Chapter Eleven
He had no idea what to wear to dinner. It was a very foolish thought to have as Onyx stood in the expansive master bedroom in the island home, looking around for what he might wear to sit across from his queen.
There was no one here. No one but her. It didn’t matter.
He thought of the way she had looked earlier today.
Wearing a bikini, a flowing cover-up thrown on top.
Her breasts were full and lovely, her belly gently rounded, and he had been so aware of the fact that he had been inside of her.
Touched her. Kissed her. And that all the intimacy since then had been lost, and he was left to crave it. Obsessed himself over it.
And what was the point of that? He had never in his life been obsessed with a woman, and it had been this way with her ever since they’d first touched.
But it wasn’t that way when she was in his study cleaning.
Wasn’t that way when she was nothing more than the little maid who brought him tea during the day.
The trouble was, she was more than that. It was becoming harder and harder for him to deny it. She was more than that, and what she was had taken over his life.
He growled fiercely, took a white shirt out of the closet and put it on, rolling the sleeves up. He wore a pair of linen pants with it, because he didn’t need to wear a whole suit, and it felt distressingly informal. He had no idea how much a full suit had become armor for him.
He didn’t know when he had begun needing armor.
Perhaps always?
Perhaps.
He was so often untested. The last time, before Circe’s death, before Birdie had stormed into his life, was when Andrei had gotten Emerald pregnant and stolen her from her wedding.
He had felt out of control then, and he hadn’t liked it.
It was a reminder of how random life could be.
When even your best friend could do something completely out of character.
Or at least, out of character based on what Onyx had known of him.
It was even more sobering to realize that he had never fully understood Andrei, or Emerald, and the nature of their relationship.
It had never occurred to him that while he was guarding Emerald, the two of them were pining. Desperately.
But they had been.
He didn’t like being confronted by his own blind spots.
This wasn’t the same. Except, it felt related. The way that he hadn’t seen the maid until she had been in a tight dress, touching him. The way he hadn’t understood her strength, even as he was accusing her of all manner of subterfuge.
And this, now. The way he had been manipulated into inviting her to dinner. That was what had to have happened. She had somehow suggested the notion. That they sit and eat together, get to know one another. Because he was the father of her child.
That realization made his stomach go tight. Yes. He was the father of her child. He…
He was the father of the child.
The DNA test proved that.
She’d said that she was a virgin when they were together. That she’d wanted to comfort him.
Jesus. It made him feel so appalled at himself. Perhaps that was his real problem. When he looked at her, he felt nothing but anger at himself.
For being a man who was vulnerable to those kinds of very human mistakes.
He wondered, not for the first time, what his father would’ve thought of any of this.
He couldn’t ask him. His mother and father had married for the good of the country, and he had wanted badly to do the same. It was why Emerald had decided to enter into a convenient marriage as well.
This wasn’t any different than his first marriage. No, it wasn’t political in the way his marriage to Circe had been but they were having a child, and when you were royalty, there was very little that was more political than a child.
He grimaced, even as he had that thought.
But it was different to be the heir.
It was. You had to be prepared for this life.
His parents had been very warm people. Loving. But when his father had given him lessons, he had been hard and uncompromising. Had told him that it was the way the ruler of a nation had to be.
And Onyx had always been able to see the difference. That at the end of the day, a king had to be able to be the symbol before he was anything else. That he had to be able to put duty before everything.
There was no duty here, and he disliked it.
He went downstairs, and began to rummage through the fridge. There were pre-prepared boards of meat and cheese, and packaged meals with instructions on them. He tried to decide what he thought the little maid would like.
He had never really watched her enjoy a meal. Didn’t really know what she would enjoy.
He decided on two very nicely prepared steaks with instructions for reheating so as not to overcook them, and buttered potatoes.
It was an elegant meal, particularly along with the cheese board. Although, his bride could not have wine, so he was obliged to get them both sparkling pear juice from a bottle in the cupboard.
He set the table for them on the terrace that was shrouded by trees, shielded from the sun.
