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As if all that was left of her—the only part of her that washer—was that blooming, near-incapacitating ache that suffused her as he left.
What would you have done if he hadn’t stopped?she asked herself after he’d gone and she was left to try to find her breath, her own ragged breath loud in the quiet room.
But no matter how many times she asked herself, it was always the same unsatisfactory answer.
Surrender.
Delaney tried to ignore the heavy heat that rushed through her every time she thought that word. Every time she imagined what surrendering to a man like that, stone and fire, might do to her...
What was the matter with her that some part of her craved that kind of immolation? She wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted to lose herself in it, and then find herself there in his arms. She had the half-mad notion that it was only there that she might feel like herself again. Only there she might truly comealive. She wanted—
A servant stepped in while she was still standing where Cayetano had left her, clinging to the wall. Delaney was sure he must have been able to see how red she was. How disheveled. How off-balance. Though if he did, no trace of his reaction showed on his face.
“The warlord wishes to know your choice,” the man said with great dignity.
Delaney wanted to pretend she didn’t know what he meant, but that felt a bit beneath her.
“The first one,” she told him, trying to match his dignity with some measure of poise and grace—or at least calm. “Thank you.”
It was a month. A lot could happen in a month. He might come to his senses, for one thing. She told herself that was what she wanted. Meanwhile, she would use the library he’d mentioned to educate herself on what she’d walked into here. Not only about her biological family, but about the Arcieris and their castle, too.
She’d hardly had a chance to breathe, much less think. Her new reality had been thrust at her, and now she was in this strange and overwhelming place, and Cayetano had kissed her like one or both of them were dying—
You’re all right now, she told herself.Perfectly alive and well andyourself.You can start using your head again.
Relief flooded her. She pressed her feet into the floor beneath her, assuring herself that she stood on her own two feet, as always. It would cost her nothing to stay here. She could go along with Cayetano as long as it suited her and gather all kinds of information before she was forced to face the Queen who was, apparently, her mother. Or the Princess who had taken her place on this island—yet belonged back home in the Kansas that Delaney loved.
She told herself this was nothing more than a delaying tactic. And more, that she was in control.
Weddings don’t necessarily happen overnight, Catherine had said.No need to rush into anything.
That was what Delaney was doing. Not rushing.
After Cayetano’s man left, she moved away from the wall. She frowned at the feast still laid out on the table, trying to decide if she was actually hungry or just feeling the very real need to eat all her feelings. But before she could get to repressing with pastries, the original trio of female servants swept back in.
They carried her battered old duffel bag with them. They were bright and chattery, like three happy birds, and they didn’t appear to require any response from Delaney.
That was a good thing. Delaney was still having more trouble standing on her own two feet than she cared to admit.
“Are you well?” one of the women asked, possibly noticing the way Delaney wobbled.
“Jet lag,” Delaney said with great authority for someone who had never been on a jet before today.
But she knew it wasn’tjet lag.
It was that kiss. It was Cayetano. It was that part of her that thought surrender sounded terrific and why not go ahead and marry thedark glorythat had come for her like a tornado, lifted her up and out of Kansas like she was Dorothy after all, and brought her here?
Because that’s what happens in books, Delaney lectured herself, though her attempt to sound internally stern was a bit stymied by all that delirious sensation she could still feel inside her, lighting her up.Real life is different.
Though it was, admittedly, hard to cling to her idea of what realityoughtto be when she was standing in an actualcastle.
The trio of servants threw open a pair of doors that Delaney hadn’t even known were there. She’d thought they were part of the wall. But it turned out that she was already in a kind of apartment, equipped with everything from her own kitchenette to a vast bedroom that opened up onto its own balcony that overlooked the sweep of the valley.
The bedroom alone, she was pretty sure, was bigger than the farmhouse.
The entire farmhouse. And the bed looked about the size of her vegetable patch.
She felt itchy. The whole thing—the pageant of it, the obvious wealth, the fact that there wereservantswho treated her with a sort of brisk deference—made her deeply uncomfortable.
