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‘I do, but it’s a risk.’
The Spaniard grinned, a light in his eyes, his arm thudding around Aleksander’s shoulders. ‘Since when did we play it safe?’
‘We don’t have much time.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Kozlov is all ego and would love nothing better than to best me, since I am why he lost his company. What if I gave him that chance?’
Javier’s eyes narrowed in concentration. ‘Go on.’
‘He’s in Macau right now,’ Aleksander said, thankful for Gunnar’s efficient intelligence-gathering. ‘He’s there for two days and then he’s off. If we were to be in the same casino, what are the chances that he’d be so damn desperate to beat me at cards that he’d bet anything?’
‘You think you can force him to put his membership as the ante?’
‘Only if I offer him mine.’
Javier whistled. ‘Thatisa risk. I’m not sure the others will like it.’
‘They won’t, and I don’t have the time to talk them round.’
Javier grinned. ‘You want me to do it.’ After a brief consideration, he nodded in agreement. ‘But,’ he warned, ‘you will owe me.’
‘Fair enough,’ Aleksander said, turning back to their cabin, his attention already on the fact that he and Henna would now be heading to Macau. Henna, who had been the key to solving the Kozlov problem. Henna, who had asked him for everything...and he had refused. Because in less than a week his future bride would be presented to the world...and it wasn’t Henna.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HENNAHADTRAVELLEDto many places with Freya over the last five years, but never in the King’s plane. The aircraft had a shower, a bedroom that was as big as her suite and chair and table combinations that were cream leather and mahogany that screamed luxury.
She had taken the news about their new destination in resigned silence. She had stripped herself raw asking for more than he was prepared to give. But it had been her only chance to have the man she’d wanted from the first time she’d seen him. She could admit that to herself now. That all these years she had been hiding from the truth. Aleksander was far more than the older brother of her best friend, more than her employer, more than her King even.
Aleksander’s awareness of her was as powerful as a touch. He might be staring intently at the emails she’d handled for him during his meetings in Öström, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of it, theweight. She gratefully reached for the cup the air steward had brought her, the smell tingling her senses as she inhaled deeply and tiredly. Taking a sip, she sighed as the familiar flavours of bergamot and citrus hit her tongue. She let it soothe some of the tired hurt she felt pressing at the edges of her heart.
‘It’s good.’ He nodded again, clearing his throat. ‘Very good.’
She nodded, accepting his praise awkwardly. That was the problem. Since they’d left Öström—since he’d refused her request—they were out of step with each other again, even more so than since the Vårboll. It scratched at her skin and scrabbled back and forth across her stomach. It made her feel... She sighed and pressed her head back against the seat.
Things had shifted between them, of course they had. But she’d not been able to get her feet back on steady ground. She’d only made things worse.
‘What are you drinking?’ Aleksander asked, as if confused by the scent of her tea, an unusual type for Svardians.
She smiled, genuine warmth spreading through her as the memory rose in her mind. ‘Earl Grey. It was my mother’s favourite. My father told me that she was very specific about how the cup was made. Tea first, then milk.’
‘No lemon?’ he asked, familiar with the English tea.
‘Though I’m sure there are those that would say she had it wrong, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.’
‘Is it okay for me to ask what your mother was like?’
Henna met his gaze, the look in his eyes one of someone who knew loss only as a deep wrenching pain. Her own was so different because of the way her father had shared her loss and grief, and his memories of her mother’s joy and vibrant personality.
‘Colourful. Every picture of her is full of intense bright colours,’ she said, seeing the framed photographs she had taken from around the house and hidden in her bedroom before Viveca’s mother arrived. ‘My father met her in England, when he worked in his London office, and they fell in love. She didn’t think twice about following him to Svardia. She passed away shortly after I was born from an aneurism, but my father would tell me something new about her every single day, even after he got sick. He made my feelings of loss for her something else. He turned it into curiosity and familiarity and warmth,’ she said with a shrug. And when the echo of pain thudded in her chest for her father, she wrapped her arms around it and held onto the ache of her love tightly.
Aleksander was watching her intently in that way of his that made her feel seen. ‘Who was there for you when you lost your father?’
You.
Henna shook the word from her mind, fighting her way back through her feelings to answer his question. ‘My father had married Viveca’s mother six months before he passed.’ Henna knew her grief, accepted and cherished it even, but still the words were sometimes hard. ‘He wanted someone to look after me when he was gone, and he and my mother had no other family. Marcella was a friend of his colleague and...she seemed nice,’ Henna concluded.
