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Because Roman had been right. Or rather, Roman when he had been masquerading as Constantin and answering her questions with an alluring frankness, leaving her wondering which of them was the real man. The understanding and passionate bodyguard, or the cold, disciplined king?
It didn’t matter.
The fact remained that the royal palace of Petrogoria was intimidating, just as he’d warned her.
For a start it was big. Way bigger than she’d imagined and everything was on a much larger scale than what she was used to. It made her childhood home seem like a matchbox lined up next to a shoebox. And it wasn’t just the size—it was all the contents. There was more of everything. More Old Master paintings, more ancient books and precious artefacts. The scaled-up fountains sprayed bigger and more impressive plumes of water and the corridors seemed endless. And these weren’t the familiar corridors of home—the ones which she’d run along and explored and hidden in, from when she’d first learned to walk. These were impossibly wide marble passageways, lined by inscrutable servants who bowed or curtseyed whenever she passed them. Here there were no friendly cooks or grooms who’d known her since babyhood and who had treated her with a slightly modified version of informality, which she’d always found comforting.
Roman had described it as home.
It just didn’t feel like her home.
Life here was like being part of a beautifully choreographed dance—with the King positioned at its glittering centre. Everything revolved around him. Sometimes Zabrina felt like a satellite to his blazing sun—as if she were an insignificant and very distant star. Each day they took their meals together in different dining rooms, all of them exquisite. They ate breakfast overlooking the fabled rose gardens and lunch was taken in a huge windowed chamber, decorated in a dizzying spectrum of blues. Dinner was served either in the supposedly more low-key Rose Room—which wasn’t low-key at all—or, if they had company, in the highly ornate Golden Dining Room. Because if people were coming to eat in a palace as famous as this one, they liked to really feel they’d had the whole palace ‘experience’.
After dinner she and Roman might have a nightcap—rare—before retiring to their separate suites, though she gathered from remarks which Silviana had made that the King often worked in his study until the early hours of the morning. Whatever he did, it didn’t involve her. In fact, none of his life did. Not physically, at least. Amid the careful carving out of her role as his future queen and the increasingly frenetic arrangements for the wedding, there had been no rerun of that heady sensual epi
sode on the train.
The King of Petrogoria had not laid a finger on her since she’d walked over the threshold of his glittering golden palace.
Had she thought it might be different?
Yes, of course she had.
Had she offended him hugely by kicking him out of her carriage that night, when it had been obvious that—after all the dust had settled—he had wanted to stay and carry on with more of what they’d been doing? Probably. She had felt so strong and so sure of herself at the time. She’d been infused with a powerful sense of self brought about by that magical sexual encounter and had felt no qualms about castigating him for his deception, and for refusing to believe that he was her first lover.
Yet the annoying thing was that her show of defiance seemed to have backfired on her—because he had taken her at her word, quite literally! And by keeping his physical distance, he had managed to fill her with a lingering sense of uncertainty. The brief and heady authority she had felt when he had been in her arms had shifted, and now he was the one who seemed to possess all the power. She wondered if she had wounded his pride and ego in such a way that he now found the thought of touching her unpalatable. Should she ask him?
Roman, don’t you find me sexually attractive any more?
Roman, don’t you want to take me to bed?
No. Because deep down she knew the answer to that, no matter how insecure she sometimes felt. It was made plain by the smoky hunger which flared in his eyes whenever she inadvertently caught him watching her, before quickly composing his handsome face into its more habitual impassive mask. He still wanted her, all right. That mutual desire showed no sign of abating. Predictably and potently, it fizzed between them whenever they were in the same room together. Like a flame, she thought, with equal longing and despair—bright and vital—yet tantalisingly ephemeral.
His grey gaze was fixed on her questioningly. ‘So is he gold?’
‘Who?’ She looked at him in confusion, trying to gather together the scramble of her thoughts. ‘Oh, you mean Midas?’
He made no attempt to hide his sardonic smile. ‘Isn’t that what we’ve just been talking about?’
She flushed, wondering if he had any idea what had been preoccupying her. She hoped not. Though what did she know? Probably any woman who found herself alone with him spent the majority of their time fantasising about what he was like in bed. It was almost a pity that she had actually experienced it—because didn’t that make it harder to shift the tantalising images from her head?
She cleared her throat and forced herself to concentrate on her beloved horse. ‘No, he’s not really golden. More of a bay. An Akhal Teke, actually. But when I first got him it was my birthday and I was taken down to the stables early in the morning and there he was, with the sunshine glinting off his coat like metal—and he looked...well, he looked magical really. Like a living golden statue.’ She paused, the iced mango in her bowl forgotten as an unexpected wave of nostalgia washed over her and she looked at him rather sheepishly, surprised by the narrowed interest in his grey eyes. ‘I don’t know what made me tell you that.’
But she did know. It was just a long time since she’d allowed herself to think about it.
It had been one of those unusual periods of her upbringing when an air of something like calm had settled over the palace, mostly because her father had returned into the bosom of his family after his latest affair. After one of these interludes, her mother’s overriding reaction would always be one of profound relief that everything could be ‘normal’ again. Often, this would provide the ideal opportunity for the palace to release a photo depicting happy family life. It was also one of the reasons why her father would overcompensate—materially, at least—and overspend even more than usual. Thus, Zabrina had been gifted a beautiful and very expensive horse with a scarlet ribbon tied around his neck and the cake they had all eaten later for her birthday tea had been ridiculously big.
The memory of that monstrous gateau made her feel a little nauseous and she pushed her half-eaten dish of mango away, forcing herself to change the subject. But maybe she should capitalise on the fact that Roman seemed to have let his guard down and this was the most relaxed he’d been. There were a million questions she wanted to ask him but instinct told her that she needed to tread carefully. Maybe he was like a prized thoroughbred, who needed careful handling. ‘Can I ask you something, Roman?’
Instantly, his eyes narrowed with caution. ‘You can ask. I won’t guarantee that I’ll answer.’
She wondered if he had been a lawyer in a previous life. ‘Are you planning to do anything with the Marengo Forest after our wedding?’
Roman sat back in his chair as he stared into the long-lashed beauty of her green eyes. She could be quite...unexpected, he conceded. He had imagined her mind to be flapping with those tiresome thoughts women so often entertained and had been anticipating her demanding to know how he ‘felt’ about her. And that was the last thing he wanted to answer. Because the bizarre truth of that was he didn’t really know and there was no way he wanted Zabrina to realise that.
She seemed such a contradiction. Sometimes seasoned, sometimes innocent, sometimes spoiled and at others sweetly thoughtful. Her complexity intrigued him and he had no wish to be intrigued, because that wasn’t what this union was supposed to be about. She unsettled him and he didn’t like being unsettled by a woman. Hadn’t he vowed that was never going to happen to him again? That no woman should have any kind of power over his thoughts and his feelings?
That was one of the reasons why he hadn’t touched her since he’d brought her to his palace. Why he hadn’t given into the silken tug of desire even though every time he saw her he grew exquisitely hard. He swallowed. Before her arrival, she had been allotted a separate suite at the opposite end of the vast palace complex. At the time he had accepted there would be no sex before marriage because the Princess was a virgin and tradition demanded it. And even though her subsequent behaviour had meant there was no reason for such a restriction, he saw no reason to change the existing plan, because he could see a definite advantage to denial—no matter how frustrating he might find it.
