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Matteo had a will of iron and he’d yet to find anyone who could meaningfully test it. Somehow, she was. “You do not have the right to refuse me.”
“Will you throw me in the dungeon?” She stared him down blinking slowly and she did indeed put him in the mind of a mouse, but not as many people might imagine one of the small rodents. No. For she was not skittish and easily spooked. She was bright-eyed and immovable. And he had the feeling that if he made the wrong move, she would slip through his grasp completely.
“You don’t think I will?”
“No, I don’t. Because you and I both know that you’re not the sort of king who leaves people to rot in dungeons, are you? That was your father. And you’re not your father. You do a very good impersonation of an arrogant ass, but you’re not a cruel man, and we both know it.”
“I could’ve left you by the side of the road.”
“You couldn’t have. Your great tragedy, Matteo, is that you have a heart. Encrusted in coal though it may be.”
“Livia, I have thought this over extensively. I am a man who knows his duty to his country, to his people. I’m a man who understands the office of Queen, and what will be required of her. And I have decided that you are the one to fill that office.”
“You are mistaken, with respect, Your Majesty.”
“Mouse...”
Her gaze sharpened. “I’m not a seventeen-year-old girl. Not anymore. I cannot be swayed by the fear of losing all that you’ve given me. Nor will I be swayed by the fear of losing the great blessing of being in your presence. You cannot threaten me. You cannot manipulate me.”
She looked back at her computer screen. And Matteo was confronted by the fact that he might very well have met an object he could not move.
Livia wished, very much, that she could say she was surprised by Matteo’s proposal. But no. In fact, by her calculations he was almost a full day early in his proposal from her original estimation, which was maybe the only surprising part about it.
She had known it was coming.
She had known it with a strange, depressing sort of certainty that really didn’t bear mulling over much. She had been counting on this, from the moment that she had found out his marriage to Violet King was off because she had taken up with his brother, Prince Javier.
Yes, she had known that Matteo’s proposal would be coming.
The worst part was, when Matteo’s engagement to Violet had been dissolved, she’d experienced a moment of absolute and complete joy. She had let the rush of all her girlish fantasies come back and flood her, fill her with the kind of hope that women with her background simply couldn’t afford to have.
But she had allowed it for a moment.
Just for a moment.
She had allowed herself to wonder. What if. To dream. It was so easy for her to conjure up the image of her perfect wedding. A royal one, large and lavish—not so much because it was what she wanted, but because it came with loving a king.
And she did love him. She had from the time she’d been a seventeen-year-old girl plucked out of the gutter by his royal hand. How could she not?
He was the most devastatingly handsome man she had ever seen. Of course, she’d been terrified of him at first, for he was not a safe sort of beast. No. He was a lion. Regal and majestic, and utterly capable of devastating any foe that came his way; willing and able to flex his unparalleled strength if need be. It had been obvious to her from the beginning, no matter that he tried to affect the posture of a civilized man, that Matteo was anything but. He had made a concerted effort to show the people of Monte Blanco that he was not his father. That his rule would not be marked by the same scorch that his father’s reign had. There would be no dungeons. There would be no imprisonments. No more people disappearing in the dead of night for an imagined whisper against the King. No. There would be none of that. He had promised it would be so.
But she had known, always, that the same sort of danger lurked beneath the surface of Matteo’s skin. And she didn’t think it was simply because she had spent years out on the streets avoiding the dangers all around her.
Not only that, at least.
But in spite of the danger he represented, or perhaps because of it, she had found herself becoming utterly infatuated with him.
And she had known there was no way the two of them could ever be together.
She was an urchin. And a rather plain one at that.
And he was... He was the King.
At least, that was what she had thought then, with all her silly, girlish hopes. But over the years, she could see that Matteo had started to think of her as a sort of Swiss Army knife; a woman who could, and did, perform any task he so desired. And as a result, she had realized—after the high of her joy over his broken engagement had worn off—that there was no chance at all he wasn’t going to seize the opportunity to have a Swiss Army wife. It was just the sort of man he was.
And she knew that had nothing to do with the way he felt about her, not personally. It had everything to do with how she could serve him. And the idea of being in a perfunctory, passionless marriage with Matteo honestly made her wish she was dead.
Because she had spent years living beneath his notice. Years sending breakup gifts to the various mistresses that he had cast off. Coming up with excuses for why he couldn’t meet them, and in general, dealing with discreet rendezvous. She had seen the women he liked. Even Violet King, Javier’s wife and Matteo’s former fiancée, hadn’t been quite his type of beauty.
