line.”

Jessie was silent. “I hear what you’re saying,” she said finally. “But this is big, Stella. Irreversible. If you marry him, you’re going to be queen. You will be taking on a nation. You’re going to be walking into a very delicate situation with no real control.”

But weren’t those the kind of challenges that made her feel alive, despite the inherent risk involved? Wasn’t this what she’d been craving all her life, a chance to make her mark?

She and Jessie talked late into the night. When her friend finally pleaded exhaustion and drifted off to bed, Stella stayed on the terrace, tucked in a chair, the fat half crescent of a moon, tossed in a sea of stars, her silent companion.

She didn’t question her ability to do what Kostas was asking of her. She’d walked through war zones to promote peace in countries where young people were the innocent victims of conflict. She’d met and challenged tribal leaders to find a better way than destroying each other. What she was afraid of was Kostas. What he could do to her in a political marriage with her as his pawn.

Tonight had proved, a decade later, she was far from immune to him. In fact, it had illustrated the opposite; revealed the origins of her stunningly bad mistake with Aristos Nicolades last year.

She had worked her way through a series of men whom she’d discarded one after another without allowing any of them to get close. When that had proved unsatisfactory, she’d fixed her sights on Aristos to prove she could win a man every bit as unattainable as Kostas; as elusive and undeniably fascinating. She’d sought to exorcise the ghost of her most painful rejection, to prove she was worth more than that. Instead, Aristos had broken her heart and, worse, fallen head over heels in love with her sister and married her.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them to her chest, the pang that went through her only a faint echo of what it once had been, because she’d anesthetized it, marked it as mindless self-pity.

She was destined to be alone. Had accepted that love was unattainable to her. That she’d been too badly scarred too many times to view the concept as anything but a destructive force. Which would almost make the suggestion of a political match bearable. Practical. If it was with anyone but Kostas.

Tying her fate to a man who could destroy her, if the forces threatening to splinter Carnelia apart didn’t do it first, seemed like another bad decision in a long list of many. Unless she neutralized his effect on her.

If she was to do this—marry Kostas—and survive, she would need to bury her feelings for him in a deep, untouchable place where he couldn’t use them against her.

The question was...could she?

* * *

“The princess is here to see you, Your Highness.”

Kostas looked up from the intelligence briefing he was reviewing, his heart climbing into his throat. It had been two days since he’d thrown all his cards at Stella, hoping she’d see the light. Two days with no response. Due to return to Carnelia tomorrow for a regional summit of leaders, he’d started to think his penchant for risk taking had been his downfall. That he had overrated his negotiating skills when it came to a princess who harbored a very personal anger toward him.

He betrayed not one ounce of the relief flooding through him as he nodded to his aide, Takis. “I’ll go up.”

Taking the steps to the upper deck of his old friend Panos Michelakos’s yacht, anchored in Carlisle Bay while its owner took care of business in the West Indies, he found Stella standing at the railing of the impressive seventy-foot boat, looking out at the ocean.

She was silhouetted against the dying rays of the sun, her hair, the color of rich honey, hanging loose down her back. Her slim body was encased in a white skirt and caramel-colored tank top. She looked every inch the cool, sophisticated golden girl she was reputed to be, except he knew from experience Stella was anything but cold. She brought passion to everything she did.

He was fairly sure the image of her in bloodred lingerie, curled up in his bed at the Akathinian palace, would forever be imprinted on his brain. Stored there to torture him with the memory of the one woman he had never allowed himself to have; the one who had never left his head.

A slow curl of heat unraveled inside of him as the erotic image painted itself across his brain. It had been late, the early morning, when he’d climbed the stairs to his room after a palace party, head hazy from too many shots of tsipouro. He’d let himself into his suite unaware anyone else was there, stripped off his clothes, left them in a pile on the floor and collapsed onto the king-size bed.

It was only when his splayed arm had touched silky soft female skin that he’d become aware he wasn’t alone. He’d thought maybe he had drunk too much and dreamed up the lingerie-covered Stella until she’d started talking, telling him he was the most exciting man she’d ever met, that their kiss earlier in the library had been incredible and she wanted him to be her first.

His twenty-three-year-old brain had nearly exploded. She was every red-blooded male’s fantasy come true with her high, perfect breasts and mile-long legs. His body had definitely not been in tune with his head. She’d been too innocent, too pure, too full of her ambitions to change the world for a man caught in a struggle to define himself as different from his autocrat of a father to ever pursue. A man unsure he could ever live up to the lofty ideals she’d built around him.

