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“I can’t have a staff and all those horrible aristocratic groupies,” she told Zeus one night at another one of the dinners he insisted upon. Tonight he wore a crisp linen affair that would have melted into a tragedy of wrinkles on anyone else in this climate. On Zeus, it did not dare.
It seemed at odds with the man she’d glimpsed in his offices earlier that same day, when she’d been wandering about on one of her art walks, looking...focused and somber as he spoke in low tones with his ministers, none of them the least bit groupie-ish. Almost as if he took his job seriously when no one was watching him.
She didn’t know where to put that. Particularly when he showed up looking every inch his rakish, playboy self.
“Some of the aristocratic groupies you disdain are my cousins, Nina,” he replied, genially enough. But she was sure she could see behind that mask of his. Maybe more than she should.
“They are a pit of snakes, waiting to strike.”
Zeus laughed. “Fair enough. But you cannot hate a snake for merely following its nature.”
“I can choose not to put myself in striking distance.” He only gazed at her, and she blew out a breath. “The last thing in the world I want is a set of my own courtiers. They’re already circling around me, looking for a head to bite off.”
“They are no match for you, little hen.”
Another ecstatic sunset was stretched out behind him, framing him in deep pinks and oranges. And Nina’s pulse was too quick, another betrayal, suggesting as it did that she wasafraidwhen she was not. Why should she be afraid? What were a pack of status-hungry aristocrats to her?
But her pulse carried on making her a liar.
“Perhaps it is not the sad reality of palace courtiers that you dislike,” Zeus said, almost as if he was addressing the sunset instead of her. “Here they do not creep about the palace at all hours, as in Haught Montagne. They are only allowed in at my discretion. Perhaps what you cannot fathom is facing them without your usual armor.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Nina threw back at him.
Even as her stomach dropped and her pulse picked up again. Because she did know. One of the reasons she hadn’t minded all those terrible articles about her was because...they weren’t about her, really. They were about the character she’d played to annoy Isabeau. Or even, in some cases, about the ungainly orphan girl no one had ever wanted. That was also not her, because she’d wanted her own parents, not new ones. After a certain point, she’d taken pleasure in being overlooked.
She’d hidden herself her whole life, but not here.
Here, she dressed as if she considered herself just as pretty as any idle aristocratic courtier whose job it was to look lovely at all times. She did her hair and took care with her appearance for the first time in her life. And yes, she was doing it because Zeus had challenged her. Because he’d suggested she couldn’t handle showing herself.
But she hadn’t expected how much she would hate the fact that the sort of people she disliked most could see her, too.
“Nina.”
She only kept herself from jolting by the barest thread. And that was before he reached over and took her hand, sending that rush of heat and longing shooting through her, lighting her up. Everywhere.
His gaze was intent. “Hiding in the way you have may have amused you, but it also gave them ammunition. Imagine if you denied them even that. It is possible to keep a boundary around what is private, what is yours, without playing at dress-up.”
“Is that what you do?” she managed to ask.
And she knew she’d scored a point when that gaze of his shuttered. Behind him, the winter sun dipped below the horizon. Zeus let go of her hand.
Nina had the distinct thought that, perhaps, she was tired of point scoring.
But that felt far too much like an admission of something she refused to accept, so she swept it aside and attended to yet another spectacular feast laid out before her.
“Whatever you think of courtiers, you must choose a staff,” Zeus said after a moment or two. In his usual manner, all ease and male grace and that wickedness beneath. “Not for your personal needs, as I am sure you will tell me you can take care of yourself, but because you will be Queen one day. And there will be a great many considerations it is better a staff handles. I think you know this.”
Her hand was still branded by his touch. Her body was still reacting to that jolt of its favorite source of heat. And Nina wanted to argue, or maybe succumb to the pressure inside her that felt too much like a sob—but Zeus had that look in those gleaming green eyes of his again. That wicked, knowing light when she was determined that no more kissing would occur.
Because when he kissed her, she couldn’t think straight.
Nina couldn’t have that. She was a practical, rational, capable woman. She would not allowkissesto sidetrack her.
Even if kissing Zeus again was all she thought about some days.
To her eternal shame.
Zeus made himself scarce at certain hours of the day. And now and again she saw him as he apparently tended to the actual business of running his country, which was clearly a secret. Maybe the biggest secret, certainly outside the palace walls, and one she clearly didn’t know how to process. Nina decided that instead of processing any of these things about him that didn’t fit—or picking courtiers she didn’t want or staff she didn’t trust—she would dedicate herself to what she did best, instead.
