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Ouch.
But she laughed and she couldn’t have said why. “Overweeningis quite a word, Your Majesty. Though I think you’ll find that what men consider self-importance in women is usually the sort of confidence they consider par for the course in a man.”
“On the contrary, Lady Calista.” And that light in his hard gaze made her want to shiver. “Were any man to dare speak to me as you have just now I would lay him out flat.”
Her curse was that some part of her longed to see it.
She made a tsking sound, and found herself leaning back against the sideboard in what was, she could admit, a bit of a show. How could she help herself? She was being forced into an arranged marriage against her will. That was the long and the short of it, and no matter her intentions where that was concerned or her reasons for going along with it, a girl had to make her own fun.
And you’re in no way trying to cover up your response to the man, a voice inside her that sounded a lot like her sister’s chimed in.
“Violence is something we expect from your brother, King Orion,” she said, ignoring that voice. “Never you. Never the desperately responsible crown prince and possible savior of our dissipated country, a man so excruciatingly polite and correct that no one has ever been able to dig up the names of his lovers.”
The king did not rise. He did not lounge back in his seat. He did not fidget, adjust his clothing, or shift his weight—and yet she still had the impression that he gathered himself. And changed, somehow, the very composition of his body. Right there before her eyes.
She told herself she was being foolish. But all the while, that gaze of his grew ever more molten.
“I imagine that must be a favorite pursuit in a media enterprise of such journalistic integrity as Skyros Media.” His voice was a sardonic lash and it cost Calista something not to wince. “Rifling about in the trash for private information that is none of your concern.”
She lifted her chin. “I think the word you’re looking for isnews.”
“There is nothing newsworthy in someone’s personal life. It is private and personal, by definition.”
“I was under the impression that you were the king of this country,” she shot back, lifting her brows at him. “Can a king have a personal life? I rather thought that what you do with the life your subjects support is our business. Either way, the choices you make personally affect us all. Or did you miss out on the entirety of your father’s reign?”
Something blazed in his gaze then, and she expected him to erupt. To shoot to his feet. To hit something.
Or even raise his voice.
But instead, King Orion stayed where he was.
Locked down, she found herself thinking. Frozen solid.
And she didn’t know why she had the sudden, sharp urge to see if she could melt him, by any means necessary.
When he spoke, she couldn’t repress a shiver, because his voice was perfectly even. Measured. As if there had been nothing the least bit volcanic here when she was sure she could still taste the ash in the elegant room all around them.
“If your aim was to impress upon me that you will do as you like, consider it done.” He studied her, and to her surprise, she almost felt as if she might...blush. Something she didn’t think she’d done in her entire life—not when she’d grown up under Aristotle’s thumb. Thankfully, the odd, prickling feeling passed. “I appreciate you coming into this meeting prepared to show me exactly who you are, Lady Calista. I assure you I won’t forget it.”
That, too, was a threat. And a more effective one, perhaps, because he said it so calmly.
“If you think I’m going to curl up in a ball and cry because you don’t approve of me, think again,” she told him, striving for the same tone, and refusing to duck her head or make herself smaller. There was only one man she pretended to cower before, and it wasn’t this one. No matter if, deep inside, there was thathumming. “I’ve agreed to marry you, Your Majesty. I’m fully aware of what that means.”
“Are you?” He tilted his head slightly to one side. “I wonder. For example, can I expect this same aggression in bed?”
Again, a prickling heat swept over her, and horrified her. Worse, there was a gleam in the midst of all that stern hazel that told her he knew it. Heknewhe affected her.
When Calista had spent all these years learning how to conceal her feelings so well she sometimes wondered if she had any left.
She met his gaze as if he didn’t trouble her in the least. “If you had the slightest idea how to be aggressive in bed or anywhere else, Your Majesty, I feel certain we would have found evidence of that by now.” Calista allowed herself a smirk. “And run it in our tabloids, of course.”
To her surprise, he laughed. “Is that how you measure things, then? Whether or not it shows up in one of your sick, sad little magazines?”
“I believe in a free press. Was that the question?”
Orion looked entirely too satisfied, and she hated that something deep in her bellyquivered. “I’ll take that to mean you haven’t the slightest idea what you’re getting into with me, Lady Calista. How delightful to find we have something in common.”
She felt breathless again, and had to remind herself that no matter what happened here in the battle for control over their dreary arranged marriage, it didn’t change reality. And the reality was that he could talk a big game, but he had no power here. He could go on all he liked about his reserved, competent, sane rule, but he had no control over her or what she did or if she was any of those things.
