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Maxim
It’s interesting watching my guests. When they arrived, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from one person only because Cassie looked like a star in the darkest night sky. She is dazzling and I can’t believe my luck. A beautiful jewel in my crown and one that I should keep protected and guarded at all times because it appears I have competition. My brother can’t tear his own eyes from her and it unsettles me more than I’m letting on. So many emotions are playing out around this table it’s hard to breathe.
Every person here except for my friends and mother are struggling with emotions they don’t understand. Just seeing the unhappy faces of Cassie’s friends tells me something has happened, and I wonder if that’s the reason for her own miserable look.
I feel so frustrated because I have no time to spend with her tonight in private. I physically ache to hold her in my arms and reassure her that everything will be ok, but how? I have an important job to do and only when the wedding is over can I fully relax and keep her closer than I have ever held anyone in my life.
Just thinking of that moment makes me unbearably hard already because the sexual tension has been building since I unmasked her at the ball. I know she hates her reaction to me, is surprised by it even and just imagining what those feelings will unleash when I unwrap my destiny is making me eager to move this on.
Somehow, we make it through the various courses that have been designed as a banquet for kings. All the local delicacies and the decadent ones we rarely taste. Oysters, caviar, lobster and the finest beef, all served with mouth-watering side dishes designed to please the palette of most people. Fine wines and champagne to toast our futures are consumed with an underlying amount of tension they struggle to disguise.
Wishing like crazy I could spend the evening eating takeout in bed with the woman beside me, I wonder if that’s something I can make happen in the very near future. I only want to be with her, to touch her, to hold her and to reassure her that everything will be ok. But will it, will it ever be ok all the time Victor desires what’s mine?
Wondering about the men at the table, I can’t imagine what they’re thinking now. Even I can reach out and touch the tension building and among it all sits a woman who doesn’t deserve to be caught in the middle. More than anyone here, she must be protected at all costs and just imagining Victor making his move causes the sweat to pour off me as I sense there is one thing I can’t control—him.
Ryder is taking it all in and I lean closer and whisper, “I must thank you for all your help. I just want to let you know that before our meeting this evening.”
He nods and out of everyone here, I need him more than anyone and yet he needs to know I’m to be trusted. Of all of them, he needs to know the most and I feel sick thinking of what may happen later tonight.
As the cheese course is cleared away, I catch my mother’s eye, and she nods, before saying, “Ladies, if you would like to follow me, coffee will be served in the library.”
If anything, Cassie’s friends look relieved and as for the woman herself, she looks—angry.
It takes me back a little because from the misery on her friend’s face and the tightness to Cassie’s own jaw, tells me something has happened that neither of them are happy about.
As she makes to stand, I grasp her wrist tightly and pull her down toward me and whisper, “I’ll come and find you. Whatever’s bothering you needs dealing with—tonight.”
Her eyes flash as she regards me with a cool look and I feel so frustrated because this meeting is the most important thing right now, even more important than her, which tells me duty sucks—big time and I need to make this quick.
She nods and breaks away and as she walks behind my mother, I catch Victor’s eye and he raises his glass to me in a toast. Sly bastard, I knew it. He’s done something and once again, it appears that I’m going to take the blame.
Sighing, I stare at Baron with a pointed look and he nods before standing and saying loudly, “We must leave the kings to their meeting. Cigars and brandy are waiting in the billiard room.”
He stares at Victor, who looks mighty pissed at being included in the dismissal, and I know my friends are under strict instructions to watch him at all times tonight.
Feeling slightly better about that, I watch them leave and feel a surge of relief when the door closes behind them.
As we make our way, surrounded by my guards, to the west wing of the castle, I wonder what my guests make of all this.
Sometimes I find it hard to deal with, having lived most of my youth at school and on the mainland in college and university. Coming home to do my duty was a bitter pill to swallow because I loved my freedom. Craved it in fact, where I was shadowed discreetly by special operatives and allowed freedom with no one knowing who I was. A normal life that I treasured more than anything and now I’m their King. Unknown, forgotten and living under a veil of secrecy, which is why it’s imperative to deal with the problem that is threatening to blow all our secrets sky high.
We make our way to the west wing in silence, each of us contemplating a difficult evening ahead. A necessary evil because tomorrow will bring with it a new era. King Maxim and Queen Cassiopeia and they will rule side by side as it was always intended.
But a lot can happen in a short space of time and I have an unpleasant job to do first. Wishing like crazy it was over already, I lead them into a meeting that’s long overdue.
