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CHAPTER SIX
ZEUSDIDN’TKNOWwhat was worse. Nina’s look of outright horror at his use of the wordlove. Or the fact that he’d actually spoken of his mother.
Of his own accord.
He spent the rest of the flight to Paris being outrageous and needlessly provoking to make up for it.
Because he would rather have her looking at him the way she normally did. As if he required extreme forbearance.
It wouldn’t change the fact that he wanted his father—and the rest of the world—to think that the most notorious prince in the world was head over heels in love with what was considered his worst scandal yet.
Once in the City of Light, a waiting car swept them off to his favorite hotel, a discreet affair on the Left Bank that suited both his sense of luxury and his need for discretion—but only sometimes.
“I’m surprised that the Theosian crown doesn’t have property in Paris,” Nina said once he told her where they were staying. When any other woman he knew would simply have sat there quietly, possibly murmured a few superlatives about both him and his choice of lodging, and tried to look appealing. Then again, Nina didn’t have totry. “Haught Montagne maintains residences in most major cities. I thought everyone did.”
“The kingdom has several residences here, in fact.” He thrust his legs out before him in the back of the spacious car, slumping down a bit in his seat so he’d look as rumpled as possible. “I do not always wish to have my every move dissected by the palace.”
She nodded briskly. “Because they’re evil.”
Zeus only sighed. “I like an enemy as much as the next person, but there’s something you must remember about palace staff.” He turned toward her so he could hold her gaze with his. “We are the product, and they are responsible for keeping that product in as pristine condition as they can manage. Yet the product also has all the power. So what are they meant to do?”
Her gaze was steady on his. “You think of yourself as a product?”
And he kept finding himself in moments like these with her. Perilously close to being his real self around this woman when he liked to pretend he couldn’t even recall that he’d ever had a real self to begin with.
“I know exactly who I am,” he replied.
Possibly with a touch too much heat.
“But—” Nina began, frowning.
“I cannot speak for other palaces, but I know that I give my own nothing but trouble. And yet they manage it all magnificently.” He lifted a brow. “I’m surprised that a woman elevated from the orphanage, and with such a chip on her shoulder to match, would not care for the plight of honest, hardworking servants.”
She let out a small sound and looked down at her belly. Then rubbed it the way she did when she was avoiding him. He found it more fascinating every time he saw her do it. And adorable.
Because he was impossible to ignore.
“I don’t really think it fair that you are utterly shameless yet think you can go about shaming others,” Nina said after a moment.
He bit back a smile. “Courtiers, on the other hand. Truly the dregs of humanity. I fully agree.”
“You have more courtiers than a picnic has ants.”
“They like to froth about me, it’s true,” he said. He had always liked it that way. He had always liked to go about in a jostling, happy crowd, the more loud and obnoxious the better. Back in his university days, he’d had the company of his best friends, Vincenzo, Rafael, and Jag. He sometimes thought those days in Oxford were a dream, because they had been the easiest of his life. Good friends. The time to hang about in pubs, heedless and young and magnificently rich.
But that was the trouble with a load of princes as best friends. They did, sooner or later, have to head back to their kingdoms to handle the responsibilities.
Even him.
And now he had a great many more people who liked to call him a friend, yet only the same three real ones. He’d replaced quality with quantity, and he could not say his life was richer for it. But it helped him play his part.
For the first time, he found himself wondering if it was worth it.
The question shook him.
“You’re an interesting case,” Nina said, looking at him as if to study him as they slid down Parisian streets and past iconic cafés. And Zeus shoved aside that odd feeling inside—because he’d made a vow. That made all this worth it, full stop. “You’ve never met a crowd you didn’t like. And yet you wander around your own palace quite alone.”
“The palace calls for gods, not courtiers, Nina. It’s in the name. I can only obey.”
