Chapter Two
SHE DIDN’T EXPECT to get so emotional packing up to leave the palace. She didn’t know what she had expected. But her resolve was so firm, she’d sort of thought that it would carry her out of the palace, onto the boat, across the sea.
Now, standing on the dock about ready to board the ship, she felt…frozen. Like her shoes were made of cement.
“Princess,” Andrei said, “the boat awaits.”
The boat in question was a yacht, beautiful and streamlined and with every modern amenity that a person could ever want or need.
It was Onyx’s, and Emerald had never spent a lot of time on it.
She’d taken short trips before but never anything this long.
Well, and never to her potential doom, or to a marriage with a stranger.
“I know,” she said, looking up at Andrei. “Are you okay?”
He smiled, but it looked more like a sneer. “I’m doing just fine. Why do you ask?”
She immediately felt terrible, because she shouldn’t have even referenced the very real, and horrendous trauma he’d experienced as a child.
“No reason.”
“Somehow, I thought as much.” On wobbly legs, she began to walk up the gangway onto the boat. There was a staff member standing there with a tray of champagne waiting for them. “Oh, thank you,” she said, taking the champagne and turning to look at Andrei. “Take one,” she said.
“I do not follow orders,” he responded. “Do I need to remind you?”
“That is strange, because you are here on my brother’s order.”
“I would be here no matter what Onyx advised. On that you can trust me.”
He didn’t take a glass of champagne, and she was certain that it was actually to antagonize her.
At least it would be a comfortable crossing.
All of her things had already been delivered to the plush cabin at the front of the yacht, where the views of the sea were glorious.
The last time she had sailed on the ship Onyx had given her that room, and she had enjoyed it.
But, she wouldn’t go down there just yet.
Instead, she opted to take her champagne to a lounge chair on the top deck and watch as they sailed away from Basilia.
She hadn’t expected the grief. The tightening of her throat.
She was leaving all of this behind. This country where she had grown up, this jewel-bright treasure in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The only place that she had ever called home. The only place she had memories of her parents.
But she was doing it for her family. For her legacy. For her people. Onyx could come visit her, and surely she would be able to return home sometime. Surely.
She didn’t have a chance to miss Andrei yet. Since it seemed that he was going to be her shadow this entire time.
Into her new life.
A ghost of everything she could never have.
She took an overly large swallow of champagne as the boat began to drift away from shore.
Conviction burned in her breast. She knew why she was doing this. She just had to hold on to that reasoning. To that conviction.
“Relaxing before your execution?”
She looked up at Andrei, dressed all in black, of course. “You are fun at parties,” she said. “I know because I’ve seen you. Haunting the back walls like a wraith.”
“Is this a party?” he asked.
“It could be. A beautiful yacht, gorgeous views, champagne. The only thing that’s missing is other people.”
“I never miss other people.”
She laughed. “Of course not. Anyway, the more elaborate an event is, the more work goes into the security, I suppose.”
“It is true.”
She frowned. “What is my brother going to do without you?”
“I’m good at my job, Emerald. That means that anyone who has worked under me these past years is well trained in their position, and I leave behind competent people to coordinate the security of the palace.
Only narcissists rule with such an iron fist that they cannot accept the assistance from those qualified around them. ”
“And you’re not a narcissist,” she said.
He wasn’t. She was simply poking at him.
She did that with him, used humor, gentle and spiky depending on how exposed she felt, to make her footing feel sure with him. In return, he was dry. If you didn’t know him, you’d miss that he was bantering back, because he did everything in the same, serious tone.
She knew him, though.
“No. I’m not. I am aware of my abilities, certainly. I am a realist. Not a narcissist.”
He walked to the edge of the railing and grabbed hold of it, his knuckles white as he gripped it hard, looking out at the sea.
“I am sorry,” she said. “About the sea voyage. I know that this isn’t how you choose to travel, and it must be difficult.”
There. She could be nice. She didn’t need to bleed her desperation all over this situation. It would only make it worse. Complex feelings aside, and her irritation over all of the way this had played out ignored, Andrei was one of the people that she cared about most.
