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“Perhaps,” he said, taking a long drag of his own coffee.
“Look. Even if I do marry your brother, you’re going to want me to do this.”
“He didn’t leave orders to do it. I have no personal feelings on the matter.”
“If you get your way, I’m going to live here for the rest of my life,” she said, her voice finally overtaken by emotion. “You don’t even want me to see the place? Don’t you think that I should be able to... Envision what my life will be?”
This was not a business negotiation. Finally. She wasn’t playing at being sharp and witty, or shallow and vapid. Not holding a board meeting curled up in her canopy bed. This, finally, was something real.
And he was not immune to it, he found.
“I’ll see what I can accomplish.”
She picked up her toast and took a bite of it with ferocity. “Well. At least I approve of your food.” She set the toast back down on the plate and brushed some crumbs away from her lips.
She managed to look imperious and ridiculous all at once.
He could not imagine his brother wrangling this creature. She was as mercurial as she was mystifying, and Javier had never been in a position where he had to deal with a woman on this level.
When it came to his personal relationships with women, they weren’t all that personal. They were physical. Suddenly, he was in an entanglement with a beautiful woman that was all... All too much to do with her feelings.
“Finish your toast,” he said briskly. “I will send a member of staff to escort you downstairs in roughly an hour. And then, it is time we begin your training.”
* * *
Violet muttered to herself as she made her way down the vast corridor and toward the ballroom. “Begin your training... Wax on. Wax off.”
This was ludicrous. And she was beginning to get severely anxious. She had been in Monte Blanco for more than twelve hours. She had not seen the mysterious King—who had vanished off on some errand, if Javier was to be believed—and she didn’t seem to be making any headway when it came to talking herself out of her engagement.
But she was the one who had decided she was better off trying to take the bull by the horns, rather than running and hiding in California. She supposed she had to own the consequences of that rash decision, made in anger.
The castle was vast, and even though she had received rather explicit instructions on how to get to the ballroom, she was a bit concerned that she might just end up lost forever in these winding, glittering halls. Like being at the center of a troll’s mountain horde. All gems and glitter and danger.
And as she walked int
o the vast ballroom and saw Javier standing there at the center, she felt certain she was staring at the Mountain King. She knew he wasn’t the King. Javier was acting on his brother’s behest; he had said so many times. Except it was impossible for her to imagine that this man took orders from anyone.
It took her a moment to realize there was someone else in the room. A small round woman with an asymmetrical blond haircut and a dress comprised of layers of chiffon draped over her body like petals.
“The future Queen is here,” she said excitedly. “We can begin. My name is Sophie. I will be instructing you in basic Monte Blancan ballroom dance techniques.”
“They could be anyone’s ballroom dance techniques,” Violet said. “They would still be completely new to me.”
“You say that like it should frighten me,” Sophie said. “It doesn’t. Especially not with the Prince acting as your partner.”
Violet froze. “He dances?” She pointed at him.
“I have been part of the royal family all of my life,” he said. “That necessitated learning various customs. Including, of course, ballroom dancing. There is nothing that you will be subjected to over the course of this training that I was not. And a great many things you will be spared.”
There was a darkness to that statement that made a tremor resonate inside of her. But before she could respond to it, he had reached his hand out and taken hold of hers, drawing her up against the hardness of his chest.
He was hot.
And her heart stuttered.
And she felt...
She felt the beginnings of something she had read about. Heard about... But never, ever experienced before.
