A Royal World Apart(21)

“Ten-thirty.”

“Wow. I didn’t know it was that late. I guess I was taking my birthday-girl privileges seriously.”

He paused, his dark eyebrows drawn together. “It’s your birthday?”

“Yes. I’m twenty-one. I was waiting for a bolt of wisdom to hit me like a thunderclap. With age come those things, I hear. But I feel the same.” That was a lie. But it wasn’t her birthday that had changed her.

“Happy birthday.” The words seemed rusty, as though he wasn’t used to saying them.

“Thank you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were having a birthday?”

“I told you when we met that I was nearly twenty-one. I believe you responded with something snarky.”

“That sounds like me.”

“Yes. It does.”

“I would have bought you something.” She shook her head. “I don’t care, Mak.”

“I do. I’ll have Liesel make you a cake.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You do.”

“I …” Her throat closed up and she couldn’t force another word out. Tears stung her eyes. Mak had a way of doing that. He said all the wrong things sometimes. Jerky, rude things. And then sometimes he said things that were so right … things that no one else had ever said to her.

“You will have a cake, so arguing is pointless. Though you may choose what flavor you would like.”

“Uh … chocolate.”

“Good. And anything else you want … well, I’ll try to arrange it.”

She imagined that if she asked for him, with a big pink bow tied around his trim waist, she would get a big no. “I don’t really need anything.”

“But if you could have anything, what would it be?”

Again, excluding Mak with a bow and nothing else on, she thought about it. “Dinner. Dinner here. With pitas and tzatziki and lamb. My mother used to have the cook make that for us. It was something that she liked growing up. Simple, but …”

“Comforting,” he said.

Right or wrong, in that moment, Mak knew he could deny her nothing. Giving in to this was far better than giving in to the desire that was coursing through his body. Better, but not easier.

“Exactly,” she said, color staining her cheeks. A flush of happiness. She liked being understood. Such simple things seemed to mean so much to her. And he was finding they mattered to him too.

He’d spent so much of his life giving to someone who was passive. He didn’t resent it. He gave to Marina because she deserved nothing less. Because, even if some days it taxed him, he desired to give to the woman he loved. But for so long, he’d only been able to ease someone’s pain, not offer any sort of pleasure or real happiness.

Guilt stabbed him. Guilt over finding satisfaction in this. Guilt over the gnawing ache that told him how much he’d missed the experience. Guilt over feeling that he was finally experiencing some of the real elements that should be in a relationship.

It wasn’t Marina’s fault. None of it was.

Everything he’d missed … she’d missed so much more. He had the use of his mind and his body, everything else was simply a perk. And yes, he’d missed out on some perks. But he had his health. He had his life. But there was still a wedding ring on his finger, reminding him, making him feel the weight of his past.

Still, the flush of crimson on Eva’s cheeks warmed him in places that had been frozen for years. And he was addicted enough to the feeling to chase it.

“I’m sure I can have dinner arranged. And until then?”

“I don’t know.”

Curiosity, curiosity that went beyond what he’d read in her file, prickled his scalp. “What do you normally do in a day?”

She half shrugged, her eyes straying around the room. I … I read a lot. I go to approved functions. Sometimes—rarely—I go down into the city and get coffee, go to the bookstore. But all of that is such a big deal that I really don’t do if very often. When I was in school, that filled up a lot of my time. I finished high school early and moved on to college courses, but I did all of that with tutors at the palace and now … there seem to be too many hours in the day sometimes. And other times nowhere near enough. I can’t even imagine the frenzy of a wedding …”

Her sentence trailed off, her expression turning serious. “And when Stavros gets married, well, that will be an even bigger deal. Because he’ll be marrying the future queen of Kyonos.”

“You’ll be the future queen of a country as well. Of Bastian’s country most likely.”

Eva looked down at her hands. “I suppose so. I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it.”

“No? Most people would. Most people would be counting the days until the upgrade.”

“You already know I’m not. Why would I have any more power as queen than I have now? I’ll be part of Bastian’s decor rather than my father’s.”

“You’ll be more than that,” he said, trying to erase the bleak picture her words painted.

“Right. I’ll also be expected to sleep with him. And have his children. Assuming, of course, he still wants me.”

“No word yet?” He did his best to blot out the image of Eva in bed with a man, his strong hands on her round, shapely hips. It was far too easy to imagine they were his own hands, gripping her soft flesh as he thrust into her body.

The thought of it made all of the moisture in his throat turn to dust. Last night had shown him just how close he was to breaking free of his control. Allowing anything that remotely resembled a fantasy today would be far too dangerous.

“No,” she said tightly. “When I hear, I assure you, you’ll be the first to know. Mainly because there’s no one else here.”

“I am honored, printzyessa,” he said, taking a step away from her. Distance was a necessity.

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

He wanted to touch her, to offer some sort of comfort. But his intentions would be far from honorable. He did want to offer comfort of some kind, but more than that, he just wanted to feel her skin beneath his hands. To touch the flame, quickly, to see if he could do it without getting burned.

But if he did, it would not stop at his fingertips brushing her cheek, or his lips brushing hers. No. If he touched her again … he would not be able to stop.

Which made the distance even more important.

“I have some calls to catch up on.” It was true. There were always calls to make. But the urgency had more to do with her than anything else.

“Okay,” she said.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay,” she said again.

“Did you want … something else?” he asked, trying to figure out her mood. Trying and failing.

“No. I said I was fine. I’ll see you at dinner.”

She wanted him to stay, that much he knew. But if he did … right now if he stayed he wasn’t certain he could trust the strength of his control. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure if his honor was stronger than his desire.

It was probably stupid to dress up for dinner, but it was her birthday. Although, rather than the customary glittery ball gown she opted for something more subdued. Shorter. Clingier. A little sexier …

Even if it didn’t change anything, she liked it when Mak looked at her as though she was a delicacy, rare and tempting. No matter how big a tease it was, she felt compelled to chase the feeling. Even if there was no hope of anything ever coming from it.

It felt good to be wanted.

It was more than that though. Bastian was attracted to her. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in the tension of his body every time they danced. The men she’d been with at the casino had been attracted to her too.

And while all of those men were decently good-looking, they didn’t heat her blood the way Mak did. They didn’t make her feel. Mak made her aware of all kinds of things she’d never been aware of before meeting him. Both physically and emotionally.

She’d never felt someone else’s pain before meeting him. Had never wanted so badly to heal someone else’s hurts. If she was honest, she’d always been self-centered. Her life was conducive to it. Her family didn’t have a lot of time for her, her mother was gone, her friends were seasonal.

That left her with staff mainly, and as long as whims didn’t extend beyond the palace walls, they were met. She had a lot of time to focus on her own needs, her own wants. Much more time than she’d spent focusing on the needs of others.

But Mak tore her focus outward. All of her feelings felt extracted from her, laid out, bare and raw, just for him.

It scared her. And it made her feel alive.

She walked into the kitchen and her stomach did a free fall when she saw Mak standing in front of the stove, cutting cooked lamb into thin strips.

“You’re cooking?”

He shrugged. “Liesel did most of it. I’m just doing the finishing touches so she and Jan could get down the mountain before dark.”

“That was … nice of you.”

He looked more approachable in a tight black T-shirt, and dark jeans. His feet were bare, which seemed … intimate somehow. Something about his more-relaxed self made her even more nervous. Maybe because it amped her attraction up even more.