Page 42 of Promoted To His Princess

Voices drifted down the hall and she followed the sounds to the living room, pausing in the doorway as she discovered a restless Xerxes, pacing up and down in front of the windows, glaring at a tablet that had been propped up on the coffee table.

On the screen, the king’s massive, powerful frame was stretched out behind a desk as he signed a stack of official-looking papers. It looked a little strange. Adonis Nikolaides, the Lion of Axios, was a man built for the battlefield, not the boardroom.

‘I don’t know why you simply assumed I would lie for you, Xerxes,’ Adonis was saying, not looking at the camera, signing the paper in front of him and then putting it to one side before picking up another and scanning it quickly. ‘She’s already pregnant, and besides, a love affair between an infamous playboy and a palace guard is the stuff of fairy tales. No one will ever believe it, especially not given your reputation.’

Xerxes had his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. ‘If the press release comes from you, Adonis, people will believe it.’

His brother looked up from the stack of papers, his blue eyes glacial. ‘Are you giving orders to your king?’

Adonis’ deep voice was mild, but Xerxes clearly wasn’t deceived. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m giving orders to my stubborn-as-hell, hidebound brother.’

‘A king does not condone a lie,’ Adonis said implacably.

‘A king can bend the rules however he likes,’ Xerxes shot back. ‘I won’t have any hint of improper behaviour attached to Calista’s name, are we clear?’

Her heart gave a little kick against her breastbone, though she wasn’t sure why, when he was defending his reputation as well as hers. Then again, the way he’d said it made it sound as if he cared about how it would affect her, too.

Did you really expect him not to?

Maybe not. He’d been nothing but wonderful to her the last couple of days.

‘Perhaps you should have thought of that before you took her to bed,’ Adonis was saying, glancing back down at his papers and pulling another one towards him.

There was a pause as Xerxes came to a stop, glaring hard at the tablet. ‘Are we going to go there, then? Are you going to tell me that I owe you my life? Remind me of the promise I made to you when I returned? The promise I broke? Are you going to make me beg for it, brother?’ His eyes glittered with a very real anger. ‘Because I have to tell you, I’ve been there, done that, and for your sake, already.’

Some kind of fierce expression flickered across Adonis’ granite features, but it was gone so fast Calista wasn’t sure if it had been there at all. ‘You know I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m not our father, Xerxes.’

‘But the throne is more important than anything else, am I right?’

‘More important than what you want?’ Adonis said. ‘Yes.’

There was a pause.

Xerxes said nothing, gazing at the tablet, his jaw tight, his figure tense.

‘She matters to you, doesn’t she?’ Adonis was looking directly at the camera now and Calista’s gut lurched. She shouldn’t be here, eavesdropping like a spy. This was a private conversation and she didn’t need to hear it.

You want to, though.

No, of course she didn’t. Yet she didn’t move.

‘Will you help her?’ Xerxes demanded, not answering the question. ‘She’ll be a royal princess, after all, so keeping her pregnancy out of the news until we’re married will be in your interests as well.’

Adonis was silent. Then abruptly he looked away, back to his stack of papers. ‘You’re causing a scandal, Xerxes. But I suppose that’s nothing new. Very well. You can have your story of some kind of ridiculous love affair, and I’ll back you up. I’ll give you my approval to marry her.’ He picked up another piece of paper. ‘But if you’re unfaithful to her, if you create another scandal for me to deal with, then make no mistake, I’ll strip you of your titles and banish you a second time. Is that understood?’

Calista took a breath at the ice in the king’s voice. There was no give in it, none whatsoever.

‘Yes,’ Xerxes bit out. ‘Your Majesty.’ Then he reached forward, touching the screen of the tablet, and Adonis disappeared.

He straightened, his back to Calista, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans once more. ‘You saw all of that, I take it?’

Shock coursed down Calista’s spine. He’d known she was there all along.

‘I’m sorry.’ She pushed herself away from the doorframe. ‘I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.’

Xerxes turned slowly to face her.

His gaze was dark and absolutely unreadable, and he didn’t smile, the warm, easy lover of the past few days vanishing. He was so tense, she wanted to go to him and put her hands on his shoulders and massage it away.

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