CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A couple of days after their torrential coming together in the library, and their following encounter in his room, it was time to announce their engagement to the world.
They were having an announcement at the palace, followed by a procession through the streets.
And all he could think about was how beautiful his future wife was.
He was distracted by her, in spite of his decision not to be.
And she was… She was glorious, as ever. She had been sharing her bed with him, and there had been no more talk of feelings.
He had been hollowed out since that day.
He supposed he should be grateful.
Stevie had been very apparently pretty since the first moment he had met her. But dressed like a princess, she was resplendent. A great beauty in much the way his mother was.
It was surprising. Because he had imagined she would bring a different image entirely.
And yet…
He pushed that aside. “Are you ready?” he asked as they stood in the antechamber of the palace, waiting to go outside and face the cameras.
She nodded. “I am. Especially because I don’t really have to say anything.”
“Just a couple of lines you were given.”
“What if they don’t like me? Are you going to throw me over for somebody else? Somebody who can give the people what they want?”
She wasn’t being entirely serious, he could see that. But all the same, his stomach tightened with fierce protectiveness. “You are my choice.”
It was that simple to him.
He saw a flash of pleasure on her cheeks, and he wished that he could make her look like that more often.
They were compatible in the bedroom. But he could feel difficulty between them when they weren’t kissing. When they weren’t naked.
Her sisters and her father were also dressed in their finery. They would be following them in the procession afterward.
Stevie had finally met his father last night. It had surprised him how warm his father had been, all things considered. He was often difficult. Stiff. Then he didn’t know how he would react to Stevie, who was so utterly different from any other woman his father would’ve interacted with.
But thankfully, he had taken to her with ease, and would be joining them in the courtyard for the press conference.
His father joined them then, looking severe. As he always did.
He really noticed, though, how much older he was looking.
“Are you ready, Father?”
“Of course I am. These are my people.”
Adonis nodded once.
Then they stepped out the doors and into the spotlight. His father stepped forward. “Greetings,” he said. “I know you have all been waiting for this moment. As you know, my son, Prince Adonis, was meant to marry an American heiress. But fate intervened in an unlikely way on his way to the wedding. He very nearly lost his life, but he was saved. I know that all of the media reports have already suggested this, but his pilot, Stevie Parker, was his savior. And that act changed his very future.”
It was Adonis’s turn.
He took the lead position. “When it comes to the choice of who I am to marry, I know that it is of the utmost importance that I choose someone who is perfect not just for me, but for Olympus. For she will not only preside over my home, but over all of you. I have never met anyone like Stevie. She is selfless. Brave. Utterly and completely lacking in pretense. My time with her gave me a window into an experience that I had never had before. And I knew that there could be no other perfect person to rule alongside me as Queen when the time comes.”
And then it was Stevie’s turn. “I’m Stevie. From Montana, in the USA. And I am honored to marry Prince Adonis. And to be a princess.” That was the end of her script. But she took a breath, and continued on. “I’m in love with him. And I intend to express that love by giving back to all of you in the way that he does. By loving this country the way that he does. Because he is simply the most amazing man I’ve ever met. And… I just think it’s important to say that.”
He looked around, at all of the cameras, all of the people in front of them. They were speechless. What she had said had been so artless and informal, and he could see as the moments went on that they were…captivated by her.
They moved away from the balcony, to resounding applause.
“Very well done,” he said.
He personally didn’t react to what she had said, because it had simply been an expedient thing to say, he was certain. But their audience had loved it.
He had liked it more than he would have expected.
Wished it were…
No. There was no point thinking that way.
They were bundled into a car, and then taken to the end of a road lined with well-wishers. They got out and began to walk down the line of people. Waving, stopping to talk.
Stevie got down at eye level with the children. At some point, he saw her engaged in a very serious discussion with a man about wages, and then with a woman about the cost of food. Stevie didn’t just listen, she engaged. She shared her own experiences. She could do more than sympathize, she could empathize. Because she had also had worries about feeding her family. About budgets. It made him feel…unequal to the task before him. Because the person who truly understood it was the one the world would look at and say wasn’t born into the position. And yet, he felt he was the imposter. Not her.
She was caring and forthright. She was real. More real than he had ever been.
And he wondered if living with him… He worried, if it would suffocate her.
When they finished with the parade, he watched her family interact at dinner. His father sat at the head of the table, clearly baffled by this turn of events. This noisy palace when for years it had been so quiet.
Stevie smiled, and it did something to him.
“May I speak to you?” his father asked.
“Yes.”
He turned to Stevie. “I’ll see you after dinner.”
Her cheeks turned pink.
“What is it?” he asked his father once they were outside the dining room.
“You’ve chosen well. She is definitely what the people want. The reaction to her has been overwhelmingly positive. Your instincts proved to be better than mine in this instance.”
