One dark eyebrow arched and he stood, walking over to where she was. “I should think you’re quite capable.”
“Mmm. Quite, but I don’t carry this much money. I thought you might have some means of using my father’s credit card?”
“No.” He turned to the saleswoman. “I’ve got it.” He took a wallet from his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a credit card. One with his name on it. “Charge it all. She’ll take …” His eyes landed on a short, silvery dress that was on a mannequin. “… that one too.”
The other woman’s eyes widened. “Of course, Mr….”
“Nabatov.”
“Right.” She took the plastic and headed to the back of the store, where she could handle something as bourgeois as money in private.
“What was that about?” she asked, when they were alone.
“Is the dress for him?”
“No,” she said tartly. “It’s for you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Anyway, why did you … pay?”
He shrugged. “Because I can.”
“Still, you’re going to start rumors.”
“Possible.”
Eva’s eyes were glittering with fire, and Mak couldn’t deny he was intrigued. He’d been stupid, producing his card and paying for her clothes. A surge of possessiveness, intense and dark, had taken over. A kind of possessiveness he’d never known he had the capacity to feel.
To show that she belonged to him in some way—a foolish thought. He crushed the things in his life. Broke the things he loved.
The word, the one he tried never to say, never to think, assaulted him. Tore at him like a rabid dog. He denied it. Tried to harden himself against the attack.
“You don’t care, do you?”
“Not a bit,” he said.
“So much for protecting my reputation.”
“That ship has sailed, don’t you think? Sunk, actually,” he said.
“I’m rebuilding it. In fact it’s set to float in about four weeks.”
The saleswoman came back with dollar signs in her eyes, clearly happy with the total, and her expected commission. “We can have all of it delivered to the palace for you,” she said.
“Do that,” Mak said. “And add a tip.” He named a figure that made the woman’s jaw drop.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’ll come back sometime,” Eva said.
Mak could sense her loss of elation, the settling in of reality. Eva, for all that she was playing her smiley happy self, was not happy. And he could feel it. “Ready?” he asked.
“More than.” The light in her eyes had dimmed. She’d even lost that little spark of mischief, the one that had flared when she was teasing him. When she’d been sure she was playing casual, trying to make her flashes of cleavage look accidental.
“So am I,” he said, the words hard to force out around the tightening in his throat. When her thoughts turned to her impending marriage, and he was certain they had, it made a kind of feral rage boil inside of him.
The thought of another man’s hands on her body … it couldn’t happen. She had branded him, marked his body with her touch. For him, there could be no other woman. The thought hit him with a certainty he’d only felt once before.
Just as he’d known he would honor his vows, care for Marina until she’d taken her last breath, he knew he was committed to Eva. The very idea of another lover seemed wrong.
Sex, for him, could never be about a simple physical release. It had become something sacred in his mind. His experiences with Eva had confirmed it.
But she would take Bastian. He would be her husband. In every way.
Mak gritted his teeth. “Let’s go. Outside.”
He opened the door for her and followed her out, checking all sides of her, watching for any possible threat. The car was delivered within minutes and he opened the door for her before getting in on the driver’s side.
“I hope now you’re happy. You have some clothes that you chose. Clothes that are you.” He gunned the engine and merged with traffic, taking a sharp right, headed back in the direction of the palace.
“You … you remembered me saying that,” she said, her voice filled with shock.
“I remember everything you’ve said.” He meant it to come out harsh, a reminder that he didn’t forget things. That details, in his mind, were imperative. It came out soft. More a reminder that she was special than anything else.
“Me too,” she said.
A good thing, since very soon, memories would be all either of them had.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE engagement party was a glittering affair. No formal announcement had been made, but rumors had been rampant from the moment it had leaked that there was going to be an event held at the palace on short notice.
The guest list had been kept brief, accommodating only the most influential families from Kyonos and from Bastian’s country, Komenia.
Eva hung back, peering into the ballroom from the outside, watching the party at a distance. No one noticed or cared. They wanted gossip, they wanted to be seen. And once they realized the event centered around her, then they might care about her presence. But until then, she was another face in attendance.
It was well known that she was a rebel. The youngest. The least influential. She wondered if that would change when she had a husband with power.
The thought galled. That she would matter more because of the man she married.
A man she wasn’t even tempted to scan the room for. No, the man she was looking for was one of the people she hadn’t seen since she’d arrived.
The back of her neck prickled. She turned, the chiffon of her ball gown swirling around her legs as she did. Mak was there, looking harder, leaner. Looking like a stranger. Except for his eyes. Eyes she’d always taken to be emotionless. But she knew now, suddenly and with clarity, that that wasn’t true.
It was simply emotion too deep to read easily.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you. So do you.” She indicated his custom-cut suit, her heart thundering as she took him in. He was so perfect. And tonight, any dream she harbored of a future with him ended.
“Do you know how things are going tonight?” he asked.
“Yes. In an hour my father will make the announcement and Bastian and I will go and allow him to present us before the guests. The engagement will be … official then.”
“I see. So you have some time?”
“Yes.”
“Come with me.”
She didn’t know what he wanted or why he wanted it. She didn’t really care. She just wanted to be with him. It didn’t matter if it was for five minutes, or for an eternity. No, it did matter. She wanted forever, it was just that she wouldn’t be getting it.
“Where?”
“The garden.”
He held out his hand and she took it, warmth rushing through her as his fingers closed around hers. That simple touch spread a bone-deep ache through her body, a need that transcended anything she’d ever known. And it wasn’t just sex. It was something more, something deeper. Something that frightened her because she knew that soon, very soon, she would be denied Mak’s touch in even the simplest capacity.
He led her through the vacant corridor. They passed staff, members of security. But staff was paid to ignore what they weren’t meant to see, and Mak was the superior of every security team member there. That meant no one questioned them. They hardly looked.
They went out into the garden behind the glittering ballroom. People were milling around on the balcony, chatting, laughing and drinking, the sounds filling the night air. She and Mak skirted the outside of the trees, walking deep into the garden, to their place, hidden back in the grapevines.
It was the last place he’d held her in his arms. The place she’d given in to despair. The place where her hope had left her. He’d come to her then, braced her, helped her stay strong.
“Dance with me,” she said, her voice trembling.
“I should not,” he said.
“We shouldn’t be here at all. We’re courting impropriety, and we’re doing it very deliberately.”
“That’s true.”
“Dance with me like you did the night at the ball. In the beginning.” Rather than here, at the end. Her stomach ached and she closed her eyes against the pain.
He drew her to him, pressing her body against the length of his. “Very true,” he whispered.
She laid her head on his chest and listened to his heart pound beneath her ear. She wanted to tell him, so badly. The words hovered on the edge of her lips, sweet on her tongue, but threatening to burn her if she released them.
If he rejected her love, it would ruin what they had. They could never be together. Not really. So it was better to just preserve it as it was. To hold the love she felt for him close to her chest. To use it to warm her through her cold marriage. And maybe someday it wouldn’t be Mak’s face she saw when she closed her eyes.
Doubtful. But maybe.
It made her want to cling to his image even more tightly.
They swayed, not keeping time. There was no music here, no noise from her engagement party reaching in to disturb them. She pushed back the despair that was threatening to crowd in. There was no room for it now. This was her time, her moment.