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He rarely let his emotions get the better of him. Little ruffled Zale. Virtually nothing got under his skin. But tonight everything about Emmeline had gotten to him. She wasn’t the one he’d remembered. She was nothing like the cool ice princess of the past. And tonight she’d managed to turn him inside out.
Not good, he told himself, walking to his own suite of rooms in the next wing.
He wasn’t supposed to be emotionally involved with Emmeline. As they both knew, their union wasn’t a love match but a carefully orchestrated arrangement with significant financial incentives. Every step of their relationship had been outlined and detailed in the final draft of the seventy-page document they’d sign in the morning.
He could want her, desire her and enjoy her but he couldn’t ever forget that their relationship was first, and foremost, business.
Business, he reminded himself sternly, which meant he couldn’t allow himself to get distracted, not even by a beautiful face and lush body.
Fortunately Zale was famous for his discipline. That same discipline ensured success in school, in sport and then as Raguva’s sovereign.
Growing up the second of three sons, no one placed pressure on him. No one had particularly high expectations for him. But Zale had high expectations for himself. From a young age he was determined to find his own place in the world, would carve a niche that was uniquely his. And so while his older brother, Stephen VII, Raguva’s Crown Prince, had learned the fundamentals of ruling a monarchy, Zale had learned the fundamentals of football.
His older brother would be king one day and Zale would play professional sport.
Zale had been sixteen and attending boarding school in England when nineteen-year-old Stephen, in his second year at Trinity College, had been diagnosed with leukemia. His parents and Tinny had relocated to London to be with Stephen during the grueling chemo and radiation treatments.
For three years Stephen fought hard. For three years he endured horrific pain in hopes that the debilitating treatments would knock the leukemia into remission.
Zale had felt helpless. There was nothing he could do. Not for Stephen. Or his parents. And so he poured himself into his sport, needing a focus, a fight of his own. His self-imposed training regime had been grueling—three, four hours a day—running, weight training, sit-ups, push-ups, sprints, drills. He pushed himself to breaking point each day. He worked to muscle failure. It was the least he could do. Stephen was fighting for his life. Zale should struggle, too.
After passing his exams, Zale made the decision to follow his brother to Oxford, where in his first year he made the university’s football club’s first team, the Blues.
In his second year he carried the Blues to Oxford’s newly created Premier League where they finished top.
Stephen was there for the last big game of their season. He’d insisted on attending and their father, Raguva’s king, pushed frail Stephen into the stadium in a wheelchair and no one cheered louder than Stephen during the game.
A week after the game, Stephen had died. Zale blamed himself. The day at the stadium had been too much for Stephen. He shouldn’t have gone.
Zale remembered nothing of his final year at Oxford. It was a blur shaped by grief. The only time he felt present in his skin was on the pitch. By the time he graduated, four different football clubs competed to sign him to their team.
He’d signed with a top Spanish club despite his parents disapproval. They had wanted him to return to Raguva—he was the Crown Prince now—but Zale didn’t want to be king. He had a love, a passion, a dream. It was football.
Football, Zale silently repeated, entering his suite of four rooms, which had served every Raguvian king for the past five hundred years.
His valet was waiting for him in his dressing room, the King’s Dressing Room, where the sumptuous curtains had been drawn across the wall of leaded windows, shutting out the night.
“Was it a good evening, Your Majesty?” his valet asked, assisting Zale out of his formal jacket.
“It was, Armand, thank you.” Zale’s jaw tightened as he began unbuttoning his vest and dress shirt.
No, he’d never wanted to be king, had no desire to rule, but when his parents’ plane had crashed on landing, of course he came home. And he turned his tremendous discipline and drive to his reign.
He’d be a great king.
He owed it to his people, his parents and most of all, Stephen.
Hannah slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning in her ornate bed in her sumptuous bedroom, dreaming of Zale, dreaming of leaving, dreaming of finding Emmeline only to lose her again.
She woke repeatedly during the night to check the clock, anxious about the time, anxious about getting to the airport in the morning. At three she climbed out of bed to push the heavy drapes open, exposing the window with the night sky and quarter moon.
