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And as she stood there, staring back at him as if she was trying to size him up anew, Joaquin found that he was enjoying himself. The way he’d expected he would. Before that kiss he hadn’t meant to indulge in.
Because whatever happened next, he’d already won. He had taken control of the situation. It was already a balm for the scars she’d left behind her.
Too much had been taken from him when he was a child. He’d vowed, as he grew, that no one would succeed in doing so again. Not when he was big enough. Not when he was strong enough. Not when he was rich enough.
And, because he was all three, he took such insults to heart. He kept the ledger, such as it was, and it felt fantastic to cross this one off his list.
Or maybe it was the way she was looking at him, as if she couldn’t decide whether to flee or fling herself at him, that had him feeling that way. Either way, he liked it.
“I want to make sure that I’m understanding you,” Amalia said in that same frosty way of hers.
He didn’t like that she talked that way now, but he had every intention of messing that up, too. If she stayed. One thing he knew about Amalia was that she could not possibly remain frosty with him for long. Many things might have changed between them, but not that. He could feel that same chemistry the way he always did, lighting up the room they stood in. Sending off sparks that lodged themselves deep beneath his own skin.
Like it or not.
“You want there to be kneeling,” she was saying, very slowly, as if encouraging him to hear what she was saying and correct himself. He did not, and her blue eyes narrowed slightly. “Because that will make you feel...better about yourself, somehow?”
“That very much depends on what you do when you’re kneeling down there, Amalia,” Joaquin murmured. “I feel certain you can figure something out.”
“And what, pray tell, will I be getting out of this display?” she asked and laughed. Again, as if she thought this was a cocktail party. “I can understand what you might get out of it. I get the impression from all I’ve seen of you over the years that women do not habitually break up with you. If anything, they appear to trail about after you for years after your assignations, clinging to a pant leg if at all possible.”
“I’m an excellent lover,” Joaquin said. He lifted a shoulder. “But then, this you already know.”
Her cheeks were pink, but she didn’t shrink into herself. If anything, she stood taller. “Again, I understand the stick. What I’m not certain of here is the carrot. Is there one?”
“You tell me,” he shot back, his tone almost lazy now. Because she wasn’t running for the docks. She wasn’t even walking away, cloaked in her rank and privilege, like the last time he’d seen her. He suspected that meant he’d won. “Everyone knows that your Queen did not boot you out the back door with nothing but the clothes on your back.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Even if she did, there are any number of places you could have gone. I believe there are whole pockets of Europe that cater exclusively to deposed and discarded royalty. You came here. That sends a message, Amalia.”
“I assumed your hotel would be filled with guests. And yes, I will admit it, I have a sentimental attachment to the only other period in my life when I was free to do as I pleased. It made sense to come here and bookend that.” She matched his shrug with one of her own, looking cool and unruffled. It made his hands itch to dirty that up a bit. More than a bit. Because he did not care for how casually she said that when surely it was a huge admission. That she had relished her time here. That she was attached to the memory. When there was no part of any memory she could have of this island that did not involve him. “I’m sorry if you’re making that more than it is.”
“I’m not making it anything.” Joaquin allowed himself a smile, and he doubted his was decorous. “I’m offering you a choice. You, who claim you never had a choice, can now exercise one. And so soon after leaving Ile d’Montagne. This is the gift I’m willing to give to you. Behold my graciousness.”
“A gracious gift that requires kneeling,” she said after a moment, but her cheeks seemed pinker. And there was that pulse in her neck, making a nuisance of itself. Telling him things her cool tone did not. Everything in him went tight and hot. “On what looks like a rather hard floor.”
“Ah, Princess. If it wasn’t a hard floor, what would you learn?”
Amalia laughed again. “I didn’t realize that this was a learning opportunity. How silly of me. Because it does seem to be a bit more about humiliation, to the untutored eye.”
“There are few things that teach a person more than humiliation,” he replied, as if he was doing her a great kindness. And perhaps he was. “But all I have asked you to do is kneel. You are the one who finds that humiliating. Suggesting that what humiliates you is you, Amalia. Not me.”
“Somehow,” she said after a moment, pink roses on her cheeks, but an assessing sort of look in her blue eyes, “I suspect that there’s a bit more to it.”
“You know me so well.” Joaquin thought he saw her repress a little flinch at his sardonic tone. “It is simple enough. I will not take your deposit. I have no interest in being funded by that Queen of yours and her guilt money. If you’d like to stay here, Amalia, there was only one type of currency I will accept.” He smiled even wider then, because here, in this moment, it felt better than he’d imagined. And he’d imagined it would feel spectacular. “Your body.”
She stared at him for a moment, seemingly frozen solid save for a slight widening of her summer-blue eyes.
And he’d imagined this a thousand different ways. She would storm away in anger. She would slink away in shame. Either way, she would know the sting of being reduced to nothing more than a scratched itch. She, who had looked down her nose at him and told him he should have known better than to imagine the likes of him could ever mean anything to a future queen.
Better still, he would get to witness it.
But she didn’t turn on one of her elegant heels and stalk toward the exit. Instead, her head canted slightly to one side. Her eyes narrowed, and if he wasn’t mistaken, brightened.
“From princess to prostitute in one boat ride,” she said softly. “That is quite a trajectory.”
His pulse picked up at that, particularly in his sex, where it pounded like a drum. “Again, these are words you choose.”