Somewhere in his liquor-soaked brain, he’d summoned up the sanity to scoop her up, carry her to the door and deposit her on the other side, telling her to go kick sand in her own playground. He’d been sure someday the shattered look on her face would be worth it when she realized he’d spared her a broken heart. That women, for him, were fleeting pleasures meant to be enjoyed, then discarded in the must-win, must-conquer existence that had characterized his life.

But after that night, he sensed his callousness had dug far deeper than he’d believed in a tough, resilient Stella. That his need to underscore he was not the man for her, not the man for any woman in their right mind, had hurt her deeply.

* * *

She sensed his presence before he revealed himself. Turning, hands curling around the rail, a charge rocketed through her. Her soon-to-be fiancé was studying her with an intense curiosity in his hawk-like gaze that seemed to strip the layers from her skin, deconstructing every one of the protective barriers she’d come armed with.

Her chin dipped as he moved toward her. “Planning your next move, Kostas?”

“Admiring you. You still have the power to stop me in my tracks.”

Her stomach folded in on itself, a renegade wave of heat spreading through her in places that needed to remain ice-cold. “No need for flattery,” she said, injecting some of that much-needed, cool composure into her tone. “You know why I’m 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 anymore I don’t. You should be happy about my new outlook, by the way. It’s the only reason I’m marrying you.”

“That and your desire to do the immense amount of good I know you will.”

“Don’t patronize.” She took a step back because oxygen was necessary for breathing and she couldn’t do that near him. “I’m already on board if you agree to the conditions I’ve laid out.”

He nodded. “Agreed. Shall we go over next steps, then?”

Her head spun. This was actually happening. “Go ahead.”

“I fly back to Carnelia tomorrow for a summit of regional leaders. It would be ideal if you accompanied me so we can make the engagement announcement and begin preparations for the wedding.”

Tomorrow? She had been craving this time to herself so badly.

He read her dismay. “General Houlis, the chief architect behind the military junta, has put his campaign into motion, marshaling strength behind the scenes. His support is by no means solid—he still has a long way to go. We need to neutralize him while we can.”

“I’m assuming the coming elections will be a major weapon at your disposal?”

“Yes. I will announce them at the summit this week. There will be a large media contingent in attendance. Nik will also be there. We will provide a united front.”

“And our engagement? Do we announce that before or after?”

“I will double-check with the palace PR team, but I was thinking this coming Friday. Start the week with a bang at the conference, end the week with an equally strong commitment toward the future.”

“And the wedding? When would that happen?”

“Within two months. Six weeks, I’m thinking. Those who can make it, make it.”

“Six weeks?”

“The events team will make it happen. You just need to show up.”

Like her role in all of this. A chess piece to be moved around at will.

His expression turned conciliatory. “I know it’s traditional for the engagement party to happen in Akathinia, but in this instance, I think it needs to be in Carnelia with all the key figures in attendance.

Her mother was going to have a fit. A deviant streak reveled in the thought. She enjoyed every opportunity she had to push her aloof mother out of her comfort zone. A latent lashing out against her childhood perhaps, at the attention she’d never received.

“That’s fine.” She watched her dream sabbatical fly out the metaphorical window. She could hardly relax on a beach now knowing what was ahead of her.

“Good.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. Caught off guard, she was blinded by its brilliance. A square-cut diamond set in an exquisite platinum filigree, it dazzled in the sunlight. Upon closer inspection, she saw it had the Carnelian coat of arms interwoven on both sides.

“You were that sure of me?”

“Hopeful. This was my mother’s ring. One of the few remaining mementos I have of her.”

Her chest tightened, a sandpapery feeling invading her throat. “She died when you were very young, I remember.”

“When I was four. I have no real memories of her.”

She studied his impassive expression. What must it have been like to grow up without any warmth in his life? With only his universally despised tyrant of a father to guide him? Had he had someone else to confide in, to love him—a grandmother, a godmother? She couldn’t remember him talking of one. Or had he always been alone?

Athamos had once remarked Kostas was the only man he knew who could look alone in the middle of a crowd. It was something she’d never forgotten. How could she?

“Your hand,” Kostas prompted, pulling her back into the moment.

She held her hand out, her fingers trembling ever so slightly. He slid the ring on, his big hand engulfing hers. The enormity of what she was about to do lodged in her throat as she stared at the stone blazing on her finger. It was a ring that not only symbolized the commitment she was making to Kostas, but also the weight of a nation that now lay squarely on her shoulders.

