AllFreeNovel
Share Us
You need to get your act together, Calista, she snapped at herself. Because she had far too much riding on all of this to lose her head over a handsome man.
Even if the handsome man in question was her king.
And, more, thought she was going to marry him and produce babies on command.
“It seems to me that you’re under the impression that you have control here.” She smiled, that little curve of her lips that business associates liked to claim was enigmatic. Usually after she’d pummeled them into dust. “But my understanding is that you actuallyhave tomarry me. Whether you want to or not.”
He stared at her, that same frozen and arrested expression on his face. “Am I to understand that you know about the—ah—leverageyour father has used against me?”
Aristotle had ranted excessively about the fact he had something on the old king that the new king would kill to conceal. He had not shared what that leverage was.
Something Calista saw no reason to share with the man staring her down.
“The point is that the leverage exists,” she said, because she had always been good at playing these little power games. “And it exists on you, not me. So I’ll thank you to stop making threats about Castle Crag. I have no interest in playing Knights of the Crusades, or whatever your threats of going medieval are supposed to mean. As far as I’m concerned, this is a business proposition between our two families, nothing more. Which is medieval enough, I’d think.”
She thought she’d startled him. Or maybe she only wanted to. An expression she couldn’t name and certainly couldn’t read flashed through his eyes, then disappeared into a flash of grave hazel.
“How refreshing,” he said after a long moment, though she doubted very much he found her the least bit refreshing. “I was led to expect the usual princess fantasies.”
Calista laughed. “I can’t think of anything I would like to be less than a princess. Luckily, what we’re talking about is my becoming a queen, not a princess. I can get my head around that.”
“Am I to understand you see yourself as one already? Metaphorically speaking, of course.”
“I’m a businesswoman, not a queen,” she replied, her heart beating a little faster because he’d challenged her, however obliquely. “And let me set the mood here, to save us some time. I don’t care what your relationship is with my father.”
“I would never describe the interactions I have been forced to have with your father as a ‘relationship.’”
King Orion’s voice was so frigid she was faintly surprised icicles didn’t sprout into being round the room. Suddenly, it felt like November in a more northern, snow-covered place, instead of the typically mild Novembers here in Idylla’s balmy Mediterranean climate.
She told herself she was immune to the cold. “Whatever you want to call it, I’m not interested in it. I’m sure you have your reasons for bowing to my father’s whims and accepting this ridiculous betrothal. But whatever those reasons might be, it means only that you, like so many others, have surrendered to his blackmail.”
“Again, I would dispute those terms.”
She waved a hand. “Dispute them all you like. It doesn’t change the facts. You’re in his pocket, which means you’re now in mine. And who knows? I’ve never had my own king before. Maybe it will be fun.”
And she watched, fascinated despite herself, as King Orion Augustus Pax looked at her as if his head was exploding. Internally, of course.
Externally, all she could see was a muscle flexing in his lean jaw. And that fire that turned his hazel gaze to gold.
Despite herself, her breath caught. She suddenly wondered what it would be like if the most controlled creature in the history of the world—something that had been apparent when King Orion was no more than a princeling, especially when stood next to his disaster of a father—let go.
Couldhe let go?
She felt goose bumps shiver down the length of her spine.
Orion’s eyes were volcanic. But his voice was calm. “I will remind you, Lady Calista, that I am your king.”
“I do know that, Your Majesty. That’s why I curtsied.”
She made her voice careless, but the seething heat that was blasting her way was more uncomfortable than she wanted to admit. She got to her feet as if this was her meeting. Her darling little room tucked away in the royal palace, and the man before her nothing but...some guy.
Though no one could possibly confuse King Orion forsome guy.
Just as, no matter what she’d said, it was hard to imagine a man so electric and indisputably regal in anyone’s pocket, either. Even if she knew that he was. Her father had made certain to brag excessively that he was the architect of this betrothal, as if she wouldn’t have figured that out on her own.
“This must be hard for you,” she said, moving to look at the pictures scattered on the dreadfully elegant sideboard. Pictures of the two princes. The former queen. And not a one of King Max, which she supposed was only to be expected. She had yet to meet a soul who missed him, except possibly her father. And not because he’d had any affection for the dissipated late king. But because he’d been so easy to manipulate.
“Which part?” Orion’s question was crisp. A bit like a slap. “The part where, for my father’s sins, I am forced to contend with a base, repulsive reptile like Aristotle Skyros? Or the part where, having accepted that I must do my duty to my country even in the face of such an insult, I am confronted with a craven display of overweening self-importance that I must crown and call my queen?”
