CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
Stevie was filled with adrenaline. And rage. So much rage.
She couldn’t decide what she hated most. That he had been willing to exploit her vulnerabilities, her poverty, so that he could get what he wanted or…
That she had been tempted to say yes.
He was offering her a life she’d never imagined. Not when she couldn’t see past the day-to-day. The next paycheck, the next therapy her father would need.
He was offering her…children. To be her husband.
She’d never really seen herself with those things.
She hadn’t imagined a wedding or a marriage or a life away from her family. She’d never been able to afford it.
That he was the most beautiful man she had ever set eyes on, and he was proposing marriage.
Because he was the only lover she’d ever had and she dreamed of his hands on her skin at night when she tried to sleep. But he’d lied to her about who he was—even if by omission—and he’d been engaged and…
He was offering her the chance to become a princess and she wasn’t immune to such a fantasy.
She really didn’t know what she hated most.
It was difficult to say.
“Stevie.”
Her father’s weak voice came back from his bedroom.
She tried to gather herself, and walked back there.
“Is it true?” he asked.
Her poor father. He was so gray. So gaunt.
He was nothing like the man he’d been even five years ago. He had been vibrant then. And even though he had been grieving, he possessed physical strength.
But he had been hiding the bulk of his pain. His drinking.
And then when his liver had begun to fail him…
Everything had fallen apart.
Everything was falling apart.
“Is what true, Dad?” For a horrifying moment, she thought he might be asking if the rumors that she’d had a torrid affair with Adonis were true.
“He asked you to marry him.”
“Oh… I… There’s no way that it could’ve been really serious.”
“Daisy said that it was.”
She had tried to downplay the whole event with her dad. The plane crash, everything. But, of course, once it made its way to the media in truly sensationalized fashion, he had gotten a version of it that was out of her control.
“Well, I can’t take it seriously,” she said. “I can’t take it seriously because… Because it’s impossible. Improbable.”
He reached out; his touch was weak. And there were tears in his pale blue eyes. “Stevie, I failed you as a father. I fell to pieces when your mother died. And I drank myself into this state. I’ll never forgive myself for it. But don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
“I’m not going to develop a drinking problem,” she said, and then felt guilty about it. “I’m sorry…”
“That isn’t what I mean. Don’t fall into the belief that you need life to be hard. That you have to cling to the struggle, rather than accepting a solution. So many people have wealth and riches, Stevie, why shouldn’t you? Why shouldn’t the rest of the girls? You did a brilliant thing saving that man. I’m your father, and I love you. I could never have made you a princess, but I should’ve treated you more like one.” A tear slid down his cheek. Stevie felt her insides tighten. “I want you to take this. Take this thing that I couldn’t give you. So that when I’m gone I’ll know that you’re living a beautiful, easy life. So that I know your sisters are. They are somewhere in Europe wearing beautiful clothes, instead of working yourself into an early grave.”
“Dad…”
“I mean it, Stevie. You believe… You believe what I did. Which is that at some point your hard work is going to get you somewhere. But this is as far as it ever got me. And this is as far as it’s ever going to get you. Unless you take this big hand up. You saved his life. You deserve every inch of what you’re being given now, and more.”
She didn’t want to say yes to Adonis. Not after the scene earlier.
But she could see the truth in what her father was saying. And she could see his very real worry.
“I don’t want your legacy to be a struggle.”
Her heart broke definitively. And right then, she determined that however long her father had left, she wanted his life to be easier too. She wanted him to have something for all his work. Because for all that he felt he had failed her…
“You haven’t failed me, Dad. You had it really difficult. I know that losing Mom was hard.”
“It was hard for you too,” he said.
Well, maybe that was true. She had been a young woman who hadn’t had much chance to grieve, but she wasn’t bitter about it. There was no point being bitter.
But perhaps there’s no point in stubbornly insisting you keep on struggling either.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll accept.”
She felt like she was free-falling. But her dad was right. What was the point of all this sacrifice when it would only take her so far?
What was the point of sacrificing at all if she wouldn’t do this one thing that would change their lives forever?
