Chapter Seven
For the last four months, Livia had learned how to be a princess.
She had trained herself to smile, to add small encouraging comments to the conversation that showed she was listening and not thinking about her escape plan.
Of course, her tutor hadn’t stated these expectations directly.
She had couched her advice in euphemisms like, Keep in mind that travel causes significant stress for the crown prince.
He would very much appreciate returning to a home that places few demands on him.
Livia had only half listened to these monologues as she sipped her tea and selected elegant pastries from the silver tray, making sure she didn’t spill crumbs down the front of her dress.
She didn’t care. She had never imagined she would need this information beyond a handful of stilted conversations with Edvin in the coming year.
At first, Livia had assumed that her tutor was assigned to teach her royal protocol, but after a few afternoons with Weronica, she had started to suspect that each lesson was an exercise in learning to believe in the sanctity of the crown prince’s role with all her heart.
She needed to not just comfort him but to believe that his comfort was her most important job.
If royalty was to be raised with a silver spoon in their mouth, Livia was made to understand that she herself was that silver spoon—elegant, useful, even valuable, but ultimately replaceable with another just like it.
With Gustav, it was different. Both his vengeance and his desire felt so very personal.
So very intimate. Even though he denied it, she could feel it was true.
She had come so close to kissing him earlier on this deck.
The only thing that had held her back was the fear she would lose her mind the way she had at the altar.
She only had to recall the way everything else faded away except his touch, both soft and possessive, and the heat would return, like a molten river in her veins.
How long could she resist?
She had ached to run her hands down the hard muscles of his chest. Yes, she was still furious at him for toying with her life, but that anger was far less of a deterrent than she had hoped.
Livia flashed back to those first moments in the hallway, to the softness she had felt as his hand rested on her cheek, the way he had looked at her in the church, like she was everything.
She needed to find a way back to that softness so she could sway Gustav’s decisions.
And she knew that the easiest path was intimacy.
Or at least that was what she was telling herself.
An image appeared in her mind of his body over hers, his shoulder muscles flexing as he thrust, again and again, into her willing body.
Livia let out a shaky breath as heat flooded through her.
Intimacy was the best path back to that softness, that openness she had briefly seen.
But touching Gustav again could awaken a hunger that made her sister’s needs fade from the front of her mind. Which absolutely could not happen.
Livia found Gustav reclining on the seats that lined the aft deck.
He had changed into loose gray trousers and a soft white shirt that outlined his muscular shoulders.
In the glow of the evening sun, his tanned skin took on a golden hue.
Walking off the plane, he had looked every bit the prince he was.
Now lounging, his body was on display, strengthened by outdoor labor and hinting at something very different.
The door from the cabin opened behind her, and the staff busied themselves with setting the glassware and silverware, then brought tray after tray of food to the table. Gustav escorted her to the table, his hand brushing the small of her back, spreading heat through her.
The courses began: wild nettle soup, delicate Baltic cod with sweet root vegetables, fresh breads and crisp crackers and so many of the specialty cheeses the island nation was known for.
Food had been one of her favorite things about her part-time move to Isrikesland.
Livia couldn’t claim to love everything she’d tried, and some of the traditional fish preparations she had found…
pungent, but the discovery, the newness of it all was one of the best things about Isrikesland.
Livia tasted the wild nettle soup, then turned to Gustav. “I once read a book where the hero was the pirate captain of a riverboat hundreds of years ago in England,” she said. “He held the heroine hostage for a while.”
She left out the part about what happened on their nights together. And the fact that the kidnapped-by-a-pirate trope had its appeal.
Gustav’s laugh was throaty and sensual. “Interesting story. At least sanitary conditions have improved for pirates’ hostages over the last hundred years.”
“I have no complaints, at least not about my accommodations,” she said tartly.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you have complaints about your husband?”
