Marrying Her Royal Enemy (9 page)

Thee mou.
She bit her lip, a feeling of disbelief spreading through her. Had Kostas seriously been thinking of not coming back? Of
not
becoming king? It was so far from the man she knew and the duty he had lived by that it blew a hole in her brain.

“I can’t even conceive of that.”

Tassos swallowed his last sip of wine, then put down the glass. “He hasn’t flown since Athamos’s death. Hasn’t gone near a plane. Flying is his peace, his serenity.”

She stared at him. “You think he isn’t flying because of Athamos?”

“I think maybe he thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy.”

“It was an
accident
.”

His gaze probed hers. “Is that how
you
saw it in the beginning?”

No. Her heartbeat thickened in her chest. But then again she had been so wrong about so many things when it came to Kostas, too caught up in her own anguish to consider what he might be going through, that she’d made a million assumptions.

A weight descended over her, a thick blanket of culpability she wasn’t sure how to handle. “Like you said,” she murmured, “it’s complicated.”

The pretty waitress arrived to deliver their liqueurs. Tassos waited until she disappeared before he spoke again. “Did Athamos ever tell you what happened between him and Kostas in flight school? The day they flew their first solo cross-country flight?”

She shook her head.

“It’s an exercise all of us had to do as part of our flight school training. You fly the route first with an instructor, who takes you through the checkpoints and familiarizes you with the route. Then you fly it the next day by yourself. Kostas and Athamos were up there together, vying for best-pilot status. They were neck and neck at the time.

“Kostas was about half an hour ahead. Unfortunately for them, the weather deteriorated as the day went on. It was difficult to see the checkpoints and Athamos got lost. So lost he was dangerously low on fuel. He panicked and radioed for help. Kostas heard his calls, flew back, found him, took his wing and guided him back to the base.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “If he had run out of fuel...”

“They were both critically low on fuel by the time they touched down, Kostas worse than Athamos because he’d flown farther. He was flying on fumes by the end.”

She set her glass down, hands shaking. “What happened afterward?”

“They were given a chance to refly the route. Athamos didn’t want to. He was shaken up, crushed by his failure, frightened by what happened. He wanted to quit. Kostas talked him out of it.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth, fighting to hold back the emotion welling up inside of her. “What did he say to him?”

“That every pilot makes mistakes and those mistakes define their career. That he had to dig down deep and go back up there—that he would be by his side the whole way but to quit was not an option.”

“And he did.”

“Yes.”

Liquid fire burned the backs of her eyes. She blinked furiously, but this time she didn’t manage to hold back as she had so many other times. Tears slid down her cheeks like silent bandits.

Tassos closed a hand over hers. “I didn’t mean to make you sad. I’m telling you this so you understand...so you can understand Kostas better. It kills me every time I hear that damn story about the race because it’s only one piece of what he and Athamos were. Only those two men know the truth of what happened that night and it’s far more complicated than anyone knows.”

And she had been the biggest judge of all.
Anger at herself dueled with the need to make this right.

“Thank you,” she murmured, “for telling me this. I needed to hear it.”

If it wasn’t a sign she needed to let go, then nothing ever would be. She needed to let go of
all of it
.

CHAPTER SEVEN

H
AVING
BEEN
EFFECTIVELY
blown off by her fiancé, who’d gone off to work as soon as they’d returned to the castle with that dark cloud around him again after the phone call he’d received, Stella elected to go to bed. She was too emotionally wrung-out from her evening to contemplate anything else.

She took a long soak in a bath in the rather garish, outdated purple-and-gold marble bathroom that adjoined her suite—any renovations would have to wait until the key rooms were finished. Stella slipped into a nightgown, picked up a book and took it to bed. But the more she thought about her conversation with Tassos, the more she didn’t understand. Confusion mixed with frustration in a caustic brew. Why hadn’t Kostas told her about his and Athamos’s history? Why had he never attempted to defend himself? How was she supposed to have a real relationship with a man
she didn’t even know
?

Throwing back the covers, she strode to the door, flung it open and headed for Kostas’s study. The light that streamed across the stone floor from underneath the door told her he was still working.

Fingers curling around the handle, she let herself inside. Kostas looked up from behind his desk, the hard lines of his face haggard, his beautiful catlike eyes a vivid beacon in the dim light. Dropping his gaze down over her, he made her suddenly aware of how see-through the ivory nightie she had on must be in the pool of light she stood in.

