AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER FOUR
ZEUSEXPECTEDHERto pull away, and she did. Nina sat back so quickly that the chair scraped loudly against the stone, and he knew that if she hadn’t been hampered by her newly rounded body, she would likely have stood up and stormed away.
He could see that she was considering it, even now, no matter that it might take her a moment to rise.
But then, as he watched, her face took on that studied blankness he recognized too well. It was the particular expression she had always worn in court. The very expression that—coupled with her pointed inability to dress in any kind of fashionable manner, no matter how objectively chic the garments she was butchering—had first caught his attention.
Because it was so odd. And the longer he looked, the less sense it made.
“I don’t think you should read quite so much into that night,” she told him now.
In a tone it took him a moment to place. She sounded as if she felt sorry for him. As ifshepitiedhim.
He nearly laughed out loud but contained himself. “I’m not sure any reading is required, little hen. You appear to be blooming with the consequences of our choices that night. I believe the book is written.”
One expression after the next moved through her brown eyes, though none appeared on her face. He had spent a long time perfecting his own public face, and he knew precisely how difficult it was. And more, what kind of dedication it took.
She was a puzzle, this commoner who would become his Queen, and he was going to enjoy solving her. Piece by delectable piece.
“I will admit that I took a certain satisfaction in making myself...unpalatable. It was my own private rebellion against Isabeau.” Her chin lifted then, and Zeus didn’t know what it was about her that made his chest so tight. Maybe it was this. This hurling herself at windmills when even Don Quixote would have called it hopeless. But not Nina. “You know you’re a good-looking man, Zeus. Usually you’re the first to say so. I merely took the opportunity to taste what the many crowds before me have tasted.”
“Another lie. How intriguing.”
“I’m sorry that you no longer rate your charms as highly as you used to do.”
He smiled. “You were an innocent, Nina. Beneath all that bravado. Believe me, I remember it.”
What he didn’t want to say to her was that whether she’d been hiding or not, it was as if the alchemy of that sudden blast of fire between them—mixed with her unexpected untouched state—had changed him, too.
Because he still didn’t care to accept that change.
But he’d never had a night like that.
Not ever.
Zeus had never planned to admit that. To anyone, least of all himself. And he wouldn’t have. He would have taken his strange reaction to her—and to what they’d shared, and to what he’d done—to his grave.
That had been his intent.
Had she not shown up today, even more beautiful than he remembered.
He remembered too well. That was the trouble. It was those curves, certainly. But it was also the slow laughter in her gaze that always seemed to be there, at the ready. It was the way she’d matched wits with him and had actually succeeded. It was her sheer delight in each and every new thing he’d taught her. The things her body could do. The things he could make her feel.
The things she had madehimfeel. It was that part that haunted him.
And now there was a child.
Hischild.
And Zeus might not have wanted the things his father was so determined he should. He might, in fact, have made it his life’s work to make sure that where he was concerned, his father never got the slightest bit of satisfaction.
Because he’d made a promise. And he couldn’t go back on it now. His mother had never had anyone but him, he had adored her, and even he hadn’t been able to save her.
This was all he could do. Accordingly, he’d been doing it for years, letting the world think what they would about him—just so long as his father thought the same, and despaired.
He would keep playing this game as long as necessary.
One thing that was true about Zeus was that he was committed.
