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“I didn’t say it had to be necessary.” She stood in front of him now. Put her hand on his chest.
He ignored the fire within. Focused on the cold glint of revenge.
“I’m offering my company, Lysias. Not my services.”
“No.”
She sighed. “Very well. But you could kiss me goodbye.” She tilted her face to his, a dangerous knowing in the brown depths of her eyes.
She was smiling, tempting him. Poking at him. But he would not give in. “I will be back in the morning,” he said, and turned for the door.
“I know you’re afraid, Lysias,” she said quietly but firmly. “But I also know you are brave. You tried to save the princess at your own peril. You survived losing everything as aboy. Because you survive. Because you are you. You needn’t be afraid of me.”
He turned back to face her down, because in this he was certain. “But I am not,asteri mou. Fear has nothing to do with it.”
She said nothing, at first. He made it out the door, but before it closed behind him, he heard her say one thing.
“Yes, it does.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LYSIASWASTRUEto his word. He did not reappear until morning. Alexandra could admit it was a disappointment. She did not wish for distance, and she thought she’d been very considerate of his feelings by not telling him she loved him.
Of course, she had told him he was afraid. No doubt that was a deep affront to Lysias.
But he acted unchanged in the morning. Perhaps stiffer, more like the man she’d first met, whose only focus was revenge. And he maintained that as he spent the days leading up to the ball, keeping her busy during the day—and staying far away from her at night.
He showed her around the island—or pretended to, as there was always media in tow, snapping their pictures, shouting questions, usually to Lysias, as if she didn’t know how to speak at all.
It shouldn’t frustrate her. It shouldn’t matter, but every day she felt more an imposter and less an avenging angel.
She went to meet with the woman Lysias had hired to make her a dress for the ball and had measurements taken, alterations done. It was a beautiful gown. Ornate and fit for a princess, with golds and blues threaded through that reminded Alexandra of much of the art in the palace. The dramatic cape attached the gown made it stand out—different and fussier than what most other women would be wearing, she had been told.
After her final alteration meeting, Lysias picked her up, and they went to lunch with a young journalist who seemed in awe of them both. Asking Lysias about his meteoric rise and Alexandra about her memory.
Alexandra smiled and played the part, even as a headache drummed behind her eyes. She was growing tired of performing. Of plastering fake smiles on her face while Lysias sat beside her but was clearly a million miles away.
He never looked her in the eye, and it was a loss that made Alexandra question too much. She’d been so sure she could handle this, but the more he withdrew from her, the more she felt the loss like a grief she had never fully known before.
But she smiled at the journalist, didn’t need to feign any loving looks at Lysias for the cameras.
Because she did love him, even when that love hurt.
“We used a computer program to age Princess Zandra’s royal portrait to how old she would be now,” the journalist said, pushing a piece of paper toward them. “Can you believe the results?”
Alexandra looked down at the picture. It looked so much like her reflection, she could only stare, her heart beginning to thunder in her ears. An uneasy jangle of nerves and the hot liquid behind her eyes she’d yet to let spill.
She was very afraid they would. Here and now for all and sundry to see. “You used my picture though?” She looked up at the journalist, desperate for an answer to this that would set her at ease. “I mean, my picture now? That’s why it looks so similar?”
The woman shook her head, her eyes alive with excitement. “No, seriously, the computer did all that with just the old portrait. Isn’t it amazing what the program can do? It’s right on. We’re going to run it with the profile on your engagement to Mr. Balaskas.” The journalist smiled at Lysias. “I think you’ll be very pleased with the results.”
Lysias smiled back. “Efcharistó, Ms. Karras. I cannot wait to read it. But I must take Alexandra back to the palace. We have many meetings yet today.”
Lysias stood, so Alexandra did too, her fake smile plastered as the journalist went on and on and even followed them out to their car. Chattering. Chattering. So that Alexandra’s head pounded as her stomach churned.
Because all Alexandra could think about was that picture. It lookedjustlike her. Surely, the girl was lying. They’d used her new pictures. It was a fake. A fraud. Maybe Lysias had even paid her to do that. He seemed to be paying everyone to dosomething.
Panic was sitting on her chest, and she did not for the life of her understand why. When Lysias drove by the beach on the way to the palace, she ordered him to stop.
