Page 52 of The Scandal That Made Her His Queen

But as his father’s attendants rushed inside, he didn’t stand there and wait for them all to drop to their knees and “Long live the King” him the way tradition dictated they should. He was moving, rushing through the palace, because he was already King. It didn’t matter who acknowledged it.

What mattered was her. Nina.

She was not in her rooms.

She wasn’t in the library or any of the galleries.

Zeus was heading back to the beach when he finally found her standing in one of the palace’s main halls, contemplating a large bronze mask.

And a thousand things he needed to say stormed within him. He wanted to tell her everything that had happened. Everything he’d understood, almost too late. Everything said and unsaid.

She turned as she sensed him coming, or perhaps he made some noise, and he knew she could see what had happened. Right there on his face. He expected her to call himYour Majesty. He expected her to curtsy. He expected that, like every other person in this palace, she would look to his rank first.

He should have known better.

“Oh, no,” said his Nina. His perfect little hen. “Zeus.Your father. I’m so sorry.”

She opened her arms wide, and he moved into them. And then, somewhere in that mess of grief old and new, there was still Nina, and he was kissing her—the heat undeniable.

But all of these other things as well.

And so it was that the brand-new King of Theosia knelt before his scandalous orphan in a hallway where anyone could see them. He wrapped his arms around her.

“Nina,” he said, very solemnly. “I love you.”

She was crying, and he would have to do something about that, but she was smiling, too.

“I suspect I am very bad at it,” he continued. “But I think, if I try, I will figure out how to love you as well as I pretended to disdain everything else.”

“Just love me,” Nina whispered. “Love us. Everything else is negotiable.”

He stayed where he was, his face against her belly, hugging his child and his woman at once.

And when he rose, he wiped away her tears. Then he reached down and retrieved the ring he’d put on her finger. This time, he held her hand while he held the ring up between them.

She was still smiling, though her eyes were still wet. “You already did this, Zeus.”

“I did not. Not properly.”

“But—”

He lifted her hand to his lips, and she subsided.

“Nina, I love you,” he said again, because it could never be said enough. “As I have told you before, I could command you to marry me. But I would rather you do it because you wish to.”

And this was harder. So much harder than he’d imagined. Nina was gazing at him, her eyes damp and filled with all the things she’d taught him. Love. Hope.

Forgiveness not because it was deserved or earned, but because it was necessary.

“The King of Theosia will need a queen,” he managed to get out past that tightness in his throat, “but I need you. My people will expect me to fail, for that is what I’ve taught them I do. But you expect me to fly, Nina. And I think that the better I love you, the easier it will be to spread our wings. And I already know that a man is only as good as a woman who imagines him better.”

“It has always been yes, Zeus,” she whispered. “It will always be yes.”

“And in return for these services to man and crown,” he continued, though there was light in him now, beating back the shadows. Sunlight, at last. “I will take all the time and energy that I have dedicated to my foolish plans and leverage them on you instead. We will raise our child together, and we will be happy, Nina. If I have anything to say about it, and I do.We will be happy.”

“We will be us,” Nina said, moving closer so she could reach up to pull his face to hers. She kissed him then. His forehead. His jaw. “Not our histories. Not what happened to us. Not the things we did before we found each other. We will be you and me and the family we make together. We will beus, Zeus.”

“Forever,” he vowed.

And the hall was getting crowded. There were matters of state to attend to—and there could be no more putting off this moment.

Zeus slid that ring back onto Nina’s finger, where it belonged. And when she took his hand and held it tightly, all he saw was sunlight. He felt it, deep inside.

I will do it right this time, he told his parents.I promise.

“We’ll do it together,” Nina whispered, as if she’d heard.

And then, hand in hand, they turned to face the future.

The way they always would.

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