Page 18 of The Scandal That Made Her His Queen

But he had known the moment he saw her that his plans could use some changing up, here at the end, and she was the perfect pièce de résistance.

“I’m not innocent anymore,” she was saying in that same way, as if she thought this was a fair fight. When she had no idea what games he was playing here. But that didn’t make her any less appealing. He wondered idly if anything could. “You’ve seen to that, and thoroughly.”

He was delighted by that, and the hint of pink that rose in her cheeks.“Thoroughly,”he echoed. “That is one way to put it.”

The pink in her cheeks got brighter. “Right. So. No need to talk about it, I think.”

“What I wonder is what would happen if you no longer hid yourself away,” he said. “Even now you dress to hide. You put your hair in this mess. Did you do this in your orphanage? Is this the real reason no one chose you?” He could see from the mutinous look on her face that she had done exactly this. He smiled. “What if, for once, you stopped concealing yourself in plain sight?”

And for a moment, he thought she might let her defenses down. Her pretty face softened, and he almost forgot that he was asking her to marry him because it fit so nicely into his endgame where his father was concerned. He almost forgot about the vow he’d made to punish the man who had ruined his mother’s life. He almost thought—

But that was madness.

“There is no hidden part of me that wants to marry you, Zeus.” And then she seemed to hear herself, out here where there was only the moon and the sea as witness. She shifted in her chair. “I have no intention of marrying anyone. I will have this child and we will be a family. That is more than enough for me.”

Zeus didn’t think Nina had the slightest idea whatenoughwas. And what he wanted to do was pick her up, carry her inside, and prove it. Over and over, the way he had six months ago, ruining them both.

But he didn’t.

Because he only played the part of a man unable to control himself.

“You understand that this is Theosia, do you not?” he asked.

“I could hardly forget it while staring at its most overexposed advertisement, could I?” she retorted.

And Zeus’s trouble was that he liked that this woman, who should have been the most in awe of him—the most tongue-tied, the most intimidated to find herself once again in his presence—was none of those things. Not then, not now.

She was as unafraid of him as she was unimpressed with him. And what did it say about him that he liked it? That he likedher?

“Then you must know that your options are limited here,” he told her. Instead of all the other things he could have told her. “I do not require your consent to wed you, Nina. Know this now and spare yourself a fight you will not win.”

Nina vibrated in her chair. “Is that a threat?”

He laughed. “Of course it is a threat. What else would it be?”

“But why?” She sounded more desperate than before. “Why do you want this? Because I know you don’t want me. And I’ve already indicated that I intended the baby should know its father, or I wouldn’t have come here at all. Why isn’t that enough?”

And Zeus had the strangest urge to tell her. Even though he knew better. For what woman would wish to hear that she could be yet another game piece in this endless war with his father? What man would confess it?

He wanted to tell her all the same. And not because he thought she might understand. Since when had he required understanding? But because she was different. She always had been. And he was the only one who had always known that she was beautiful, there beneath the clown show she’d put on. He had seen things in her she’d never shown anyone else.

Maybe Zeus wanted to see if it was at all possible that someone could see such things in him—

But that was his weakness talking.

And he’d chosen his path a long time ago.

He would not lose his way now, no matter the temptation.

“The child, Nina,” he told her, with enough severity that he almost believed it was the whole of his reason to marry her. And then, as the words sat there, he understood they were not a lie. Not quite. “That is why. Whatever else I might be, I am also a Prince of Theosia. No child of mine will be born out of wedlock.”

Her mouth moved, but no sound came forth.

And Zeus shook his head as he gazed at her. “I might not care much for my father, but I believe that every child should have one. If at all possible.”

She held his gaze for what seemed like an age, then dropped it.

“What did your father do to you?” she asked softly.

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