Bringing him with her should be a relief.
If she were normal about him, it could be.
“Nothing is difficult, Princess. I am more than able to accomplish my tasks. What happened is in the past.” And yet still, he clung to that railing. His eyes on the water, not on her.
“Where are you sleeping?”
“I have a cabin,” he said. “Your brother was overly generous in appointing lodging.”
“Let me guess. You wanted to sleep on the floor in the coldest part of the ship so as to adequately suffer for not being royalty, and my brother insisted on giving you a bed.”
He lifted a brow. “How did you guess?”
He released his hold on the railing, turned to face her, a smile curving his lips.
So rare were those smiles. His long black hair fell into his face, and the wind pushed it off his forehead again.
His cheekbones were hollow, his jaw sharp, his lips a source of great fascination.
Full and mobile, and having the appearance of a man who should know how to smile and laugh often.
They kept him from looking as severe as he was.
They had riveted her from the time she was fifteen or so. When she had truly accepted that Andrei was something different to her than a protector or a brother or a friend.
That he was, in fact, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
She felt so ashamed of it, at least then.
Her palms would get sweaty, her heart beating faster, and there was simply no way for her to understand those feelings.
Why for him? Why so strong? There were different points where she had come to accept what those feelings were because he was an unrelated male in proximity.
The truth was, she had very little access to men unencumbered.
None, in fact. Even when she had gone to university in the city, Andrei had been with her.
It was always him. Always. Part of her had always loved that. Part of her had loathed it.
How was she ever supposed to be normal, have a date, have a kiss, have sex, if the man who consumed her fantasies, who was out of reach even though he was only an arm’s length away, was always there.
How?
The truth was, she hadn’t figured it out. And now the answer seemed to be: She had to arrange a marriage for herself.
So now her first time, her first kiss, her first experience of sex, was going to be with… King Lucian.
He was reclusive. There were no images of him taken in years. The rumors were that he was scarred. That half of his face was hideously scarred from battles during brutal wartimes in his country. The other half was beautiful. A fallen angel’s visage. He was older. Forty to her twenty-four.
But that really wasn’t her biggest concern. His age was simply a number when compared to his potential brutality.
Though all of these things were consistent across time. Men were brutal, and they wanted young women to help bear their heirs. She wasn’t unique or special in the grand fabric of the world, and certainly not in the history of royal unions.
She wasn’t marrying him for his temperament, nor was she marrying him for the joy of sex.
The joy of sex might have to be something confined to her fantasies.
She really didn’t need to be thinking about the joy of sex while Andrei stood there looking at her with those dark, molten eyes, and that mouth that had bewitched her for so long.
“Is there any way I can dissuade you from doing this?”
She shook her head. “No. Why do you need to?”
He walked toward her, and much to her surprise, took a seat beside her in one of the loungers.
“It has been my life’s work to protect you.
To keep you safe. I have followed you throughout your life.
Every vacation you’ve ever been on, to university.
And I will follow you here. I will guard you with my life, Princess, as I have done these past eight years.
But it would be remiss of me not to ask you, to beg you, to reconsider. ”
“Andrei Ardelean? Begging? This is truly a momentous moment,” she said, but her voice sounded breathless, and it was difficult for her to breathe.
He looked at her, his eyes black and hollow. “You are everything to me.”
She was almost certain he hadn’t spoken, that she had hallucinated his words, a trick on the wind.
At first she didn’t react, because she didn’t know how to. Didn’t know if she should. But then she looked at him, her heart tripping over itself. He was staring at her with deep, focused intensity. He had said it.
But what did those words mean?
Was it everything as he was to her?
That seemed impossible.
“I trust you,” she said. “I know you won’t let anything happen to me.”
“You didn’t even want me to go with you.”
She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell him why she had wanted to leave him behind in Basilia.
Why she was almost desperate to put distance between them.
Did he have any idea how painful it was for her to go on and marry another man while he was right there.
While she still had to see him. While she was still close enough to touch him, but never, ever could. Just like always.
Just like always.