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He set her apart from him and saw far too much in those wide gray eyes of hers. All that heat. All that longing. All the memories of the ways their bodies had come together. The pleasure he had taken in her innocence, a gift she had bestowed upon him so sweetly that it made his bones ache to recall it now, damn her—
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Her voice was thick. That did not help.
Because she was the only ghost who had ever haunted him, and he’d gone to great lengths to excise her. And he’d told himself so many lies about his plans and how this would work between them now that he was a new man—
But one kiss made it clear that where she was concerned, he would always be that same poor fool who had been so besotted with her in Cambridge.
No matter who might have died in the interim.
“It turns out I do remember you after all,” he bit out.
Because he had to say something.
He had to order himself to let go of her shoulders. To step back and put some space between them.
“My condolences,” she threw at him, temper kindling in that gaze of hers. “I’m sorry that remembering the mother of your child distresses you.”
“It will make no difference,” Paris Apollo gritted out, though he felt as if every word cursed them both. “You and Iwillmarry, Madelyn. There will be no divorce. There is no possible way out. So perhaps it is both of us who require condolences.”
And later, after she’d whirled around and rushed off, he stared out at his city arrayed below him. The way he’d dreamed of doing these last two years. The dark came in at last, inky and thick, and he welcomed it.
He exulted in it.
For it was time to put the skills he’d taught himself at the Hermitage to good use at last. It was time to enact his vengeance.
But he found he stayed there on that terrace—thinking of her mouth beneath his and the memories he wished he really had blocked from his own head—for much longer than he should have. When there was the whole of the island to reacquaint himself with under cover of night.
No one would expect the King to tread in the places Paris Apollo intended to go in search of justice for his parents.
And that was precisely what he was counting on.
Ghosts or no ghosts.
CHAPTER SIX
MADELYNSTAGGEREDOUTinto the hallway and then tried to walk along it as if everything was fine. As if she wasfinewhen she very much doubted that she would ever be anything likefineagain...
Yet she was overly aware that people could see her, from the unobtrusive but watchful staff to the guards stationed at their usual intervals.
She really, truly, did not wish any of them to notice that she was on fire.
When surely the blaze inside of her and all over her could be seen from space.
So she walked as quickly as she could without seeming to run. She tried to look composed and at ease, though glimpses in the various shiny, reflective surfaces that were all over the palace made her doubt she was fooling anyone. And when she finally made it out of the busy part of the palace, she let herself slow down. And breathe a little.
That only made it worse.
She was hungry because she hadn’t eaten a bite on that terrace. She was irritated because...
Well.Because everything.
There was a large part of her that wanted to pretend this hadn’t happened, the way she’d been pretending so much hadn’t happened, so she could run back to her rooms, cuddle with Troy, and act as if nothing had changed.
But everything had changed.
And the worst part of this was that she could no longer pretend otherwise.
Because she could feel it inside of her. All over her, this impossible fire. This maddening blaze of heat and longing, this ache that was the reason all of this had happened in the first place.
