Chapter Four
AIKATERINI FOUND THAT there was a certain comfort in returning to her old routines.
Throughout her mourning period, though she had worked from her office in the palace, she had necessarily taken a step back from the Princess’s normal course of duties that involved a heavy slate of public appearances.
But now the mourning period was over and she was married to the new Prince, so that meant her engagements were back in effect.
And even more voluminous than before.
But what became clear almost at once was that the resumption of her old schedule—and so many additions to it, as public demand was at a fever pitch—felt familiar.
And after the wedding night they’d spent locked away in Kyriakos’s bedchamber, Aikaterini found that what she needed most of all was for something to feel familiar again.
Familiar felt good. It felt right. It let her imagine that, despite the loss of Venediktos and this marriage she’d surrendered to only because she had no other choice, things would be okay.
As long as she had her job, Aikaterini thought, she would be all right. She would know who she was. She would know what was expected of her and how to deliver it. This was no small thing. It might even be everything, in the end.
It also helped that the public was so pleased to see her.
At the end of the first couple of weeks of nonstop appearances all over the island, Aikaterini sat down with her staff in their office on the palace grounds, and asked if they’d noticed the uptick in both crowd size and intensity.
“Oh yes, Your Serene Highness,” her top aide said at once. The rest of the staff were nodding vigorously. “They can’t get enough of you. We had to double security and extend our timing window at almost every stop.”
Aikaterini took that in and could admit that she was surprised that all of the reactions were so positive.
“I’ll confess that I did think there’d be some blowback,” she said after a moment.
“Law or no law, I did expect there to be accusations of moving on too quickly or polluting Venediktos’s memory, or accusations of a more prurient sort.
I’m shocked that none of that has happened so far. ”
Though it did occur to her that it was possible that she was handling that blowback all on her own.
“As we discussed throughout the course of the last year,” the head of her publicity department was saying, rather solemnly, “we were very concerned about that at the start. And we tried to subtly shape perception and transition toward acceptance—”
“What he’s trying to say,” Aikaterini’s top aide interrupted with a smile, “is that it’s hard to say whether or not any of that was effective, because the public has chosen to view your marriage as deeply romantic.”
Aikaterini let out a surprised sort of laugh. “Romantic? It is literally the opposite.”
“I will prepare you a selection of clips,” the other woman replied smoothly.
“The mood of the people is undeniable. They feel that in honoring the law, you have honored not only Venediktos but your new husband too—and, of course, the whole of the country. In pledging yourself to Kyriakos, you have exemplified romantic love for the ages.” When Aikaterini only stared at her, not sure how commanded by law and romantic went together, the aide shrugged. “Obviously, we’re running with that.”
Aikaterini thought she would probably prefer to run in the opposite direction, but that wasn’t on offer.
That very same night, she received a formal summons via the staff to dine with her husband.
It was not a request, nor worded in any way that might allow her to interpret it as one.
She had thus far managed to avoid him completely—and quite happily—in the wake of their wedding night and, if possible, would have preferred for that to continue.
Because avoiding him meant she didn’t have to think about the things that had transpired between them in that bedchamber.
Those unacceptable feelings that had swept through her.
That kiss that had seemed to turn her inside out.
That kiss that she refused to admit still haunted her.
She would wake in the night, entirely too warm, her head alive not only with memories of the actual kiss they’d shared, but some kind of compilation of images she’d seen in the media or read about in books or simply made up in her own head—but starring Kyriakos and herself.
In the morning—every morning—she took a very cold shower and hated herself.
Then she did her best not to think about him again all day. About the Prince in theory, certainly. The position instead of the man. The country he represented. But not Kyriakos himself.
Not deliberately.
Throwing a private dinner into the mix did not suggest to her that he was planning to let that continue.
The day went by too fast because before she knew it, she was walking down to the main level of the palace at the appointed time.
She made her way into one of the newer wings that had been built off the side of the original fortress and boasted a series of reception rooms designed to take advantage of the views of the grounds.
It was more properly fall now, this far into September, but here on the island what that meant was simply a mellowing.
Of colors, whether the sunset or the garden. Of temperature, with warm days and cool, pleasant evenings. Of the rhythm of the island and the light that bathed it. It all became more deeply golden as the year wore on.
Aikaterini could not allow herself the same kind of softness. Not now.
She had no wish to repeat the informality that had led to changing clothes in front of this man—no matter if he was looking at her or not—and lounging around on couches, stuffing her face in complete abandon.
Accordingly, she had dressed in the quiet sort of armor she preferred.
An exquisitely tailored dress. A simple strand of elegant jewels around her neck.
Hair and makeup on point—and a pair of flats as a nod to the fact that they were at home.
Aikaterini squared her shoulders outside the dining room and had to call on all her many years of concealing her true emotions in public to fix the appropriately neutral expression on her face. And she was glad she did, because when she walked in, Kyriakos was already there.
This time, the punch of his presence landed…differently.
When he glanced up and saw her, he finished up his phone call at once.
“I beg your pardon,” he said as he rose, as protocol demanded. “I’m afraid I cannot refuse a friend in need.”
She accepted the drink he poured for her. Then she sat with him at the table, noting how advantageously placed it was. It let in the setting sun as it slowly sank over the gardens that rolled on into the waiting sea.
It was beautiful. Zaccaria had always been beautiful and ever would be. That, too, was a comfort.
“I always forget that you so famously have friends,” she said, because she didn’t care for the intensity of the silence between them.
She smiled, thinking of all those whispers about what Kyriakos had got up to at university.
Venediktos had always been torn between amusement and a kind of jealousy. “It always surprises me.”
“Not everyone dislikes me as much as you do, Aikaterini,” he replied.
And he sounded almost amused when he said it, so though she felt a jolt of something—some mix of shock and shame, with a bright heat underneath—she swallowed it back.
She would have to think about that later.
She would have to ponder the fact that he knew how she felt about him. That, perhaps, he had always known.
That would require some consideration, she was certain.
But she couldn’t possibly do it while he was watching her for her reaction.
“It is only that I find it so unusual,” she managed to say, with some semblance of serenity, as if he hadn’t called her out. “I think it’s rare in our circles that anyone truly wants anything to do with you. Only your position.”
The staff swept in then, bearing gleaming platters piled high with the evening meal. And when they left again, they left behind what felt like another great intimacy that everything inside of Aikaterini wanted to fight against. Push back on. But she didn’t.
“Do you not have friends?” Kyriakos asked—with an exquisite politeness she was not sure she believed at all—as he watched her make her selections from the offered platters.
Aikaterini considered the salad she’d piled high on her plate, then looked at him.
“I have courtiers. And I have staff.” When he shook his head, she felt herself bristle slightly.
“I had one friend, but you know that. The opportunity to make other friends was never available to me. How could it have been? My life was planned out from the start. Friends were not an important part of that plan.”
But the longer he simply gazed back at her, the more uncomfortable she felt in her own skin. It was as if he was seeing beneath it. Peeling back layers she hadn’t known were there and finding truths she wasn’t sure she wished to face.
“I am sorry to hear that,” he said, after what felt like an eternity of him seeing far too much.
“There is nothing to be sorry about,” she replied, perhaps too swiftly. “It has always allowed my focus to be on Zaccaria. Where it belongs.”
She didn’t need to hear her own voice hanging in the air between them to know she sounded prim and self-righteous and entirely too precious. If she could have curled into a ball of shame and rolled away, she would have done it.
That never seemed to be an option. Tragically.
Thankfully, Kyriakos did not react. He only watched her a moment longer, then helped himself to the various delicacies laid out between them on the table.