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And for a moment, she thought,Yes, please, again—
But all he did was lift her to her feet. With an economy of movement that reminded her, with a rush of sensation, of the way he’d tossed her this way and that six months ago.
She did not need the reminder.
Because it was easy to dismiss Prince Zeus. A playboy, a reprobate, a deeply unserious man who prided himself on being wicked to the core. It was easy to dismiss his beauty and make salty remarks about the fact he didn’t have anything better to do with his timebutwork on that abdomen. She’d heard all of those things from snippy aristocrats in balls and palaces and had thought many of them herself.
But no matter why or how he came by his physicality, he certainly knew how to use it.
She knew that firsthand.
Nina didn’t like that. Just as she didn’t like the way everything inside her had leaned into thatyes. And shereallydidn’t like the fact it was only in Zeus’s arms that she felt like her old self again. Graceful. Lithe.
She pushed away from him, hoping her feet would hold her. Then she felt a bit sad when they did—which was unacceptable. She shouldn’twanthim to hold her. “I’m not sure that stuffing yourself full of food is going to garner you the results that you want. I don’t need to eat to know that I’m against marrying you. I don’t even need a lifetime of dissipation to know it.”
“My dear Nina,” he said as he indicated she should walk with him down the length of the balcony toward the corner. “The food is for me. I’m very hungry. I’m given to understand that my tea went astray.”
Nina felt as if she’d betrayed herself, because she had the strangest urge to laugh at the look he swept her from beneath lashes that no man should be allowed to possess. She shouldn’t find himamusing. What was the matter with her?
“How could the Crown Prince’s tea go anywhere?” she asked. “I would have thought that, given your station, every chef in the kitchen would drop everything for the privilege of serving you any snack you desired.”
“You’re missing the point of the comment,” he said, walking beside her with all the dignity of the prince he was. And yet still, she was certain she could detect something wilder beneath it. There was that sort of roll to the way he moved. As if the reality of him was caged somewhere deep within.Stop telling yourself fairy tales, she snapped at herself. “I’m attempting to make small talk. I understand that is the basis of any marriage.”
“Funnily enough, I thought a good marriage was based on respect,” Nina replied. She couldn’t remember her parents or their marriage, but she was sure theirs had been a good one. Because it had to have been. She knew it did. “Friendship. Support of each other. Little things like that.”
“Please tell me people don’t sit around all day discussing their supportive impulses.” Zeus shuddered. “That sounds markedly tedious.”
“Best to avoid the institution, then,” Nina said tartly.
And then wondered what she was playing at, because the way his mouth curved made her glad. When it shouldn’t. Nothing about him should make herglad.
They turned the corner, and Nina’s breath caught against her will. On this side of her rooms, the balcony was much wider. There was a small pool and a hot tub some distance farther down. But closer in, a dinner for two had been set up at a cozy round table. There were lights strewn on wires above, making everything seem magical. And with every step, the dark seemed to get thicker and the lights brighter.
Like a fairy tale, whispered a voice inside her with entirely too much wonder.
She ignored it. The way she always did.
Nina wanted to tell him that she wasn’t hungry, and that even if she was, she didn’t want to eat a private dinner with him. Anything to put the distance between them that should have been there automatically, given how their night together had ended. But as she drew close to the table, she could see the spread awaiting them. And she suddenly realized she was starving.
Again. Always.
And clearly the baby agreed, because it kicked her, hard.
Zeus helped her sit with an exaggerated courtesy that Nina had last seen him display toward the elderly Queen of a tiny northern country. She wanted to snap at that gesture, too, but she didn’t dare.
Because she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, things she shouldn’t say might come out.
Instead of sitting across the little table, Zeus pulled the chair around to settle himself next to her, only smiling blandly as the staff appeared and rearranged the table until it looked as if there had never been any choice at all for him to sit anywhere but there.
What must that be like, Nina wondered. That certainty. That knowledge that no matter what, his choices would always be supported and celebrated. And it was more than that.Hisevery choice was a command.
“I hope you do not find dinner with me too much of a trial,” he said as the staff retreated and left them to their own devices. “Many do, I fear.”
He did not look as if he feared anything. Nina tried not to look at him and took in the feast before them instead. There were serving dishes taking up all the available space on the table, filled with all manner of savory delights. And to her astonishment, Zeus served himself, and her, with the same innate grace he did everything.
She did mean everything.
Stop that, she ordered herself, frowning at her own...idiocy.
