CHAPTER 17
Jakob
Jakob stood at the edge of the stone balcony and watched the sun sink behind the mountains like a dying flame.
The peaks caught the fading light first and morphed it into a deep winter blue.
The tall pines along the ridge swayed gently in the cold evening wind as if the whole valley were breathing in and out.
He should have noticed the beauty of it. He usually did. Instead, all he could think about was the conversation he needed to have with Mallory.
The thought made his chest tighten in a way he refused to acknowledge as fear. He did not get afraid. He was the king who handled crises, negotiations, hostile parliaments, and international headlines. He could manage one stubborn, human woman.
At least, that was what he kept telling himself.
He heard her footsteps before he saw her.
The soft crunch of boots on packed snow, light and unhurried, a rhythm he’d memorized without ever meaning to.
When he looked down, she walked toward him across the courtyard below with a knitted scarf wrapped snugly around her neck against the mountain chill.
She gave a quick wave before she entered the castle. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. A moment later, she appeared at the door and joined him in the same place as the night of the ball.
“You said you wanted to talk,” she said. He noted her expression that was somewhere between curious and terrified.
“Thank you for coming,” Jakob replied and cringed at his own words. They sounded lame even to him.
Mallory gave a small shrug. “You sounded serious.”
He searched her face and hoped to find the same warmth he had grown accustomed to.
For a long moment neither of them spoke.
She stared at him with the same trust she had always put in him, but he could read the fear that she tried to hide, and the guilt hit him like a blow.
He wanted to see love and warmth when she looked at him. He never intended pain and fear.
Finally Jakob drew in a breath.
“I owe you an explanation,” he said quietly.
“You owe me a lot more than that,” she answered.
Her honesty landed squarely in his chest.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I do.”
He gestured toward a granite bench carved into the balcony. After a brief hesitation, she walked over and sat. Jakob joined her and was careful to leave space between them even though every instinct he possessed urged him to close it.
“I never meant to push you away,” he began. “I need you to believe that.”
Mallory let out a short, humorless laugh. “Well, your actions have a strange way of showing things you don’t mean.”
“I know.” He leaned forward and braced his forearms on his knees. “Everything happened too fast. Meeting you, spending time together, it felt like a different life. A quiet one. And I wanted it more than I should have.”
She watched him carefully. “Then why shut me out?”
“Because my life is not quiet,” he said. “And the more I cared about you, the more dangerous it felt to let you in.”
Her brows drew together. “Dangerous?”
“My world is complicated, Mallory. Political. Public. There are expectations and obligations you can’t imagine. Once you’re part of it, you don’t get to change your mind. People watch you. Judge you. Use you.” He swallowed. “I didn’t want that for you.”
“So you decided for me,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Well, congratulations. You protected me so well I ended up hurt anyway.”
The quiet pain in her voice was worse than anger. Jakob closed his eyes for a moment and felt the cold air sting his lungs.
“That was never my intention.”
“You don’t get to decide what happened.”
He turned toward her fully then. “I know. And I’m sorry. More sorry than I know how to say.”
Mallory studied her gloved hands. “You disappeared, Jakob. You let me leave. No calls. No explanation. Just… gone.”
“I thought distance would make it easier.”
“Easier for who?”
The question hung between them, sharp and fair.
“For me,” he admitted at last.
She let out a long breath that turned to mist in the frigid air. “At least you’re honest.”
He nodded before he forced himself to continue. This was the part he’d rehearsed in his head a hundred times and still wasn’t sure he could say correctly.
“There’s something else you deserve to hear,” he said. “About last night.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“I didn’t plan it,” he went on carefully. “I never intended to cross that line with you.”
Color rose in her cheeks despite the cold, but she didn’t look away.
“I made love to you because I gave in to my true feelings,” Jakob said quietly. “Not because I was careless. Not because it didn’t matter. The opposite, actually.”
Mallory blinked but didn’t speak.
“I need you to understand that,” he continued. “What happened between us was real to me. You are real to me.”
For a moment she simply stared at him, as if weighing whether to believe he meant it.
“And yet you keep me at arms length,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. He could hear the shame through his voice. “Because I’m afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what being with me would cost you.”
She shook her head. “You keep talking about your world like it’s some kind of avalanche I couldn’t survive.”
“It is an avalanche,” he replied with a faint, desperate smile. “And you have no idea what you’d be walking into. The scrutiny, the expectations.”
“Jakob, I’m a big girl. I think I can handle a little chaos.”
“This isn’t the normal kind of chaos,” he said softly. “This is treaties and tabloids. Protocol and bodyguards. You wouldn’t just be dating a man. You’d be joining a royal family.”
The words seemed to echo across the silent mountains.
Mallory looked out over the snow-covered valley as she absorbed that.
“I never asked to join anything,” she murmured.
“I know,” Jakob said. “But being with me means that’s what would happen. Whether you wanted it or not.”
Silence stretched between them, filled only by the lonely whistle of wind threading through the pines.
He reached for her hand before he could stop himself. To his relief, she didn’t pull away.
“I thought if I let you go, you’d be safe,” he said. “You’d have the life you planned. The one you deserve.”
“And what if I wanted a different life?” she asked softly.
The question cracked something open inside him.
Before he could answer, hurried footsteps crunched up from the courtyard.
Jakob recognized the cadence instantly.
Viggo, one of his most trusted security guards, burst through the door and strode toward them with an expression Jakob had learned never to ignore.
“Sir,” Viggo started, slightly out of breath. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Jakob straightened. “What is it?”
“There’s been a breach,” Viggo replied in a low voice. “Unidentified individuals attempted to access the east perimeter of the estate. The situation is under control but we need you back there immediately.”
Every muscle in Jakob’s body went tense.
Mallory rose to her feet. “A breach? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said automatically as he slipped into command mode. “But I have to go.”
“Now?” she asked.
“Yes. Now.”
Frustration flashed across her face. “Jakob, we were in the middle of—”
“I know.” He cupped her cheek and urgency replaced every careful word he’d planned to say. “And I’m sorry. There’s so much more I need to tell you.”
Her eyes searched his. “Are you coming back?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “If you’ll let me.”
Viggo cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, we really must leave.”
The title seemed to jolt Mallory as much as the situation itself.
Jakob looked at her one last time and wished desperately for thirty more minutes, ten more, anything that meant he didn’t have to leave her side.
“I meant everything I said,” he told her.
Then, unable to stop himself, he pulled her close and kissed her, hard and fast and full of promises he didn’t have time to explain.
When he stepped back, she looked stunned.
“Wait for me,” he said. He pointed at her. “And do not leave this castle. Stay as close to this wing as you can. I mean it, Mallory. I need to know where you are.”
He saw the questions pop up in her eyes, but before she could ask, he turned and followed Viggo down the hallway. He had already shifted back into the man he was born to be by the time they reached the outer door, even as every part of him ached to remain the man he was when he was with her.