Pretender to the Throne(48)

                “Because you don’t want it,” she said. “Because there’s nothing easy about it, and the power itself doesn’t seem to appeal to you at all. What better man to rule?”

                “Because I don’t want it?”

                “Yes. From that I have to assume that your motives are pure.”

                “My motives are a lot of things. But I doubt they’re pure. I doubt anything in me is.”

                “Are you ready to go back?” she asked.

                He was humbled in that moment, by her strength. By the cost of this to her. It was costing him, but what really? His total waste of a life? His meaningless flings with random women? His chance to continue living in different penthouse suites?

                It was costing her every shred of pride she had.

                He would not let them take it. She was too strong. Standing there with her focus fixed on the ballroom, determined to go back in even though he knew it was difficult for her.

                “Yes, agape, let’s go and show them what the future of their country looks like.”





                                      CHAPTER NINE

                SHE HONESTLY HAD no idea what her problem was. Why she’d melted down with Xander, why she’d had to run out of the ballroom.

                Well, no, she did know why. It was because she had no idea what she was doing. She didn’t know how to handle men. Didn’t know how to deal with this desire that was starting to wrap itself around her like a creeping vine.

                This wasn’t supposed to happen.

                She was supposed to be...at the very least she was supposed to feel nothing for him. And at most, she’d been willing to allow herself to be angry.

                And she was angry. She was angry at him for leaving her. She was angry at life for making her the way that she was.

                But in there somewhere, she wanted him, too, and that was the thing she couldn’t quite deal with.

                She breathed in the sea air. It was such a relief to be outside. To be on the beach instead of in that ballroom, which, as expansive as it was, had made her feel claustrophobic beyond words.

                She’d escaped as soon as she could. Most everyone had gone and she’d made her excuses, as soon as was polite. She was dreading tomorrow’s headlines. Dreading the future. So funny, because she hadn’t thought of the future at all in a long time.

                All of her days had been so alike at the convent. Her future had been so certain. So solid. She’d seen her days stretching out before, a calm and endless sea.

                But now she was storm-tossed and she had no idea where she would land.

                She sat down, not caring that the ground was wet, not caring that there would be sand on her gorgeous black dress. She would hardly be able to wear it again anyway. That was something she remembered from her socialite days. Never wear the same thousand-euro dress twice. Such a sharp contrast to her other life, where she wore the same threadbare shifts until they couldn’t be mended anymore.

                She felt like she wasn’t wholly the girl she’d been before, or the woman she’d become, but damned if she had any idea who she really was. And she blamed Xander for that feeling.

                She’d been fine before he’d walked back into her life. She’d been at peace with her choices. And now he was demanding so much from her. So much more than she ever thought she’d have to give to anyone.