AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Again with the army and Axios. He loved his country and he would lead its armies, but that wasn’t all he wanted, not now. Where had her dedication come from? This one-eyed view of what life could be? It didn’t have to be so all-or-nothing. Even in the dark days in Europe, he’d allowed himself some consolations, such as sex for example. But she didn’t even want that?
‘Why?’ he asked, curious. ‘There are other ways to serve your country that are much more exciting than following Adonis or me around all day.’
‘My father was a soldier. He was a captain and I wanted to follow in his footsteps.’ She paused, then added, ‘And our country is important to me. I want to help protect it, defend it. I’ve worked hard for years to get where I am and I don’t want to throw that all away on marriage.’
He understood that. She must have faced many challenges to get where she was today; he knew what an army career was like all too well.
‘Is it the glory you want?’ he asked. ‘Is that the big drawcard?’
She sat ramrod straight, at attention like the soldier she was, and he had an urge to put down his mug, and go over to her, put his hands on her stiff shoulders and massage away those little knots of tension.
‘No.’ Her voice held conviction, but there was something else flickering in her eyes that he couldn’t identify. ‘I don’t care about glory. I love this country and I can’t think of a greater privilege than serving it.’
That sounded like his father. Too like his father.
‘And your child?’ he asked, because she would have to understand this sooner or later. ‘Where does that leave the child? If you don’t marry me, what will you do instead? Mothers can certainly be soldiers, but if they are they usually have a partner to look after their children, or day care to send them to. Tell me, who will be looking after our child, Calista? Or will they have to come second to Axios?’
That unidentified emotion flickered across her face again, and it looked like shock. Then she glanced away abruptly, her jaw tight. ‘I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.’
A strange feeling shifted in Xerxes’ chest, one he wasn’t expecting. Sympathy. He knew what it was like to be stripped of your choices, to feel—as well as to be literally—trapped. He didn’t enjoy doing the same to her. But it had to be done.
Failure was not an option.
Calista looked back at him again. ‘Why are you being so insistent about this?’
She was one for blunt questions, wasn’t she? She had been up in the helicopter, and he’d surprised both of them by telling her the truth about why he’d left the military. It wasn’t something many people knew, and part of him had wanted to tell everyone when he’d returned to Axios, precisely because his father had never spoken of it. But Adonis had counselled otherwise. It was better to let it go, his brother had advised. Let it stay forgotten. And because he hadn’t cared one way or the other, that was what he’d done.
He still didn’t care, not about that. So why not tell her? The truth wouldn’t hurt.
‘Because I’ve failed a great many people in my life.’ He met her level gaze. ‘But I will not fail my child.’
‘How will marrying me help?’
‘Because I want him or her to live with me in the palace, where I can protect them. And they’ll need a mother. They’ll need a family. Marriage will give them that.’
Calista’s knuckles whitened on the arm of her chair as her grip tightened. ‘And where do I fit in to all of that?’
He watched the sun slide over her hair, igniting shades of gold and caramel and gilt, and his hands itched, wanting to touch it. ‘Where do you fit? In my bed, of course.’
Her gaze snapped back to his and it was clear that she did not like that, not one bit. The flare of her temper was like heat from a furnace, bursting up through the cracks in her discipline like flames through an iron grating, and he could feel his own rising to meet it, adrenaline flooding through him.
God, what he wouldn’t give to channel her anger into passion and pleasure, to ease the tension he could sense inside her. He’d done that for her once before and she’d loved it. She’d been so hungry for it.
‘That’s all you want from me?’ she demanded. ‘Sex and my child?’
‘Our child,’ he corrected. ‘And as far as anything else, what more can you offer me?’
Her chin came up, amber eyes glittering with gold fire. ‘Don’t play these games with me, Your Highness. I’m not one of your pretty little toys. I could kill you where you stand.’
Such a warrior. He loved it.
He smiled, every muscle in his body tightening at the thought of her attempting to do exactly that. ‘Try it, soldier. See how far you get.’
For a second he thought she actually might, the look in her eyes blazing. The pulse at the base of her throat was beating fast, the dappled sunlight coming through the grapevine above their heads shining on her skin like drops of pure gold.
He wanted her to get up from her chair and reach for him. And he would put his hands on her, gather her anger and change it, turn it into pleasure.
But she didn’t move, her expression hardening, going utterly rigid. It was as if she’d poured cold water on the fire of her anger and doused it utterly. ‘I need to rest now,’ she said, her voice stiff. ‘Please show me to my room.’
