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And that beat was hard. Deep. It almost knocked her out of her seat.
“I went into the orphanage when I was five.” Nina asked herself what on earth she was doing even as she spoke. But then again, none of this was a secret. It was only that no one had ever asked. “My parents were killed in an accident. A slick road in winter. No one’s fault, these things happen, and so on. All the same, they died and I went into care. And then, every Sunday for the next ten years, I was trotted out to sell myself to potential buyers.” She laughed, but only a little. “Excuse me. I mean, tocharmpotential adoptiveparents.”
He looked at her, frowning slightly. “Surely a cute five-year-old girl should have gone in a snap.”
“You would think so. And I did. But they always brought me back.”
“You can return a child?” Zeus asked in what looked like astonishment.
Laced with disbelief.
She had never liked him more than she did at the sight of that untutored reaction, but she couldn’t dwell on it. Not now.
“It turns out that you can return a defective one,” she said quietly. “I had night terrors and no one could deal with it. So after I got to be about ten, they started telling the prospective parents I had emotional problems. That way they didn’t bother to take me for a test run only to come back the next morning, complaining of how difficult it had been and how spooky I was. And how that wasn’t what they were looking for in a child.”
His grip on her hand tightened. “I’m sorry,” he said.
And that, too, struck her as alarmingly real.
She didn’t want to deal with how the notion of Prince Zeusbeing serioustumbled through her. The things she wanted it to mean that she knew it didn’t.
Because he’d showed her who he was. She needed to believe him.
“No need to be sorry. I much preferred not going off into strangers’ homes, knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t going to work and then being returned like faulty merchandise.”
He looked as if he was going to say something, and it was suddenly clear to Nina that if he offered her any pity—if he even looked like he might—she would break into pieces.
She hurried on before he could put that to the test. “But I still had to stand there every Sunday, on display. I was counting the days until I turned sixteen and would be set free. Instead, on the day before that happened, Isabeau’s publicity team felt that in light of her recent spate of scandals that year, she ought to make a grand gesture. And I was it.”
“I remember,” Zeus said.
And it was amazing, truly, how much Nina wanted to askwhathe remembered... Was it the stories that had been plastered everywhere on her sixteenth birthday? Her personal pain exploited so a spoiled princess could play at looking merciful and good? Or was it the times he’d seen her over the years after that, trailing around after the same spoiled princess who loathed her forced benevolence, hated that she couldn’t rid herself of Nina without a good reason to feed to her public, and had gone out of her way to be cruel?
Or was it possible that he remembered that night and the things they’d talked about when they weren’t turning each other inside out? The same as she did?
But she kept her questions to herself.
“Living with Isabeau was like living in a glass bowl,” she said, though she still wasn’t sure why she was telling him this. Because he was the father of her child and he washere. Because he was beautiful. Because his hand was wrapped tight around hers, and she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “There’s the world forever looking at her and everyone around her, but that’s not the worst of it. Even in private, every moment is watched. All the people who lurk about the palace, everywhere, like little spies. Reporting back anything and everything they can to gain favor. Currying goodwill and leverage with their reports. Isabeau herself, always there to criticize, cackle, and cut everyone down to size. But especially me, because she didn’t actually choose me. Her people did. Something she wanted to make sure I knew. She wanted to beverysure I was never under the impression she’d wanted me anywhere near her.”
It didn’t hurt her to think of these things. Nina was only ashamed that there had ever been a part of her that had wished she and Isabeau could have been closer.
“You decided you would hide your real self away where no one would find you, no matter how hard they looked,” Zeus said in his dark, rich voice. “Is that it?”
It was so tempting to lean closer. To thread her fingers with his, then see if he would do what he did last time and lean across what separated them to fit his lips to hers as if that had been their destiny all along—
Nina tugged her hand from his. “This isn’t going to work.”
Zeus stayed where he was, his elbows on the table, all of his attention focused on her. She saw the way his gaze darkened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do.”
His mouth curved into what she would have said, on someone else, was a self-deprecating sort of smile. But this was Zeus of Theosia.
Still, she couldn’t seem to breathe properly when he reached out a hand and toyed with a bit of her dress between his finger and thumb. Then he moved that finger and thumb to trace his way over the swell of her belly.
Where their baby was curled up between them. And would be a person, in the world, in a few short months.
Linking them together no matter what. Like it or not.
No matter what either one of them might be hiding.
“The trouble is,” Zeus said when he looked up again, his gaze pinning her to her seat, “I’ve seen the real you, Nina. I know the difference.”
