Page 25 of King's Heir of Hate

She wanted everything. The mess, the passion, thehurtof it all. The love that had changed them both so profoundly. The love that they both deserved.

Ahusband, not an officemate.

Her man, not just a king.

And it was also true that she had no idea how she was going to go about getting it, but Esme knew one thing.

Last night had been an excellent start.

Chapter Seven

AS THE DAYSpassed and the nights continued to set them both afire, Tadeo came to the careful, considered conclusion that everything was going well.

Or as well as could be expected.

It had been a bit of a rocky start to this new phase in their marriage, he could admit. Possibly only rocky for him, little as he liked to imagine himself so affected, but the reality was that Esme seemed as unaffected as ever. As if she had only been waiting for the opportunity to have something far closer to a real marriage and was happy to dive straight in.

As if she was less thrown by the uncontrollable wildfire that still burned between them. As if shelikedit.

He could not allow himself to think abouthow muchshe liked it when he was attending to his many duties during the day. And yet, too often, he could think of nothing else.

The first night that Esme had come to his room had thrown him. He hadn’t expected that she would ever manage to keep her mouth shut. He had never known her to try. The girl he’d met in Boston had been a revelation. She had shared her ideas, her dreams, her theories, her opinions, her questions, her silliness—all seemingly without a shred of concern that she might be judged for these things.

Indeed, Tadeo had not judged her. He’d been too smitten with her.

Esme had burst into his life and shown him all the light and possibility that he’d been raised to abhor, because his father wasa man of neither too few nor too many words. King Hugo prided himself on always being concise. Precise.

Pointed.

And he never spoke simply to fill a space.

Tadeo had aspired to be just like him.

Meanwhile, Esme’s words could fill rooms and paint them too, in all the vibrant colors she held inside her. Sometimes, in the long years of this cold marriage, he had found himself awake when he ought to have been sleeping—imagining what it looked like inside her head. How bright it must be in there.

How different from this kingdom of icy winters and cool summers, and the deep freeze he kept himself in. Even if it was by choice.

This was why he’d been so certain that the deal he’d made with her favored him. He had never known her to stay quiet for too long. Not even when she should have.

He’d convinced himself she would never manage it. That she would be too busy finding new and clever ways to eviscerate him with her tongue to ever follow the rules that would lead her to his bed. That she mighttryto make it happen, but would fail at the slightest provocation.

That she hadn’t made him wonder if he knew her as well as he’d always assumed he did.

She had fallen asleep in his arms and he held her there, liking the sensation entirely too much. He stared at the ceiling, wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake.

Again.

But as the night went on, he decided that he could handle this. He could handle their chemistry as long as it was confined to the spaces where it belonged and could thus be contained. What he could not allow was it bleeding over into everything else. He was not a graduate student any longer. He could not be soreckless this time. He was a king and he had a whole kingdom to consider. He could not let passion make everythingblur.

Tadeo decided that he could do it, and more, that this was a natural and reasonable evolution in their marriage—providing he maintained the strictest control outside the bedroom. They were husband and wife. Their marriage looked like the fairy tale they’d crafted it to be to please the outside world. He already knew she was an excellent queen in all the ways that mattered to the kingdom.

There was no reason why she couldn’t make him a kind of wife that he wanted, too, sex included. It had been so long since Boston now. It was all less raw.

He knew better than to let his feelings trick his tongue into admissions that might ruin him.

As long as he maintained the strict control of his emotions that he’d held in place since breaking up with her back then—and they were second nature to him now, a part of who he was, as automatic as breathing—Tadeo couldn’t see why it would be a problem.

And besides, Esme could not help but be who she was. That meant she could not always control her mouth and some nights, he was quite certain she didn’t even bother to try.