“And we’ve disliked each other for the whole damned decade, so please, let’s not pretend otherwise.”
A stillness filled the car at Mia’s outburst.
He was right. She’d met him before she’d even met Brian. She’d been seventeen, playing for the junior team when she’d met the young European Prince of Drakon.
Like everybody else, she’d been infatuated with the charming Prince. Tales had been told of his fight with his royal family, of his escapades with women from all over the world, the reckless car races and high-adrenaline sports he engaged in. She’d always been shy when it came to men, wary and reserved of slick charmers like him.
Didn’t mean she hadn’t mooned over him from a distance. The raw, pulse-pounding energy, the sheer masculinity of him had always made Nikandros irresistible.
Surrounded by A-list actresses and svelte models, he’d barely noticed her. There had been a freedom in being beneath his notice that had left her to indulge in girlish fantasies about him. Once Brian had asked her out—solid, reliable Brian—she’d given the unreachable Prince no more thought.
The reliable, hardworking man she’d fallen in love with had almost instantly disappeared the moment his soccer career had taken off. With each new contract, big endorsements and friendships with jet-setters like Nikandros, the Brian she had married had gone away, never to return.
And yet, Nikandros had always been present, like a specter in the background, always with a new woman on his arm, a new investment venture in hand.
His friendship with Brian had been the stuff of legends but she’d never made it into his exclusive circle. And the more death-defying stunts he’d taken on, the more Brian had wanted to be Nikandros, without success.
Whether genetics or blood or whatever the hell it was that made him, Mia had known no other man could be even remotely like Nikandros Drakos. A fact, when she’d pointed it out, Brian had resented like hell.
Through the years, through it all, it seemed Nikandros’s and her mutual resentment had only thrived.
Slowly, she turned toward him. “I have had a long day, in my defense.”
He considered her warily. Given that she had been thrown under the bus by the media, he looked like the one who’d received the biggest, most humiliating news of his life.
Was Brian’s betrayal truly that much of a shock to him?
“You should not be alone over the next few days. Brian would want—”
“Brian apparently wanted a lot of things I couldn’t provide, Your Highness.”
His usually languid mouth tightened. “Do not refer to me as such.”
“But that is the correct way to address the scion of the ruling family of Drakon, yes? Now I understand the fits your aide was having when I got into your car. The last thing you need is for me to drag you into this media circus.”
“Someone should look after you—”
“I’ve been looking after myself for a long time.”
“Would your family not welcome you because of these...disgusting stories that the media has concocted?”
“Stories?” She tasted the bitterness in her mouth like it was a tangible thing. “If only I could borrow some of that delusion, I’d be able to sleep tonight.”
Mouth flat, he leveled a dark look at her. “You could give Brian...his memory...a moment’s benefit of doubt. You owe him that much. At least now.”
“At least now...” she repeated blankly. Slowly, the meaning of his accusation filtered in. “At least now when I didn’t bother when he was alive, you mean?” Emotion balled up in her tummy and rose, finding a target for her fury. “Explain yourself, Your Highness,” she said, encasing herself in steel.
Something glinted in those ice-blue eyes before that cool, icy reserve slid into place again. “Not the place or the time.”
“Since I don’t foresee a time or place when I want to see you again or have this conversation, please, indulge me with your summation of my marriage. The whole world’s doing it. You may as well put in your verdict too. Especially because your friend’s not here to defend himself.”
He didn’t look like the smooth, charming Prince that had longer relationships with his cars than his girlfriends, a man who was supposed to not give a fig about his family, or the fallout with his aging father, or his duty to his country—a man who only reveled in devilish pursuits of pleasure and sport.
The tight cast of his jawline, the way he gripped the steering wheel—she sensed that same swirling emotion in him that was within her too. “You’re angry and hurt. And this is a conversation that I never meant to have.”