Kostas held her gaze in his dark, unfathomable one. “Efharisto, Stella. Thank you. I promise you won’t regret this. We will make a powerful team. We will give Carnelians the future they deserve.”

His energy pulsed through her. Sank into the very heart of her. Her future was now inexorably intertwined with a man she had vowed to hate, a man for whom she now realized her feelings were far more complex than she’d ever anticipated. But there was no looking back now. It was done.

CHAPTER THREE

THE DAYS FOLLOWING Stella’s return to Akathinia passed in a blur, likely a good thing given the magnitude of what she’d committed herself to. She knew her decision to marry Kostas had been the right one, knew this was the challenge she had been looking for. It was the noise that was getting to her.

Everyone seemed to have an opinion on her upcoming nuptials to the king of Carnelia, from her hairdresser, who pronounced him “a real man among the current flock of pseudo-men,” to her sister, Aleksandra, who agreed with her hairdresser, referring to Kostas as “one sexy hunk of a man,” to the celebrity press, who’d dubbed their pairing “the most exciting thing to happen to royalty in decades. Camelot has come to Carnelia.”

The traditional media, on the other hand, Kostas’s harshest critics, were taking a wait-and-see approach. Not all of them were convinced King Idas’s son, the thirty-two-year-old Oxford-educated proponent of democracy, could turn his legacy around. Rumblings of military discontent were rippling across the country, approval ratings for the monarchy were down and all bets were off as to whether Kostas could win the hearts and minds of Carnelians.

But there was also hope. The Carnelian people seemed guardedly optimistic, as spontaneous parties broke out in the streets as the first elections in the country’s history were announced for the fall. Those celebrations continued with the news of the king’s forthcoming match to the elder princess of Akathinia. For the great majority, she appeared the bright, promising light Kostas had painted, but for others she was an unknown quantity in a culture historically closed to outsiders. Not a Carnelian.

That would have to be overcome, she thought grimly as she flew to London for an official appearance the week before her engagement party. The future of a country, the self-determination of its people, depended on it, though they were so wounded at the moment, they weren’t sure what they wanted.

The oppressive media coverage dogged her as she attended a charity luncheon in support of one of the major hospital’s cancer units. What started out as a peaceful affair was hijacked by the news of her upcoming nuptials. Irritation chasing a beat up her spine, she apologized to her hostess. It was only a taste of the wedding madness, she knew, and it left her in an exceedingly cranky mood as she returned to Akathinia for a dress fitting with her sister-in-law, Sofía, and sister, Alex. A designer who was making her name on the world stage, Sofía was creating both her engagement party and wedding dresses.

“What do you think about this?” Sofía held up a sensational sapphire-hued backless satin gown in the bright light of her palace workshop at the front of the white Maltese stone Akathinian palace.

“Too obvious.”

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 her hiding spot, her goose bumps and chattering teeth nothing compared to the thrill of victory. Not even the brave Athamos had liked the dark. But settling into the spacious suite down the hall from the king’s wing, where she would stay until she and Kostas were married, it suddenly felt more unnerving than exciting. Perhaps because the thought that this was now her home filled her with trepidation. Perhaps because she would miss Nik, Sofía and Alex terribly.

Immersed in meetings until late on the night of her arrival, Kostas had left word he would see her the next morning. By the time he deigned to make an appearance as Page was doing Stella’s hair for the party, the day had come and gone, the apprehension she hated herself for having once again kicking up a storm in her veins.

Nodding her head to Page to admit the king, she felt her stomach fill with a thousand butterflies. Clad in a bespoke, light gray suit and white shirt that emphasized his good looks, with his dark hair scraped back from his face, the sleek, powerful impact of him knocked her sideways.

She’d told herself she’d have her response to him firmly under control by now, but the spacious suite suddenly felt as if it had shrunk to the size of a shoe box when he strolled over to stand by her side at the dressing table, his gaze meeting hers in the mirror.

Moistening her lips, she searched for a smart remark but, for the life of her, couldn’t think of one. His gaze slid to her mouth, as he appeared to absorb the evidence of her nerves, then dropped to the plunging neckline of her silk robe that had seemed respectable until he’d walked in, but now made her desperately want to pull the edges together.

She resisted the urge to do so. Somehow. The color riding his high cheekbones, the dark heat that claimed his whiskey-hued eyes as they lifted to hers, ignited a slow burn beneath her skin. Sparked a chemical reaction that climbed up into her throat and held her in its thrall.

