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“You should be in bed.”
She spun around at Nik’s deep baritone. He stood just inside the door, his jacket draped over his shoulder, leaning against the frame.
“It’s not midnight,” she noted, hating the bitter tone in her voice. “Was everyone passing out at the table?”
He eased away from the wall, tossed his jacket on a table and walked toward her. “I’ve called a summit of international leaders for two weeks’ time in Akathinia. There will be no military action.”
“You used your veto power?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She twisted a chunk of her hair around her finger as he stopped in front of her. “I am sure the international community will band behind you.”
“That is the hope.”
Silence fell. He reached out and ran his thumb across her cheek. She flinched away from his touch, her chin coming up.
A blaze of fire sparked in his eyes, but he banked it down. “You look exhausted, agapi mou. Is it the baby?”
A surge of fury bubbled up inside of her. She shook her head, attempting to contain it. Nik narrowed his gaze on her. “What?”
She yanked in a breath in an attempt to find calm, but it all came tumbling out. “You shut me out as if I don’t exist for two weeks, while I worry about you, while I worry about what’s going to happen, then you waltz in here and ask me why I look tired? Why I’m not myself? Did you ever stop to think at any point in this crusade of yours what this is doing to me, Nik? Did you even care?”
His jaw hardened. “I told you this was going to be all consuming. That I wouldn’t be home much.”
“All consuming? You haven’t said ten sentences to me. You’ve tuned me out like the unnecessary complication you like to view me as instead of that partnership you offered.”
“Would you prefer I woke you at midnight to give you an update?”
“Yes. At least I’d know you were okay. Instead I’ve relied on Abram to tell me how my fiancé is holding up.”
Something she couldn’t read flickered in his eyes.
“Unless,” she amended, “it had been the two or three nuggets you chose to enlighten me with before you used me to assuage your frustration.”
The glitter in his eyes sparked into a dangerous blue flame. “You were wholly into that, Sofi´a.”
“Yes, I was. I wanted to comfort you, to connect with you so desperately, Nik, I would have done anything to make you feel better. Including letting you use me for sex.”
He stepped closer, clenching his hands by his sides. “I did not use you for sex.”
“Then what was it? Me comforting you the way I do it best?”
His lashes lowered. “I told you there would be difficult times. Times we had to get through together.”
“Together being the operative word. Since then, you have demonstrated how that will work for us. How you will let me in when it pleases you to, then shut me out when you decide I’m getting too close.” She lifted her chin. “It was never a real offer of intimacy, was it? I was just too stupid to figure it out.”
“I have let you in.”
“You think you’ve let me in. I’m sure you’d call it a superstar effort. But your fixation on proving yourself, on demonstrating to your father how wrong he is about you, how you have this all under control, leaves you with nothing left over for me or anything else.”
His face tightened. “I am focused on preserving this country’s freedom. My father has nothing to do with it.”
“Really?” She shook her head. “I suggest you think long and hard on that. Because to me you’re becoming more like him every day. You’re becoming just as dictatorial, just as obsessed about the end goal. And to hell with everyone and everything in between.”
His face tightened. “I could question your own selfishness, Sofi´a. Now is the time for you to be supporting me, when this country is in the biggest crisis of its history. And what are you doing? Giving me grief about paying attention to you.”
A strangled sound left her throat. She threw her hands up in the air. “And what happens when the next crisis comes? And the next? Life is never going to be simple for us. You said that yourself. You asked me to stand beside you, to do this together. I have done that, Nik. I am playing queen-to-be to the very limits of my ability. But if you can’t let me in, if I’m doing this by myself, it isn’t going to work. I will not commit myself to a marriage, to a life with a man who isn’t willing to share himself.”