And when he went in the house to fetch her for dinner, she was already partway down the stairs. When he saw her, his heart jumped. She was wearing an orange dress that clung to her curves. He had never seen her dressed quite like this before.
Her blond hair was loose, her face freshly scrubbed, and glowing. She was so intensely beautiful.
He had thought so when he had seen her at the masked ball. He had thought so even when she was shrouded in shadow.
But here, she was entirely different. Alive and vibrant, sun-kissed, and radiant.
“I just came hoping that there might be food,” she said.
“There is food.”
“Thank you. I’ve been thinking,” she said.
She walked down the stairs, and took her arm out from behind her back, a small green fruit in her hand. “I want to call a truce.”
She pressed the guava into his palm. He closed his fist around it lightly. “Why?”
“Well. Because we need to. We need to make something better than this for our child.”
He nodded slowly. “I agree with you.”
“Whew. That is so nice for me.” She smiled. “Sorry. That was not very in the spirit of the truce, I confess. Will you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
She began to walk ahead of him, and then stopped. “I don’t know where we’re going.”
“I’ll lead you.”
“I believe this is where you apologize to me for accusing me of being a calculated horror.”
Her words stopped him cold. “I am sorry but I was wrong about you. But I am not sorry for being first of all defensive of the throne.”
“You’re sorry that you were wrong? Well, that is not very in the spirit of the truce, I fear.”
“It’s true. I had to do what needed to be done in order to ensure that you weren’t taking advantage of me in some way.”
“I am very scary,” she said, lifting her hands and making claws at him. When he didn’t laugh, she lowered them. “Food, please.”
He led her out onto the terrace, where the meal was set for them. She looked critically at the stemware. “I can’t drink alcohol.”
“I know. I did not serve you alcohol. Nor did I serve myself alcohol. And there, you see evidence of your truce.”
“How magnanimous.”
“I try,” he said, his tone dry.
She took a seat at the table, and took a sip of the sparkling beverage. “Oh. That’s nice.”
“I’m glad. I haven’t tried it yet.”
There. He thought that was rather cordial.
He sat across from her, and she looked up at him over her glass, her blue eyes glimmering with that sort of reckless mischief she always had.
At least, that she seemed to have here on the island.
She had been so different working in the palace.
“I would never have thought that you had this much spirit.”
She frowned. “Excuse me?”
“I would not have thought based on watching you serve at the palace that you were like this.”
“Because that was my job. Sometimes we would talk, don’t you remember?”
“Yes.”
He had thought that she was funny at times. Charming, even. But she was quite young, and he had been married, so he had never thought too deeply about it.
“And you came to work at the palace when you were seventeen. Your stepmother was taking your salary.”
He wanted to get her biography straight, if nothing else. He could ponder the mysteries of her, her personality and his attraction to her for the rest of forever.
But if they were going to do this thing where they got to know one another, then he needed to understand exactly what all she had done before life brought her here.
“Yes,” she said.
“And what made you think to apply for work at the palace?”
“What I had heard was that you were an extremely fair employer. And, I was already a maid in my own home. So I thought I might as well get paid for it. Even though, as we’ve discussed, I didn’t get paid for it.”
“And what made you decide to live with your stepfamily after your father’s death?” he asked.
“Nothing made me decide it. The way that my stepmother presented it just made the most sense. And I followed her lead. It was foolish, I admit. But I didn’t know better.
I was very young. But it enmeshed me deeper and deeper into this family that I was never really a part of.
Just a convenience. A convenience when she felt she could use me, and a burden when she decided she couldn’t. ”
“And your stepsisters are…?”
“Influencers,” she said. “That’s what they do. They make videos and put them online, they get brand deals. My stepmother very much wanted one of them to marry you when Circe died.”
“The likelihood of that never existed.”
She laughed. “I know. And I also know that I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t gotten me pregnant.”
“How did your mother die?” he asked.
She looked down. “Cancer. That’s why for a while I thought I wanted to be a doctor. You know, until I woke up and realized that’s simply never going to happen for someone like me.”
“Is that still what you want?”