Page 17 of King's Heir of Hate

He studied her. This time he thought the color on her face was for a different reason. “But that comes with a caveat.”

“What a shock,” she breathed.

“We will not discuss these things again,” he told her, like thunder. “The rules are the rules. In private, you can talk all you like, but you may not touch me. Or you can touch me, but you must do so silently.”

She blinked. “You can’t possibly think this is healthy. This…psychotic compartmentalization. Can you?”

He moved then, responding to that part of himself he tried so hard to keep on ice, and instead of trying to lock himself down—he indulged himself.

Something he almost never did, because this fierce, overwhelming wildness surged up in him immediately. As if it onlywaitedfor an opportunity to burst free. It threatened to knock him over where he stood.

It was an irresistible riptide, hauling him out to sea whether he liked it or not.

Today—here—he allowed it.

Tadeo didn’t fight it. He let it take him, and he closed the space between them to loop a hand around her neck. Tight enough to lift her chin up. Tight enough that he could feel the way her skin heated and her pulse went wild.

And he was close enough that he could see the look in her eyes that he both craved and tried to avoid. All that longing and need. All that glorious passion he had finally decided he could taste—but only if there were rules.

That was what he’d concluded very early this morning, after exhausting himself. He’d stood in the gallery where their wedding portrait hung—so formal and controlled—and he’d finally conceded that what had brought them here was a failure. His failure.

But he would not fail again, and that meant rethinking the boundaries that he’d maintained for the whole of his life.

“What about any of this would you callhealthy, Esme?” he demanded, his voice unrecognizable, like a stream of smoke.

Her mouth was so close to his and he had the taste of her on his tongue already. It would be so easy—

But he could not allow it.

Tadeo had to prove to her that he could maintain the boundaries he had set out. He had to prove it tohimself.

He made himself let go of her.

He made himself step back.

There was a kind of exultation in the pain of it—in forcing himself to do this thing he did not wish to do at all, because it wasright. He needed the reminder.

“I suggest you take yourself back to the manor house,” he told her. “And pack. Or I will instruct my staff to bring over only what I think you need.”

She only stared back at him, her gaze dark and glimmering and utterly unreadable. “What a charming invitation.”

“It is an order, Your Majesty,” he said formally. “But you can call it what you like. Either way you will be fully installed in this palace and under my control by tonight. I suggest you start thinking about how you intend to handle it.”

And then he tested himself even further. He didn’t wait for her to respond. He didn’t give her the opportunity to land another blow.

He turned on his heel, walked out of that salon, and left her there.

Even though every last part of him screamed for him to go back and finish what he started.

As deep and hard as possible.

Chapter Five

LEAVING THE MANORhouse was painful.

Esme found herself close to tears, when really, she should have been celebrating. Steps were being taken, finally. She was moving closer to Tadeo, which was the right direction to be moving in. She knew that it was better for their baby. She hoped it would give them a chance to be…something different from this cold storage of marriage they’d been in all this time.

But it didn’t matter what sheknewor what shehoped. It still hurt, because this house of exile and the staff who’d helped her make it a home had been her world for seven long years. She said goodbye to each member of her staff personally. There were many hugs and promises that this would not change a thing, though Esme wasn’t sure if any of them believed it.