Husband. The word did something strange inside her, something that made her restless. Livia knew confrontation was the wrong approach, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“Why are we on a honeymoon, Gustav?” she demanded. “You could have let me go to my island in Greece after the ceremony.”
“And let the world think I neglected the most pleasurable part of marriage?” His voice was husky, and a smile teased at the corners of his lips. Which got further under her skin.
“So this is just for show? I could sleep in the other bedroom—nobody would know.”
“Absolutely not.” His smile faded.
“Then why?”
“I want you.” The smug satisfaction in his voice was exactly what she would expect from a prince.
“You want me, or you want to win?” she grumbled.
“Can’t both be true?”
“No. Not in the ways that matter most.”
He gave her a look of appraisal.
“Now I have a question for you,” he said, and she could feel the tension between them tightening. “In all the months of your attachment to my brother, did you not think you would come face-to-face with me?”
Livia looked away, at the quiet deck of the boat and the still waters that surrounded them. The inlet where they had anchored protected them from any winds from the sea. But when she looked at Gustav again, his eyes were a storm, threatening to unleash its power.
“The idea crossed my mind, of course,” she admitted, “but I imagined I would see you somewhere formal. Not like this.”
“You didn’t think I’d find a way to come for you?” He shook his head, and his smile was a flash of lightning, warning of the coming thunderclap. “Then you don’t know me at all, Livia.”
Her instinct was to throw his accusation back at him—hadn’t he claimed he didn’t know her when she was trying to bridge their distance?
But the more she sat with it, the more his words cut.
Maybe a part of her had wondered if he would come for her, but she had shut that thought down.
No one was coming to save her. She needed to save herself.
There was no way to tell Gustav about the complicated mess that this had all become—not without revealing how vulnerable Adele was. Which Gustav could use in his scorch-the-earth plans. Or even use against her.
Livia only vaguely remembered the rest of the meal, but when the glass dishes of the rhubarb parfait were cleared and the last sip of champagne made a cool trail down her throat, all she could think about was what came next.
The bedroom. Could she convince him to hold off on tearing down everything around him—and destroying her life—until she came up with a better idea?
The moment they entered the bedroom, this pull between them would grow stronger.
Was giving into it the road to compromise, or would she find herself even more vulnerable to him?
“What are your expectations for tonight?” she asked carefully.
He frowned. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”
Livia gave a little snort of laughter. “No, I didn’t save myself for marriage. You?”
He shook his head, and his laugh was warm and full.
Then Gustav’s hand brushed against the small of her back again, spreading delicious heat through her as she walked through the door, into the cabin and down the spiral staircase.
At the end of the hallway, the polished mahogany of their bedroom door and the brass handle shone in the evening light like a beacon guiding them home.
“After you,” he said, his voice, dark and intimate as he held open the door.
Gustav took up so much space in the cabin, and Livia felt like she couldn’t see anything else besides his broad shoulders and his long, lean body. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, exposing the well-sculpted forearms of a man forged in steel.
He rested an arm on the door above her and bent his head so his lips hung above hers, a delicious temptation.
She arched toward him as if they were two poles of a magnet, coming together.
All the laughter was gone from his eyes, and in its place was an intensity that felt almost wild. Livia’s heart kicked in her chest.
“Did you kiss him?” he demanded, his voice low and rough.
The question roiled through her, but she tilted up her chin defiantly and said nothing.
Gently, so gently, he took her hand and lifted it to his face. He guided her fingers in a line down his neck, and she felt his hammering pulse against her skin. He closed his eyes, but when he opened them again, they were filled with accusation. “Did you touch him?”
Her heart hammered in her chest as the question scraped at something raw inside that felt too much like guilt.
He was punishing her for her connection to Edvin, and though she refused to feel guilty for protecting Adele, she felt the depth of his hurt in his voice.
And it hurt her, too. This was the price of intimacy, and right now, it felt too high.
He still had the power to devastate her, she realized with a start. And still she ached for him.
“What did he make you feel?”