She didn’t need to find the card he had given her. She knew the name of the hotel.
It was the nicest one in Bozeman.
She got in her old truck and drove down to town, bundled up in a parka and heavy mittens. Thick boots.
She looked and felt nothing like a princess.
She couldn’t even…
There were too many aspects to this to even fully…take it all on board.
It wasn’t just that he was asking her to marry him, it was that he was asking her to be a princess. It wasn’t just that he was asking her to be a princess, it was that he was asking her to move to a country she had barely even heard of, much less been to.
She parked her truck against the curb and walked across the street to the grand, stately building.
She went to the front desk. “I’m here to see… I’m here to see Prince Adonis. You can tell him that it’s Stevie.”
“Well, hot damn,” said the man who was tending the counter. “Stevie Parker. You’re the woman who saved his life.”
“I feel that details of my bravery have been greatly exaggerated.”
“Spoken like a true hero. He’s in Room 340. Go on up.”
Stevie felt that it was a shocking lack of security for an actual prince, but she wasn’t going to reject the ease. Because she still felt like she was utterly and completely turned sideways, and she didn’t know how she was going to find her balance. She got into the old, slow-moving elevator, and pushed one of the gold buttons, wincing as it groaned its way to the top floor. It was a beautiful building, but it was old.
The elevator reached its destination and the doors opened, and she wandered out into the hallway. The carpet was a jade green, and the scrollwork on the crown molding really was very nice. She had never been in this place, because it was too rich for her blood.
Maybe not now.
She let out a long, slow breath, approached the room number where he was staying, the one at the farthest end of the hall, and knocked.
The door opened a moment later. And she was slightly dizzy, slung into a sense of déjà vu, since their positions were reversed from earlier, but of course she was entering his glorious hotel suite.
A hotel suite.
Her heart started to beat a little bit faster.
And then there was him.
His impact was not lessened. Not from having already seen him today, not from having seen him nearly bleed out… He was an undeniable presence. No matter what.
“I…” She swallowed hard. “I need to speak to you.”
“Come in,” he said.
With her most grumpy and determined face firmly in place, she stomped into the room. She crossed her arms and looked up at him. If only her crossed arms were the shield she was trying to use them as. “I spoke to my father.”
“I didn’t even realize your father was there.”
“He’s ill. Too ill to simply pop up when there are visitors over. He’s mostly confined to his room. But I… I talked to him. He wants me to accept your proposal. And I’m not going to argue with him. I see it the way that he does. He doesn’t want to worry about his daughters. When he’s gone. And he is going to be gone. Maybe in the next year. And I just… I want to give him peace of mind. And I do want my sisters to be taken care of.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you wanting to be taken care of as well,” he said.
“I’m not certain that marrying a stranger is me taking care of me. Regardless of how rich you are.”
“But I’m not a stranger. You put a tourniquet around my leg, and stopped me from bleeding out. We made love.”
She gritted her teeth. “Don’t call it that. I’ve done enough reading about you to know that you sleeping with a woman doesn’t make her less a stranger.”
“Historically, maybe. But you saved my life, Stevie. Allow me to change yours.”
His words were spoken gravely, and she had the sensation that this was a real, true vow that he was making.
“What is it exactly that you want from me?”
“I require what any man in my position does. A woman who can be beloved by his people. And children.”
Stevie had never really considered having children. Mostly because she had her sisters. The idea of children had actually always been a terrible burden. But if her sisters were taken care of… Did that mean that she could want children of her own?
“Well, I… I can’t say that I am in a rush to have a physical relationship.” She tried to meet his gaze. But everything inside of her went hot. Molten.
She could remember what he had said to her when they had been out there in the wilderness. When he had… Said that perhaps they should partake in case they were going to die.
When he had touched her and…
“That’s all,” she said.
“A fine statement, Stevie, but we will have to look like a couple for all the world.”
“That’s fine.”
“A physical relationship is inevitable, so why not simply… Begin it.”
“It’s that easy for you?”
“No. I think it’s that potent between us.”