“This isn’t a social visit,” she snapped, rounding the desk to put herself in shadow. “I’ve come to talk.”

“Pity,” he murmured, his gaze eating her up. “I thought you might finally have come around.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “That would entail both of us entering this so-called relationship on equal footing, and since that isn’t the case, we have work to do.”

He threw down his pen and leaned back in the chair. “I’m assuming you’re going to tell me why that isn’t the case.”

“Tassos told me about your cross-country test in flight school. About what you did for Athamos.”

His mouth tightened. “So.”

“So you saved his career, might have saved his life if he hadn’t found his way out of that mess before he ran out of fuel, and you chose
not
to tell me?”

“He would have.”

“No, Kostas, that isn’t a given.” She clenched her hands at her sides. “Why did you allow me to paint you the bad guy, to
damn you
, when there was so much more to the two of you?”

“Because it didn’t make any difference. I needed to own my mistake.”

“It
does
make a difference. It goes to who you are. The kind of man you are. The man I’ve always known you are.”

A glimmer entered those dark, inscrutable eyes. “Don’t go painting me a hero, Stella. I’ve already crushed your illusions once. I did what any pilot would have done in my position. As for not providing explanations, you didn’t want to hear them.”

“Because you waited a year and a half to tell me. Because my grief has been ruling me.” She blew out a breath. “I owe you an apology.”

“Just like that?”

“No, not
just like that
.” She dropped her hands onto her hips. “Are you punishing yourself? Is that it? By pressing forward and not giving a damn what anyone thinks?”

His expression hardened. “Now who’s psychoanalyzing?”

“Yes. It’s my turn now. And you know what I’ve determined so far? You were always closed, Kostas, your focus was always on the endgame. The women you collected, your top gun status, your summa cum laude superiority—nothing was allowed to interfere with your vision, with
winning
. But with everything that’s happened, you’ve locked yourself up and thrown away the key. You’ve decided you will save this country, come hell or high water, and that is your
penance
. You’ve given up your idealism for the very cynicism you accuse me of, when that is exactly what this country needs most.”

His dark lashes lowered to half-mast. “What do you propose I do? Let the country wither away and die while we all hold on to our outdated, fatal visions of what we want to be?”

“No. You compromise. You dream
together
. I
see
you wanting to connect with the people, desperate to make them understand your vision, but in order to do that you have to show them you are one of them, just like your grandmother said. Right now, they aren’t sure about that.”

His gaze fell away from hers, a silence filling the room. He dropped his head into his hands, fingertips massaging his temples. She could feel the storm emanating from him, the loneliness, the frustration, the drive to make everything right. The need to never again be that five-year-old boy standing beside his father inspecting a military guard, bewildered and lost. It tore the heart right out of her.

Taking the last steps between them, she bent and framed his face in her hands, making him look at her. “I am willing to be all-in with this partnership with you, Kostas. I think we can be that unstoppable team you spoke of, that we can
do
this together. But if we’re going to make this a real relationship, you need to give of yourself as much as you’re asking of me. You have to show you’re
capable
of being in a relationship for me to invest in you. For me to trust you. I need to know we are in this together.”

His gaze darkened. “I’ve shared things with you. Things about my past.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “and I need you to keep doing that, to prove to me this is the right decision I’m making, because you were right about me—my past means I don’t trust easily, I never have. But I do believe you are right, I do believe we can be different. I believe the respect we have for each other means something.”

He rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “Being emotionally available isn’t my forte, Stella. It never has been. But I will do my best. I am committed to making this work.”

She straightened, hands falling away from his face. “Trust, transparency and complete honesty between us are the rules.”

A play of emotion flickered in those dark eyes. She wondered which of the three things she’d listed had caused it, because they needed all of them if this was going to work.

“All right,” he said. “Agreed.”

She blew out a breath. “Okay, then.”

His gaze slid over her. Settled on the thrust of her breasts under the thin material of the silk negligee. Electricity sparkled across her skin like white lightning, heat pooling low in her abdomen at his blatant perusal. She bit her lip as her nipples betrayed her and hardened to tight peaks.

“You want to come here and seal the deal with a kiss?”

A part of her knew it would be a big mistake. Another part knew it was inevitable. An intimate relationship between them was a given with the need to produce an heir. She couldn’t deny she didn’t want him, hadn’t always wanted him. Perhaps a test run would be a good idea to see how hard it was going to be to keep a handle on her feelings for him. And it was just one kiss...

