Pretender to the Throne(43)

                “Then this is why,” she said, suddenly feeling the need to close the gap between them. To make contact. “This is why I’m marrying you. Because if I can help in any way, if I can heal some of the wounds from that time, I will do it. Because you are the future here, Xander.”

                He frowned and lifted his other hand, touched her damaged cheek with his thumb. “It is a shame that time won’t heal your wounds.”

                “It is.”

                “Sometimes I think it won’t heal mine, either.” He released his hold on her and turned and walked out of her room, leaving her standing there in an evening gown, in the middle of the day, more confused than she’d ever been in her life.





                                      CHAPTER EIGHT

                HELL. XANDER HAD forgotten how much he hated these kinds of events.

                The engagement celebration was small compared to some of the parties thrown at the Kyonosian palace, due to the short notice and out of respect for the king’s health.

                Xander’s recently noisy conscience pricked him. He should go and see the king. It was a hard thing to do. The last time he’d stood before the old man, his father said in no uncertain terms that he blamed Xander for the queen’s death.

                And because he hadn’t been wrong, Xander had finally done what Stavros, and the man who believed he was Xander’s father, had wanted. He left.

                Because it had been easier for everyone. And it had been easy, most especially, for him.

                He wasn’t truly the heir after all.

                You can’t tell him, Xander. You have to be king. You are my firstborn son and the right should be yours, regardless of the mistakes I’ve made.

                Xander shut out the sound of his mother’s pleading voice. He hated reliving that conversation. Mainly because it was the last one they’d ever had. It had changed everything.

                He straightened and looked across the room at Layna. She looked...well, she did look beautiful in her way.

                She was wearing makeup. He’d brought in a team to help her get ready. He wondered if she’d ever bothered to put makeup on her face, or if it had been too discouraging. There was no hiding the fact that the skin was damaged on one side. It looked...aged with makeup on, rather than just scarred.

                But her eyes were highlighted to perfection, and they glowed with golden warmth, her lips painted a deep rose. And that dress. That dress that made his body tighten. That made him want...

                He wanted her, and that was the most surprising thing about this arrangement. He hadn’t expected to want her. He’d had an endless array of models, mainstream actresses and actresses who did the kinds of movies that rarely had scenes outside the bedroom. Women who were perfectly beautiful, either by birth or with the aid of a surgeon’s knife.

                He’d hardly thought Layna would present a temptation to him, all things considered.

                And yet...when he’d kissed her the other day, she had been a surprise. A burst of flavor on his lips unlike any he’d ever tasted before. And newness, to a man as jaded as himself, was so unexpected it was an aphrodisiac that was almost unmatched.

                “Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”

                Xander turned to face Stavros, and Eva, who was standing next to him, a glowing smile on her face, her hand over her rounded belly. He wanted to embrace them both. But he didn’t know if he could. And that was a strange thing.