His father’s words fortified him. “I’m pleased,” he said.
“You will have to be careful with her, though. Because she is…vivacious.”
“You think I haven’t noticed that?”
“I have concerns.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “But Stevie will never go back on what she has promised to do.”
As soon as he said that, he realized it was true. Stevie would honor every promise that she had ever made. It was who she was.
She would stay with him even if she was miserable. Abjectly and completely.
That was the truth of it. Because she had promised. And she was not his mother. She would never abandon their children. She would never go off seeking her own fortune. No. She would sublimate her own wants and needs just like she had done in her own family.
The realization flummoxed him.
He didn’t have to worry about her leaving him. What he had to worry about was that he would crush her. His mother had been a bird in a cage, but she had been more than willing to make her own escape. But that wasn’t how Stevie lived. When she made a vow, she kept it.
He had seen her do so with her family. Even though the responsibility of it all had been crushing. And with this… She would do it to. She would stay. She would stay and she would make herself ill with unhappiness. If he let her.
I love him…
But that couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.
“I’m proud of you.”
His father clapped him on the shoulder, and as he walked down the corridor, he was overcome with a sense of disquiet. He walked into his bedroom, and found that Stevie was there waiting for him.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.”
“My father approves of you.”
“Well. I’m very glad to hear that.”
“I would have married you anyway,” he said.
He began to take his clothes off, and made his way toward the bed.
Stevie let the covers fall away, and revealed her shapely figure. How he wanted her. It surpassed anything. He had been honest with her when he said he didn’t typically know the women that he had sexual relationships with. And, of course, it was in all that was always inevitable that he would know his wife in that way. But he had never imagined… He had never imagined his wife being somebody that he wanted. He had always thought that duty would be the main driver. And yet. With her, the possibility for something more existed.
And yet. And yet he wondered if he could give her what she needed.
Or if he was simply consigning her to an incomplete life.
She looked up at him, her expression luminous. How was it that only weeks ago he had not known this woman?
He could not fathom it.
His life had changed, and he had changed. Perhaps it was the near-death experience. Perhaps it was just the experience. Or maybe it was her.
And one thing he did know, was that he needed to change. Maybe he needed to let himself be changed by her. Though the very idea…made him feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff. Because hadn’t his father been changed by his mother, and to what effect?
Hadn’t he been changed by his mother?
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “What you did today was extraordinary.”
“I don’t know that I feel it was extraordinary. I just listened to people.”
“They don’t teach you how to do that.”
“In prince school?”
He laughed, and let his knuckles drift over one of her breasts. “No. They don’t. I was taught a great many things. I told you. I had my nanny. Who was quite firm with me. I didn’t learn to listen, though, I learned to give people what they wanted. On the surface. I was quite expert at that. I wondered sometimes if I would’ve known how to do that before my mother left if she would’ve stayed.”
“Your mother didn’t leave because of you.”
He nodded slowly. “It isn’t important.”
“Why do you think it’s not important? It comes up all the time. It is your reason for so many things.”
He frowned. She wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t like it being trotted out before him like that.
“It’s the whole reason for your image. For all of your incorrigible behavior. You know that. You do. Why, then, are you afraid to admit it?”
“Because I don’t want to be affected by anything. But I recognize that I am. After all, I did cultivate this whole persona to get all eyes on me. I don’t suppose I ever learned how to be much more than a persona. Maybe that’s the real reason I didn’t tell you my name. Maybe it wasn’t so much that I wanted to see you treat me as a real person. I wanted to feel like a real person. One who wasn’t performing. One who wasn’t on notice.”
“I know what it’s like,” she said. “You have your life decided for you. Yours was decided by birth, mine was decided by tragedy. It makes it hard to know who you are.”
“I know who I am,” he said.
“Do you?”
The words were cutting, concerning. Closer to the bone than he would’ve liked.
“It doesn’t matter, does it? The philosophy of the purpose of man is for men who don’t have purpose. And there are many rich men who don’t. I do. It is to serve this country.”
“Now that your purpose isn’t throwing yourself in your mother’s face at every opportunity?”
“Indeed.”
“But don’t you think there’s something in there? Something that you need to…dissect?”
His lip curled. “No. I don’t. At least, nothing of any value or virtue.”
“Virtue probably isn’t your strong point.”
He growled, and pushed her so she was lying on her back, and then he was over the top of her. “What did you see in me, Stevie? That night that you let me make love to you. When you had no idea who I was.”
“Well. You were very sexy.”
“You wanted me for my body?”
“Your body didn’t hurt. I knew that you were a powerful man,” she said. “There was something about you. I was drawn to you. I saw you first when you were sitting in the back of the bar. And, of course, I thought you were stunningly handsome.”
“You didn’t recognize me,” he said, and he felt something like desperation clawing at his chest. “So who did you think I was? Really. The heart of me. If I were to go out and meet my citizens for the first time, what would I show them?”
