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“I’m almost tempted to suggest that everyone’s favorite wicked prince has a publicandprivate side. Yet you go to great lengths to pretend otherwise.” He could feel her gaze on him. “Why?”
He sent a lazy look her way and tried not to think about the picture she presented. Sitting next to him in the back of a car, her long legs visible now and crossed at the ankles. The rest of her was almost dainty, small and narrow-shouldered, with a belly so big it shouldn’t have been possible for such a small woman to walk around with it.
And yet she did. Seemingly without complaint.
Already the perfect mother, he thought.
And when the usual surge of something too much like emotion crested in him, he shoved it away again. The way he always did.
It was already bad enough that he’d mentioned his mother and started questioning the vow he had made over her grave. He could not start thinking of himself as a father. Or of his own father. Because everything he’d said about his mother was true. She had been a bright light in every respect. But she had been very young and too silly for Cronos, who had dimmed a little more of her light each day until it was extinguished.
And so, with his endless criticism and neglect, King Cronos had taken the only thing that mattered to his son.
Leaving Zeus to return the favor.
By making sure that the only things that mattered to Cronos—his throne, his pure Theosian blood, and the line of succession that would carry forth his bloodline into the future—would be publicly, repeatedly, comprehensively bruised. If not stained beyond redemption.
The truth was, Zeus had never planned to have an heir. He had gone to great lengths to ensure he could not possibly father one. But now, in his bitter old father’s waning days, he would present the dying King with something even better than no heir.
An heir from a bloodline his father would despise, when there was nothing he could do about it.
He could not have planned it better if he’d tried.
When Zeus was out of Nina’s presence, he thought the plan was divine. He had not intended to impregnate her, but he was delighted he had. Everything fell into place with this particular woman carrying the heir to the throne of Theosia.
It was only when he was with her and she aimed that secret, tender smile down at her belly, or when she spoke of things like her fears of motherhood, that he wondered what, exactly, he was doing.
But only for a moment.
Because Zeus had lost his soul long ago. When he was eleven, in fact, and his heart along with it. There was no getting them back now.
He told himself he hardly noticed the void.
His Parisian getaway was the two top stories of the quietly opulent hotel, far away from any other guests or nosy photographers. As soon as they arrived in the expansive suite, he had food brought in, because he knew by now that Nina was always hungry.
And as she sat in the living room and helped herself to the small yet epic tea provided, he welcomed in a smiling, diffident man with a briefcase connected to his body with a chain. Behind him came several more men, similarly attired.
They proceeded to set out their wares on one of the tables, and when they were done, they had set out the finest jewels that Europe had to offer.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Nina muttered, but she was looking around with a sort of hunted look on her face.
“I suspect you do.” Zeus went to take a seat next to her on the sofa she had chosen. He only smiled when she shot a fairly outraged look his way as his weight tipped her closer to him. He waved his hand at all the open briefcases, sparkling with rows upon rows of priceless, impossibly stunning rings. “Choose one.”
Beside him, Nina simply...shut down.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she said, and she sounded...different, somehow.
As if, unbowed by the entire house of Haught Montagne, and not too impressed with Zeus while she was at it, what had finally brought her to her knees was a private shopping expedition.
The woman was a revelation.
“If I may,” said one of the men, looking closely at Nina. “I think I have just the thing.”
He turned all the briefcases around and then did the choosing, presenting Nina with a selection of five rings instead of ten times the number. And every time she reacted, he switched the presentation until, at the end, only one remained.
And it was clear that no other ring could possibly have done.
It was lovely. Delicate, though it boasted a large, marquise-cut diamond set horizontally. It looked as if it had been designed for Nina’s hand, so it nearly sang. Zeus watched as she looked down at it, an expression he couldn’t read on her face.
