Nik clasped her hips in his hands, angled himself deeper and took her hard and fast until his big body tensed and he came in a violent explosion of pleasure that rocked them both, Sofía’s release coming quick on its heels.
Cradling her to his chest, Nik rolled onto his side, his palm on her belly. She curled into the heat of his body. Then there was only the sound of his deep, even breathing.
I need you to remember that when things get crazy. When it feels like we are surrounded by a force far greater than us. We can do this.
The promise Nik had made to her in Evangelina filled her head. They were in the center of the storm now, just as he’d predicted. Now they had to find their way out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NIK ROSE EARLY the next morning, his meetings with the Executive Council on the Carnelian situation slated to start at eight and go late into the day. In the dim light slanting its way through the windows, he pulled on a pair of trousers and a shirt.
His head throbbed from the whiskey he’d consumed; his body ached from far too little sleep. He’d hoped by shutting his eyes for a few hours, the images of the five dead crewmen being carried off the rescued ship would stop torturing him, but they had been burned into his brain. He might be only the figurehead leader of the military, but he had done the training, knew the classic tenet that had been drilled into their heads as soldiers: sacrifice for the greater good. But the thought of returning those men home to their families in a box wasn’t an emotion he’d been trained to process.
A fist formed in his chest. He buttoned his shirt up over it and swung a tie around his neck. His gaze drifted to Sofía asleep in their bed as his fingers fumbled over the knot. To feel their baby kicking last night had knocked some sense into him. Sofía had knocked some sense into him.
He needed to protect her and his child. He needed to protect Akathinia. Everything hinged on what he did next.
While he had been playing in the sun with Sofía, convincing himself he was smarter than Idas, convincing himself he could have it all, his enemy had been plotting his next move. Outsmarting him. Five men were dead because of it.
Perhaps his father had been right. Maybe there was no middle ground for a leader. Either you had complete focus on the job as his father had, to hell with the people in your life, or your distractions ruined you.
He yanked a jacket from the closet and slid it on. His emotions were too close to the surface right now. Too all over the place. He needed some distance between him and Sofía while he navigated this crisis. From emotions that were too strong to process.
It wasn’t difficult. His meeting went late into the night as expected. When he returned home Sofía was asleep. The pattern went on for two weeks as he debated the question of Carnelia at Council. Those who wanted to deal Carnelia a warning blow to show Idas Akathinia wasn’t available to take were numerous. Those who, like him, knew diplomacy was the only answer, a minority. There was no middle ground, he argued to the proponents of a warning blow. It would drag Akathinia into a war it didn’t want and they would lose without its enhanced military force in place.
On the fifteenth morning of bitterly fought debate, he used his veto power at Council to dismiss military action and announced an international peace summit would be held in Akathinia in two weeks’ time to discuss the Carnelian situation. Idas would be invited, but it would proceed regardless of whether he attended. Nik was banking on the fact the international community would have his back, particularly those powerful nations with whom Akathinia had colonial ties.
His veto in place, he dissolved the council and went home. Enough talk had happened. It was time to end this.
* * *
Dinner with Nik’s family was a painful affair. Another day of negotiations about the Carnelian situation had meant another day without Nik, and with Stella out on a date, it had been just her and the king and queen at the table. As soon as dessert was served, she excused herself and climbed the stairs to bed, exhausted and miserable.
She knew she should try to sleep. She needed the rest. But she knew she wouldn’t, so she headed instead to her studio to work.
The dress she’d been working on, a chic blue silk knee-length design, cut on the bias and forgiving for her thickening middle, beckoned from the table, pieces cut out and ready to be assembled. But the excitement she’d felt earlier for the dress didn’t spark her usual creative urge.
How could she feel inspired when her relationship with Nik was falling apart? When he had spent the past two weeks avoiding her, saying no more than a handful of words to her before he resumed working or passed out, exhausted. Only one night had he woken her to make love to her. Once he had assuaged his frustration, he had slept again, leaving her emotionally and physically distanced.