She frowned. “You showed them you today. You were…”
“I was a cardboard cutout. A stand-in. My name, my reputation, all of those things precede me. You met them fresh. You met them where they were, and I don’t know how to do that because I don’t know where I am.” He shook his head. “It’s that I want to build something. Something real. For my people. It is important.”
He realized that it was perhaps absurd, having her pinned to the mattress, her breasts bare, as he demanded answers to the difficult question of who he was .
But he wanted to know whom she saw. When she had decided to call him Clem. When she had seen him unconscious, bleeding, and had saved his life. When she had kissed him that last night. When they had danced together. When they’d had nothing, and somehow it had become everything. He had no power there. And yet there had been a peace… A peace that he didn’t feel outside of that place, and he wanted to figure out why.
“Adonis,” she said softly, reaching up and touching his face. “You were powerful and strong, and yet I felt safe with you. You were incapacitated, and yet you made me feel cared for. And yes, there’s something… Something that I can’t even explain. A magical feeling of just being drawn to you. Montana was home all my life, but I saw you, and suddenly something fit into place that wasn’t there before. And it was like you became home. When I said that I loved you today, I wasn’t simply spouting a line for the benefit of the press. I really meant it. I really mean it. I love you. I love you because of everything. And it’s hard to make a list. It’s hard to quantify. It’s hard to say why. Except that I didn’t think that I would ever find this. I didn’t even know that I wanted it. Because my father made love look like pain. So I didn’t think that I… It hasn’t been pain with you.”
God. He felt…undone. She had said that she didn’t want love, and now she was really professing hers to him? She had said that love had always looked like pain, and she was trusting him to make it not painful, when he didn’t even know where to begin. He didn’t know where to begin.
He felt wrecked by that. Utterly and completely.
Worse than the plane.
Worse than anything.
She would stay. She would stay unhappy and miserable. She would stay.
And yet, he had just introduced her to his people. He had just trotted around his next princess. She had to stay. He needed her. He needed her to show him who he was. To show him the way. Without her, what would he do?
“You can’t love me,” he said.
“But I do,” she said. “I just do. Trust me. I’m a pilot.”
He laughed. In spite of himself. Because it was such an absurd thing to say, and Stevie was rarely absurd. “Why does that make you an expert in this?”
“I’m very good in high-pressure situations. Also in navigating. Also… You just have to trust me.”
“But how?”
It was a question about everything. How he could trust her, how she could love him.
How. When his own mother didn’t even.
“Maybe we have to chalk it up to being one of life’s mysteries.”
“I don’t want to be a mystery,” he said, knowing that he sounded slightly petulant. “I have… I have seen and done so many things. I slept with more women than I can count.”
“I really don’t like it when you say things like that.”
“You have to understand. Why I find it frustrating. I’ve traveled the world, had an enormous amount of sex. I am very famous.”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “And yet, I didn’t recognize you.”
“I didn’t recognize you either,” he said.
And somehow when he said it, it took on a whole different meaning.
“Yes, I know. Because there was no reason for you to.”
He growled.
“You’re in a very bad mood,” she said.
“I’m not. I simply want to understand.”
He didn’t know what was driving him. He didn’t know why he was so desperate. All he knew was that if you didn’t understand, he wouldn’t be able to…trust it. Not it or anything. That was simply how it was.
“You know, I don’t know how other people make these decisions. But I know that I lived through something with you that very few people have ever experienced. And when I didn’t have you, when it had been two weeks and I hadn’t heard from you at all, when I thought you were going to marry somebody else, I was miserable. I miss you. So maybe I can’t say why. And maybe I can’t make you understand. But maybe… Maybe, with all the sex that you had, and all the traveling you’ve done, you have to accept that there are just some mysteries out there that you can’t quantify. Because if you could have, you would have. Right?”
“No,” he growled. “That can’t be true.”
“Adonis, I love you.”
He felt soothed. And yet… And yet.
But he could do nothing but kiss her. Nothing but stop the conversation. Nothing but strip the covers away and decide to make love to her. Because he wanted her. Because he wanted this to go on. Because he didn’t want it to end. Because he was utterly and completely obsessed with her. And obsessed with the fact that she loved him.
He wanted to hoard it. Like a greedy dragon. Hold it in his talons and keep it for himself. He wanted to offer nothing in return, because it made him feel secure. Because it made him feel like he had all the power.
Because it made him feel like he did when he knew he had created a scandal that would be in the headlines worldwide and his mother would have to see it. Yes. It gave him power in the face of love. And all love ever asked of you is that you be weak for it. He refused.
So he kissed her. Made love to her. Until she was crying out his name.
And he decided that everything else could wait. Because tonight he had her. Tonight he had her love. Tonight, he had won.