He bent his head and brushed a kiss against her cheek. Unprepared, or perhaps overprepared for the press of his firm mouth against her sensitized skin, she flinched.

Kostas straightened, a dark glitter filling his eyes. Her gaze moved to Page, who was watching them with unabashed curiosity.

“Leave us,” the king bit out quietly. Page scurried from the room as if he’d been Zeus himself raising one of his thunderbolts.

Stella lifted her chin defiantly as the door closed and the room went silent. “You will need,” he instructed tersely, “to learn to hide your very...distinct response to me when we’re around others, when the cameras start flashing tonight, or this isn’t going to be a very productive exercise.”

Her chin lifted higher. “I don’t plan it, Kostas. It just happens.”

The glint in his eyes deepened. “Maybe we should do it again, then, maybe a real kiss this time, practice, so it doesn’t happen tonight.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Why not? Are you afraid of how you might respond?”

“Hardly.” The pressure on her brain pushed her temper to its very edge. “But why stop there?” she challenged. “Why don’t we do it right now? Up against the wall while Page is waiting... Would that satisfy you? Would that be enough of a reaction for you? To have the whole palace abuzz with how you keep me in line?”

He leaned his impressive bulk against the dresser, folding his arms across his chest. Dark amusement melted the ire in his eyes. “Is that the plan, Stella? To make me pay for entrapping you? To bait me until I fall over the edge? You forget how well I know you, how you deflect when you are stressed, when you feel cornered, how you use sarcasm as a weapon because that sharp mouth of yours is so very good at it.”

She lifted a shoulder. “You have to work with the tools you’re given.”

His mouth curved. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s eating you?”

“Oh, what would be the fun of that? I’m enjoying your amateur psychology course so much, I think you should tell me.”

He pursed his lips. Eyed her. “It’s been a trying two weeks. We’ve both been analyzed beyond endurance. Most of the Carnelians seem ready to welcome you, but some are reluctant to embrace a foreigner. Tonight is the night you must prove to them you belong. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t feeling the pressure.”

Remarkably spot-on. “I’ve been brought up in the media glare. I can handle it.”

He inclined his head. “Regardless, I appreciate how you’ve risen to the occasion.”

She had no smart comeback for that, so she left it alone. He flicked his gaze around the elaborately furnished, if exceedingly dark, suite. “How are you settling in?”

“Fine. Except honestly, Kostas, you were right. It’s like you’re caught in the Dark Ages here. Everything is cold, unforgiving stone. There’s no warmth to the rooms, no life. How in the world do you live like this?”

“It’s remained untouched since my mother died. My father refused to make changes. I agree, though, it needs massive renovations. It’s hardly the kind of place I want to bring our children up.”

There it was again. Children. An heir. She wished they could just forget about it for a while.

“What was it like?” she asked to distract herself. “Growing up here?”

“Lonely,” he said matter-of-factly. “Cold. I’ve been told the life went out of the castle when my mother died. Some say that’s when it left my father, too, and he became the dictator that he was.”

“He loved her a great deal?”

“Too much, by all accounts.”

Beauty and the Beast. She tipped her head to the side. “Was he really the man he was portrayed as?”

“A tyrant, you mean?” His mouth twisted. “It depended on which iteration of him you encountered. He was charming, charismatic and warm when he wanted to be, self-centered, compassionless and sadistic during his dark moods. A chameleon. A compulsive liar—to himself and others.”

Sadistic. Thee mou. A chill went through her. “And to you, his son, what was he like?”

“I was his protégé from age five on. It was about learning the role, following in his footsteps. It was never a father-and-son relationship.”

And what about the childhood, the innocence, he should have been allowed? She recalled a photo she’d seen in one of the hallways of the castle of Kostas and his father inspecting a military guard when the prince must have been just five or six, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people. He had looked so lost...so bewildered.

The only man who could stand alone in the middle of a crowd. Kostas had been built that way, conditioned to stand alone, created by a man notorious for his lack of humanity. Her chest tightened. “Did he discipline you?”

“Beat me, you mean? Yes. It was part of his modus operandi. Fear and intimidation—the devices he used to control everyone around him. Sometimes it was physical, sometimes mental. He was a master at both.”

“Please tell me you had someone, a grandmother, a godmother, someone you could go to?”

