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That wasn’t entirely true. She’d known it all along.
“We could have been friends,” she said quietly. “Companionable, at the very least. Instead, you took every opportunity to prove how petty you are. I feel sorry for you.”
Isabeau reared back. “Youfeel sorry forme? I am aprincess. My father is aking.”
“And so will my husband be,” Nina replied coolly. “Making me a queen, yes? You will have to forgive me. I don’t eat and sleep your hierarchies, but I believe I’ll shortly outrank you.”
Amazingly, the little coterie behind Isabeau actually...tittered.
Nina could feel everything change in that moment. Not because the courtiers had turned, the way courtiers always did. But because, at last, she truly felt free.
All this time, all the effort she’d spent, whether hiding from Isabeau or, periodically, attempting to placate her—all that was over now. And whatever happened next, she finally understood something she should have realized all along.
Her child would never find itself the plaything of a creature like this. Her child would never be lost. Her child would always know who and what it was. A prince or princess of Theosia. One day its King or Queen.
Nina had gotten lost after her parents died. But that would never happen again. Not to her and certainly not to her baby.
And once she understood that, how could anything else matter?
“I’m done with you,” she said to Isabeau, then swept past her, thinking that she would head across the ballroom to search for food herself.
But she was brought up short to find Zeus standing there just outside the alcove with an expression she couldn’t read on his face. Clearly having witnessed the entire interaction.
“Look at you,” he said admiringly. He didn’t saylittle hen, but it felt as if he had. “It appears you’ve found your claws.”
Then he was looking past her and shifting where he stood, obliquely blocking her from Isabeau. Making his sentiments known.
Again.
“You’re supposed to be with me!” Isabeau hissed at him. She stamped her foot. “Our fathers decided it. You can’t possibly think you belong with that—that—”
“Princess,” Zeus said, in the kind of quiet voice that made a wise person’s hair stand on end, “I would advise you not to finish that sentence.” He drew Nina closer, and if possible, looked even more like a bronze statue than ever before. When he spoke, his voice carried. “Nina is to be my wife. And, in due course, the Queen of Theosia. She belongs with me. Always.”
And as declarations went, it was something. It was even more thansomethingcoming from him. Nina knew full well that some part of that statement would be on every tabloid around come morning. Maybe that was part of his plan. But she didn’t care.
She belongs with me. Always.
Her whole life, Nina had wanted tobelong. Of all the precious gifts this man had given her, this was the one that made her heart ache.
She didn’t care if it was true. She cared that he’d said it.
Nina forgot all about Isabeau. She had the vague impression that her entourage herded her away, but she didn’t bother to confirm it. She looked up at Zeus, and suddenly it was as if her belief in fairy tales had spilled over into...everything.
As if maybe it was all real. Complete with a vanquished villainess.
Because she felt powerful and beautiful. Their baby was safe and protected and always would be. And she had Zeus, looking at her as if she was magic.
She belongs with me.
“Remember when I told you not to kiss me?” she asked.
He looked devilish and amused at once. “I remember you spouting such nonsense, yes. I did us both a favor and ignored it.”
“You haven’t kissed me since.”
“But if I’d wanted to, I would have,” he said, all lazy drawl and a simmering heat in his beautiful eyes. “That’s the key point.”
“Zeus,” she said. He looked down at her, lifting one marvelous brow. “Stop talking.”
