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She hesitated, torn because she was afraid he wouldn’t understand. “There is one other thing I need,” she said finally. “Please do not take this the wrong way, but I do not want the men with whom I work to know about us. Not yet. Not that I am ashamed of what I feel for you,” she rushed to add as his eyes darkened. “It is not that. Please do not think that. You are a man any woman would be proud to call her own.”
“Then why?”
“I am judged by the men on the queen’s security detail, and within the Zakharian National Forces. You must see how I cannot let my personal life be a distraction. ‘Emotional.’ That is what the men say. ‘Women are too emotional to do a man’s job.’”
“I never said that.” His words rang with sincerity. “I never would.”
“I know you would not, but it is not you I must work with. I am already looked at differently by Captain Zale and others than I was before yesterday. You know this.”
His voice was hard when he said, “I already told you, no man could have done better.”
“But what if Captain Zale thinks I was distracted from my duty, let us say, because you were there? Because of how I feel about you?”
“You weren’t.” Decisive. Sure.
His faith in her—so absolute—made her blink back sudden tears. She’d cried more in the past two days than she’d cried in the past eight years since Caterina disappeared. Tears no one but Alec had seen. She wanted him to always believe in her, but she had to be honest. “I will never know for sure,” she said softly. Words it hurt her to admit, but words she had to say to him.
“I know,” he said, still in that same implacable tone.
“How can you know when I do not?”
His voice gentled. “Because I know you, Angel, like I know myself. Trust me on this.” He pulled her head down and cradled it against his shoulder, a gesture that comforted her more than she would ever have believed possible. Or necessary. “Nothing will ever distract you from your duty.”
Chapter 10
Eleven men and one woman sat around the conference table in what was called the war room. Zakhar had not fought in a war that required this size of a room since the Second World War, when the king’s grandfather sat on the throne, and it was rarely used. But relics of Zakhar’s illustrious military history were everywhere on the walls, including an authenticated copy of the portrait of the first Andre Alexei, the original of which hung in the portrait gallery downstairs. Angelina fixed her eyes on the portrait, wondering for the thousandth time how such a fearsome warrior could have been the same man who said, “It is her...or no one,” referring to Queen Eleonora. The same man whose fierce love for his queen was legendary.
Everyone rose when the king entered, the wooden chairs making no sound on the large carpet beneath the conference table, and Angelina put her musings aside to consider another day, wondering instead why she’d been included in this high-level meeting. Captain Zale hadn’t told her. He’d merely said the king had commanded her presence.
“Please be seated,” the king said curtly before taking the chair at the head of the table next to his cousin, the head of internal security. “You all know why you are here,” he told them. “But I will say it anyway. Prince Nikolai is dead.” The king shot one glance at his cousin, who was Prince Nikolai’s older brother, but Colonel Marianescu betrayed not a flicker of emotion.
The king continued, “My cousin supposedly hanged himself in his prison cell last night.” She could have heard a pin drop. “I say supposedly, because there are indications it was not by his choice.” The king folded his lips tightly together, as if keeping his temper by the slimmest of threads.
“I also find it convenient—too convenient—that the interrogation of the surviving would-be assassin from Sunday’s attempt has yielded a confession so quickly.” He glanced around the table, his gaze moving from one face to the next, ending on Angelina’s. “Far too convenient, because he named my cousin Niko as the instigator of the plot to assassinate my son.”
Angelina had never heard a harder, colder voice than the king’s. Then he said softly, “I do not believe it. It is too neat. Too pat.” A couple of voices were raised in objection, but the king held up his hand to silence them. “Do I believe my cousin wanted my son dead? Absolutely. Do not waste your breath on that. But do I believe he could have arranged this from his prison cell? All on his own? Without access to money? Accomplices? No. I would be a fool to believe that.” And I am not a fool. He didn’t say it, but everyone at the table heard him anyway.