“My yaya. My grandmother on my father’s side, Queen Cliantha. She died when I was twelve. But by then I was in school. It was an escape for me, a break from the brainwashing, the conditioning. I was lucky my father felt it necessary to present a civilized front to the world.”

It may have been a break from the conditioning, but Kostas hadn’t made many friends in school. By Athamos’s account, he had always been the loner in the British boarding school they’d attended, the aloof presence that had been hard to get close to even though the Constantinides boys had tried to befriend him, having their own painful knowledge of a larger-than-life father.

Where had he drawn his strength? His belief in his vision? From some unshakable core inside of him?

She sank her teeth into her lip. “What happened when you developed a mind of your own? When it became apparent your philosophies differed from your father’s?”

“I tried to keep them inside in the beginning. My grandmother said it was better that way. But eventually, as I gained in confidence, as I acquired external validation of my ideas, they came out. I was considered a threat then. A competitor. Anyone who questioned my father’s practices was, and was suitably disposed of, but I, of course, posed the biggest threat of all—the blood heir who wanted a different way for his country. I wasn’t so easy to contain.”

“How could you coexist like that?”

“Uneasily. I made it clear to my father I would bide my time until it was my turn. In the meantime, I did the official engagements he couldn’t manage, presented a civilized facade to the world, attempted to keep the internal workings of the country moving while he obsessed about taking Akathinia. But with the onset of his dementia, with his increasingly erratic behavior, it became harder and harder to talk sense into him—to stand back and do nothing.”

Given how passionate Kostas had always been about his beliefs, it must have been crippling for him. A gnawing feeling took root in her stomach. A feeling that she had been vastly unfair. “Things escalated before you left.”

“Yes. There were those who wanted my father replaced, those who supported me and my democratic ideas and those who fought any decentralization of power that would strip them of theirs. It was a...tenuous situation threatening to implode at any minute.”

With him squarely in the middle of it—loathe to turn on his own flesh and blood no matter how wrong his father’s actions. Surrounded on all sides. The man in the middle of the storm.

The uneasy sensation in her gut intensified. She lifted her gaze to his. “Was that why you raced Athamos that night? Because you were frustrated? Because you weren’t in your right head?

“It was...complicated.”

Clearly, from the myriad of emotions consuming those dark eyes of his. The pieces of what had happened the night she’d lost her brother started to come together, beyond what Kostas had told her. She didn’t like the doubt that invaded her head as they did. The gray zone it put her in with the man she needed to have zero feelings for.

Confused was not how she needed to enter this evening.

Kostas straightened away from the dresser. “I should get dressed.” He handed her the sheaf of papers he was holding. “The final guest list. You should look it over.”

She curled her fingers around the papers, glad for something to do rather than feel things for this man she shouldn’t be feeling. “Anyone interesting coming out to play?”

“General Houlis and his two key lieutenants. You will stay away from them.”

“Why?”

“Because they are dangerous men. You may think you are a dragon slayer, Stella, and no doubt you are, but this side of things you will not involve yourself in. Devote yourself to getting to know the people I’ve highlighted. They are key social, business and political figures who will be valuable to you.”

She nodded. She would do that and get to know General Houlis, Kostas’s biggest foe, because he would be her enemy, too.

Kostas headed for the door. Halfway there, he turned. “What are you wearing, by the way?”

“That will be a surprise.”

His mouth tipped up at one corner. “I’m quite sure there will be enough of those tonight, but have it your way.”

He left. Page returned to finish her hair. Stella immersed herself in the guest list, going over each key name and title, committing them to memory. Thank goodness hers was photographic.

When she’d made it to the L’s, her eyes widened. Cassandra Liatos is attending? The guest of Captain Mena, one of General Houlis’s disciples, according to the list.

The woman Athamos had lost his life over. The woman her fiancé had most likely bedded.

Her pulse picked up into a steady thrum, blood pounding in her ears. An unimportant detail Kostas had forgotten to mention?

CHAPTER FOUR

“WE ARE LATE, Your Highness.”

Kostas was well aware of that fact as he waited for Stella in the foyer of the castle, the arrival of their first guests imminent. The crowds, he had been told, were in the tens of thousands in the courtyard, all of them waiting for a glimpse of their king and future queen.

The global media was also impatiently waiting for them, three rows deep behind the red stanchions, cameras at the ready. The need to greet both the people and the media before their guests began arriving weighed heavily on his mind, along with the speech he was about to give, perhaps the most important of his career. He did not have time for a recalcitrant princess making yet another expression of protest.

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