“Oh.”
She felt then a thousand years younger than him and incredibly gauche.
“We’ve already had sex,” he said.
“It’s different now, though,” she said. “And you know it. You didn’t tell me who you were. You lied to me.”
“Ah. So now we have recriminations?”
“I was hardly going to give them in front of my sisters. I didn’t want them to know that I… That I was so weak.”
“Is it a weakness to take even one moment of pleasure in your life when you think you’re going to die, Stevie?”
“Yes. It is. Life isn’t about pleasing yourself. You obviously don’t know that. Because you are the notoriously debauched Prince of Olympus. You might as well be Zeus himself.”
“I require my encounters to be consensual. And I am never a swan.”
“I don’t even… I don’t even know how to respond to that. It is outrageous. I will marry you. Because it is the best thing for my family. But… I just wish you had told me who you were.”
“You can see why I couldn’t.”
“Because you thought that I would instantly turn into a gold digger?”
“You may be pregnant now,” he said.
She went still. “Is that why you asked me to marry you?”
“It is a concern.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I started my cycle right after I got back. So. No pregnancy.”
“I see. Well. That was not a contingency of marriage.”
“It just would’ve been convenient for you? Because you wouldn’t have had to sleep with me again?”
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear. We have chemistry. That is yet another reason that it is incredibly practical for the two of us to marry. It was one reason it seemed prudent to break off my arrangement with Drusilla.”
“How nice for both Drusilla and me. That you possess such a scant moral compass.”
“Better than my mother’s. But no, it is not as good as my father’s. And I can admit that. I can.”
“And where does that leave me?”
“I need a moral compass, Stevie. I won’t lie to you. That is a significant reason that I think you will be good for me as well. I need somebody to help me stay…correct. You have proven to me that you are a woman with great fortitude. You are a woman who knows what she stands for. That matters.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered by that? That you want me to…be your Jiminy Cricket?”
“I’m not asking you to be flattered by anything. I’m simply asking that you make the reasonable choice.”
And of course he felt that marrying him was the only reasonable thing. It had nothing to do with what had passed between them in the wilderness.
Not for him.
But maybe that was the issue. Maybe people weren’t really romantic. Her father wanted her taken care of, but he’d never said he wanted her to be loved. But in his position, he couldn’t afford ridiculous frills. Maybe it wasn’t any different when you were a future king.
You just had to be like wham bam be my wife, ma’am, or something.
She’d never been a romantic.
Not before.
It was petulant to be wounded by a lack of romance she’d never fantasized about.
She found she was anyway.
“Now what?” she asked, her voice small.
“You and I will leave directly. On my private jet. I will send people to help your family pack, and we will bring them to Olympus as soon as it is practical for them to go. I know that we will have to prepare a place for your father that is medically sound.”
Yes. That was why she was doing this. Her family was going to be taken care of.
“I don’t want to leave them.”
“They will be fine,” he said.
“So you say. But they’re used to having me around.”
“And instead, they will have resources.”
“My sisters are young. I’m not going to wholly abandon—”
“No one is suggesting that you do. But I am suggesting perhaps that your family can survive without using you entirely as a crutch.”
“I… All right. I will agree because…” Her throat tightened. Because she had a choice. But opposing him wouldn’t get her much of anything. So why?
Because she was Stevie Parker. Really no one extraordinary. And he was Adonis Andreadis. He was offering to make her a princess. What could she do in the face of that?
Nothing. Nothing at all but…comply. That was the beginning and end of everything.
And that was how she found herself whisked off to the airfield. Going into a part of the airport not even she had ever been into. She knew what it was. It was where the private planes flew out of.
And when they got on the plane, her heart nearly gave out.
“This is the most beautiful machine I’ve ever seen,” she said.
“I find that I’m a bit cool on airplanes at the moment.”
“Oh, I’m not. I never could be. That was a freak accident. And even then, we didn’t die.”
“Twice would be pushing it, don’t you think?”
“Who knows,” she said, looking around at the shiny, glorious space. “Can I see the cockpit?”