Kostas hooked an arm around her waist and tugged her down onto his lap. She sucked in a breath, pressing a hand to his ripped, rock-hard chest. His big, hard body underneath her was a hot brand she couldn’t ignore, leashed, pure masculine power that told her she was playing with fire, that perhaps this hadn’t been a very good idea at all.

He curved a palm around her neck and brought her head down to his. His mouth took hers in an exquisitely soft, gentle kiss, butterfly-light, easy to extract herself from. Except she didn’t because it destroyed some of the connections in her brain.

She allowed herself to sink into it, to discover whether the kiss on the dance floor had really been that magical, exactly
how
dangerous he was to her. Angling his mouth over hers, he deepened the pressure, turned it into a soul-destroying exploration that sent more of those little quakes through her.

So it had been magical.
She should have ended it there, should have called the experiment done, but then he slid his tongue along the crease of her mouth and demanded entry. Too caught up in the sensual web he was weaving to object, she opened for him and the kiss turned breathtakingly intimate; a relearning of each other on a deeper level.

Not hungry, but staking a claim instead.
Sealing the deal.
Her stomach muscles coiled as the smooth, hot length of his tongue slid against hers. Stroked her languidly, provocatively, like a bit cat on the prowl. The hand he held at the small of her back drew her closer until she was plastered against him, breasts crushed against his chest.

He trailed his lips along her cheek, along the line of her jaw, working his way toward the sensitive spot just below her ear. She gasped as he brought his tongue into play in an erotic caress that made her shiver. Fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt, she arched her neck back as he licked his way higher to take possession of her lobe, sucking it into the heat of his mouth.

Thee mou
, but he knew what he was doing. A low moan escaped her as he closed his teeth around the tender skin, scored her vulnerable flesh, her insides contracting with her reaction to him. He could take her now and she’d be ready for him.

She was fairly sure he knew it as he lifted his mouth from her and brushed a thumb across her cheek. “One kiss as promised,
glykeia mou
. The next move is up to you.”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“It means I’m not touching you again until you ask me to.”

A bizarre sense of disappointment sliced through her. “What about the heir you so urgently require?”

“It can wait.”

“And if I never come to you?”

He set her on her feet. “That doesn’t even rank on the scale of probability.”

* * *

Kostas watched his fiancée walk out of the room, an emotional tsunami that had hit, then departed. She had been ready to crawl into his bones. He had been ready for it, too. His erection pounded with every beat of his heart, craving satisfaction, but since his fiancée had finally agreed to commit to this partnership in every way, he would gladly suffer through it.

With their wedding happening in a week, madness about to descend around them, they needed this consensus. Having Stella share his bed, and he had no doubt she would after the response she’d just given him, would allow both of them to get this chemistry out of their system. Produce the heir his country so desperately needed. Allow him to return a singular focus to the job at hand—right-siding Carnelia.

It would have been better, however, for that story of him and Athamos to have never come out. Stella insisted on seeing him as a hero—as the ideal she had always wanted,
needed
him to be, when in fact, he was far from it. He’d gone so far as to deliberately hurt her all those years ago to dissuade her of that vision and still she had persisted with it.

Guilt clawed through him, sinking into his insides. He pushed it aside with ruthless precision. He had been careful what he’d promised her. Trust, transparency and complete honesty—
those things
he could offer. With his one necessary sin of omission.

Restlessness drove him to his feet. Crossing to the bar, he poured himself the nightcap he’d missed at the restaurant. Turning, he leaned against the sideboard and took a long gulp. Today’s high-profile, public lashing had flattened him...stung him with its betrayal. Made him wonder about his country’s will to pull itself from the ashes.

He had spent his life nurturing a dream of democracy for Carnelia. Was five weeks away from attaining it. Yet, history was full of examples of the offspring of dictators who had set out to be different, with bright visions for their country, only to be defeated by the forces stacked against them. As if they’d never stood a chance. He was not going to be one of them.

Backtracking on his plans would poke holes in his leadership, holes General Houlis could exploit. The general was a man who wanted to hang him before the elections ever happened.

He lifted the glass to his mouth and took another sip of the whiskey. His father’s voice filled his head, as clear as if he’d been standing in this room, one he’d once presided over, delivering one of his sermons.

A great vision is one that must be believed in without reservation, preserved at all costs. Any show of weakness means it all falls apart.

His mouth twisted. His father might have been driven by misguided and, at times, warped ideas, but he had been right about that particular one. Any show of weakness by him would allow his enemies to pounce. He was never going to let that happen.