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“I don’t know anything about dad. I haven’t spoken to him since I left.”
He stares at me in surprise. “I’m sorry to hear that. But why are you mentioning it now?”
“In case that’s what you want to talk to me about. If you think I can give you any intel on him, I can’t. I don’t know anything.”
He swears under his breath. “Come with me.”
This time, it is most definitely a command, not a question. He looks at me for several seconds, and when I don’t respond, he steps forward and lifts me up, carrying me cradled against his chest as though I’m incapable of walking. I’m so shocked I don’t say anything for at least ten seconds, and by then we’ve exited the more public corridors of the palace and are in a hallway that leads to his office.
“What the hell are you doing?” I wriggle against him in an attempt to free myself but he only tightens his grip, holding me in a vice now, and the more I move, the tighter his hold is. Desire bursts through me, a need stirred by his strength, dominance, closeness, physical proximity making me aware of him as a man in a thousand ways.
“Put me down,” I grunt as he strides into his office and kicks the door shut. On the other side, in complete privacy, he does just that, and oh, how I regret it. I miss him instantly; my body is cold, my heart heavy. I’m a mess. Nothing makes sense, and no decision I make leads to an easing of my pain.
“Are you seriously going to kidnap me to get me to stay?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
“What more do you want from me? I did what you asked, didn’t I? I came here, I acted like your happy wife, I danced with you for the photographers. Doesn’t that tick all your boxes?”
“The dance was nothing to do with the photographers and I’m sure you know that.”
“Then what was it?”
“You don’t think that after four and a half weeks apart from you I might have wanted to find any excuse I could to touch you like that? To hold you close to me?”
I gasp, because it’s so close to my own feelings, yet I hadn’t expected it.
“I don’t care about the damned photographers. I would have been much happier if there had been nobody to witness that dance, nobody to interrupt. I wanted only you, Amy.”
My pulse is firing like crazy. My fingers are shaking as I find the lip of the sash and lift it carefully from my head, turning away from him as I fold it and place it on the edge of his desk.
“Like you’ve said, the same desire hums through you as it does me. You also said that was enough to make some sort of marriage work, but I disagree.”
I hear him moving towards me. “You have no idea how much I want to prove you wrong.”
A soft moan escapes my lips because I want that too, but not as much as I want a real marriage, complete with not only desire but love as well.
It reminds me of why I have to leave. Being pulled into the vortex of our sexual chemistry is easy, but it doesn’t obviate the truth of what I know I have to have. When the desire passes, I want more. More than he’ll ever give me. And that’s not his fault; I don’t think I can even be mad at him. The history of his family and mine is too knotty, too destructive, too negative. How could two people ever hope to overcome what’s happened between us?
“It would be easy to give into that. We both feel it.” I turn to face him, forcing myself to be brave. “Since the first moment we met I have been overwhelmed with how much I want you, physically. There’s no sense denying it. But that’s not enough. Not for me.”
He’s silent.
“I get why it is for you,” I say softly, my heart breaking into pieces. “You need an heir, and you need peace with the factions who would support my father’s claims to the throne. Our marriage ticks every box for you. Sleeping with me gets you what you need.”
“But it doesn’t for you?”
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“What more do you want?”
“Nothing you can give me,” I say, definitively.
“Try me.”
I laugh, but it’s a deranged sound, lacking amusement.
