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It could not be. He didn’t just pluck a random woman pretending to be a boy out of obscurity only for her to be everything he needed.
Everything indeed.
He managed to thank the doctor, but he hung up on him before he could listen to more of the man’s babbling.
He looked around the world of his childhood. Alexandra, his Alexandra, was the princess. Was the little girl he’d saved. ShewasZandra. All the memories, the resemblances—it was all true.
She would... Would she be happy? Would she revel in the information? He moved forward. She had to know. Immediately. Maybe it would be a difficult discovery for her. It would certainly change...
He stopped halfway to the door. It would change everything.
And it could change nothing.
What had he been thinking? He’d told her just yesterday, even if the impossible were true, it changed nothing.
Now it was so. It wasso, but it could not alter his plans. The forces were already at work. So she didn’t need to know.
He curled his hands into fists.
No one ever need know.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ALEXANDRASTUDIEDHERSELFin the mirror. She looked every inch the princess as the woman Lysias had hired to prepare her for the ball fluffed her skirts and made last-minute touches to her hair. She tried not to look at the clock again, but it was impossible.
They were meant to make their entrance in less than fifteen minutes. Would Lysias expect her to enter the ball alone? What was he off doing?
Her helper stepped back, examined Alexandra. “Is there anything else you’ll be needing, Miss Alexandra?”
“No, thank you.” She opened her mouth to ask the woman about Lysias but then decided not to as the woman exited quietly.
Alexandra stood alone in the room dressed up like a princess and felt as alone as she ever had.
Quite the irony for a girl who’d always been alone on the streets. To protect herself and her identity. She had been lonely then, but this was new. Worse. Because it wasn’t a generic loneliness. It was loneliness from yearning for a very specific person who’d pulled away from her.
And you let him pull away. You have not told him how you feel. You have only closed doors in his face.
She frowned at the voice in her head, thetruthsif she was only brave enough to look at them. Because she thought Lysias understood the depths of her feelings, but she had not said the words.
Maybe...maybe she could get through to him if she did not allow herself to be distracted or overwhelmed by the situation at hand. If she walked in with her eyes wide open, planning to tell him.Determinedto tell him, no matter what it cost her.
Except no amount of preparation or clear thinking could have prepared her for Lysias. For what she felt for him. What had grown between them so quickly. She had been prepared to do a job, collect a paycheck.
Not fall in love with a man so afraid of it, he’d avoid her. When she was quite sure he avoided very little.
She needed to decide what to do about it, but maybe it was best to see through Lysias’s revenge,thenworry about what came after.
Like finding out if you’re really the princess.
She laughed to herself in the quiet of her room. It was impossible, and she needed to put it out of her head.
A knock sounded at the door. For a moment, her heart tripped over itself, thinking it was Lysias.
But Lysias wouldn’t knock. She rolled her eyes at herself and walked over to the door, the heavy cape and dress trailing behind her. She opened it and stepped back at the unexpected arrival. “Um, hello.”
King Diamandis moved into the room carefully around her large skirt. A young woman hovered behind him. She was often hovering somewhere around him with a clipboard and a word about his next meeting. Yet Alexandra had never been introduced to the assistant. Apparently he did not plan to introduce them now.
“I thought we should speak before the ball begins. I do not have much time.” He looked at the woman with the slim folder. “Knock when it is time,” he said to her.
