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Idiot.
She scoffed at her wayward thinking. She was just unused to a man his size. He was taller than average, with a powerful set to his extremely broad shoulders. Lean and muscled, his physique and demeanour were imposing. And this close she could see his hair was a little bit too long, and a faint edge of stubble showed on his jaw, adding to the impression of edginess—of a man chafing at his constraints. And right now he was clearly inwardly struggling to contain a fierce emotion.
But the thought that King Giorgos might be struggling with latent rebelliousness was pure imagination. This was King Giorgos. The man had been King since his late teens—earnest and capable beyond his years. Yet suddenly all she could do was think about that streak of wildness and the size of his muscular thighs and the promise of physical power...
What was wrong with her? She swallowed, but it didn’t ease the dryness in her throat.
She realised that he was silently scrutinising her as much as she was him. But he had that hostility in his eyes again, and a moody set to his jaw. His whole positioning was tense. Something was off. Something was wrong. And she had no idea how she was supposed to help.
‘Is it Princess Eleni?’ she asked softly.
He sat very still. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘She missed her visit today. She never misses her visits.’
He watched her...waiting. Something swirled in the atmosphere between them. The luxurious car suddenly felt cramped—as if she were too close to him, as if he could see into her mind. She felt compelled
to fill the silence—anything to deflect this pull she felt, pushing her nearer to him.
‘She was unwell last week,’ she added, licking her dry lips.
‘Unwell in what way?’
Foreboding slithered down her spine at the ice in his voice.
‘She was dizzy. She said she’d had a bug recently.’ She frowned as she swallowed again. ‘Is she okay?’
If she wasn’t then the King ought to be summoning a doctor, not a physiotherapist.
‘Did anyone else notice that she was unwell?’ he asked. ‘Did anyone ask about her?’
Kassie shook her head—then froze. Damon, her half-brother, had appeared just after the Princess had walked away. He’d asked her who she’d been talking to. Now she thought about it, Damon had been too curious—and stunned when he’d learned the Princess’s identity. Why had he been so surprised?
‘Ms Marron?’ the King prompted.
Chills whipped across her skin, chafing where heat had burned only moments ago. Perhaps this wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. Perhaps there was something very wrong. She barely knew her half-brother, Damon, but she wasn’t about to throw him under a bus. Not until she understood exactly what was going on.
King Giorgos’s expression hardened as she remained silent. He knew she was holding something back. How did he know that?
‘You attended a ball at the palace a few weeks ago,’ he said coldly.
‘Yes.’ There was no point in lying—but she didn’t need to offer any more information than necessary, right?
‘Why?’
Her heart thumped. ‘It was for charity. For the hospital.’
‘But you didn’t go with the hospital staff. You attended as the guest of someone else.’
She hadn’t been one of the lucky staff to win a lottery invitation, but Damon had taken her—the only thing she’d let herself take from the half-brother she’d met only a few months before. Damon had seemed preoccupied when they’d left the ball, but she’d been too deep in thought herself to notice much; she didn’t really know him well enough to ask if he was okay. She should have asked.
But then Damon had asked that random question—more than once. ‘Did you see that woman in the blue wig and black mask? Do you know who she is?’
Kassie hadn’t even seen who he’d meant—there’d been plenty of women in wigs...it had been a masquerade ball, after all. It could have been anyone, right? But not Princess Eleni. Everyone knew that the Princess hadn’t attended the ball that night because she’d been unwell with a migraine.
But once more Kassie remembered the look of utter astonishment on Damon’s face when he’d learned that Princess Eleni was the visitor he’d overheard at the hospital that day a few weeks later.
‘You see my sister every week. I hear she likes to talk to you?’
