by Ember Casey
His eyes widen with horror and he shakes his head. “Of course not!” He slows his breathing before speaking again. “And as long as this is off the record, the child is not Leopold’s, either. And this is off the record, at least until we reach Montovia. That is clear, is it not, Victoria?”
I roll my eyes again. “Yes, Your Highness. Clear as day.” I tap my pen on the paper. “So… Are you going to give me any names? Potential candidates? This is going to have to be handled…delicately. And you may want to let the women in on it. I mean, any woman would probably be honored to be chosen for something like this, but… You still need to be careful.”
He presses his lips together and nods. “Yes, of course.” He pauses for a moment, lowering his voice as though someone might be listening. “I had thought that perhaps Lady Evelyn, Karina’s younger sister, might be a suitable candidate.”
I lift a brow and tap my pen a few times. I shake my head. “Andrew, I’m just speculating here—so let me know if I’m wrong. But…” I clear my throat and stare down at my paper. I lower my voice to match his. “You do want women your brother hasn’t been with, right?” I lift my gaze to meet his, frowning.
His jaw drops for a second before he snaps his mouth closed. “Leopold…and Evelyn? Are you certain?”
I give him a slow nod.
“How…? When? And you’re certain?”
I nod again. “Two years ago, I think? Maybe a little longer than that. They were fairly public about it—it lasted a week or so. He took her to a movie opening in Los Angeles, which is why I remember. And—”
“Fine, not Lady Evelyn.” He rubs his chin for another long moment. “There must be dozens of eligible noblewomen. My mother will have a list.” He forces a smile. “Leopold won’t have been with all of them. And if I must, I can ask him. I believe he’ll at least be honest with me about his prior affairs, now that he’s with Elle.”
“Okay.” I pause for a moment. “Have you thought about how you’re going to pull this off? Is it all going to happen in the palace? How are you going to keep the women separated—or is that part of the plot? You said you wanted it like a reality television show—and those women are all kept together in the same place, off-camera until they’re supposed to be on-camera. And part of the drama is the fighting that goes on between them—”
“I would want nothing that crass, I assure you. We’ll need to have public dates—dinners, galas, events of that nature. My mother adores planning parties, so perhaps we can have some of those, as well. I’ll need to see how my date behaves when I’m going about my official duties—how she interacts with our subjects. If she can’t earn the respect of the Montovian people, she couldn’t be queen. She wouldn’t be an appropriate choice.”
I nod, trying to cover up the way it feels like a knife being driven into my chest every time he says the word appropriate. There’s something so strange about how different Leo and Andrew are—Leo has never seemed to care whether or not the woman he’s with is appropriate—whatever the hell that means, anyway.
“Can I ask you something, Andrew? Something personal?”
He gives me the smallest of smiles and nods. “Of course. Though, I’ll remind you that this conversation is off the record.”
I roll my eyes again. “Yes, you’ve made that perfectly clear.” I let out a long breath and stare down at my paper. “Did your parents tell you that you had to marry someone from a royal family?” I look back up at him. “I mean, did they say that it was expected of you? Because I’m not entirely sure—”
He shakes his head. “Of course it is not required, Victoria. We should make that clear in your news stories, as well. It’s just easier. Less complicated. I’m certain that if my father could go back in time and choose a wife that was noble born, he might—”
“I can’t believe that. I absolutely cannot believe that you believe that, Andrew. I’ve seen your parents together. They married for love—”
“Marrying for love is fine in theory, Victoria. But when you are royal—”
“Your brother and Elle are in love. She’s not noble born. You really want me to name other examples? You really—”
He pulls my hand into his and smiles. “I think I understand what is going on here.”
“You…you do?” My voice is cracking—I know I’m probably being pretty transparent at the moment, but I thought I had hidden what I was feeling pretty well. I had been almost positive that Andrew hadn’t noticed that I had originally thought he was talking about marrying me for a second after I first woke up. And that I’d pretty much buried and covered in cement what I thought might actually be my feelings for him.
And if he’d stop touching me, I might be able to keep all that shit buried forever.
“I do.” He nods, smiling again. “You want me to consider choosing a commoner among the candidates for my wife.” He chuckles. “Of course, that is a brilliant idea. Brilliant. It will heighten the drama all the more, increasing the interest in the story.” He shakes his head, his eyes widening with his grin. “You really are very talented at this, Victoria. And I will. I’ll have my mother identify someone trustworthy, of course. Someone who might perhaps not be in on the game itself, but who would remain loyal to our family all the same. Perhaps one of the servants…” His voice trails off for a second and he turns his gaze away from mine. “And as I narrow my choices, I’ll be certain to keep her in the running, though she would never be my final choice.” His gaze snaps back to mine. “The public will likely root for her, of course, but they’ll understand why I make my choice in the end. We can make it part of the story—why choosing someone of noble heritage over loving a commoner is in the best interest for our country. It will help them to understand why I’ve had to make so many difficult decisions in my life. Why being royal is not as romantic as it seems.”
He squeezes my hand. “Thank you, Victoria. Thank you—”
I yank my hand away from his, not bothering to cover up anything this time. My jaw clenches and I glare at him, even as I blink back the hot tears that sting at my eyes again. “You have to stop that.”
“Stop what?” He looks genuinely hurt that I’ve pulled away from him.
“Stop…touching me.” I press my lips together—I know I can’t say more than that. I can’t unleash on him—tell him he’s being an idiot. Tell him that there are billions of women out there who are just as worthy as any noblewoman of his attention. And I definitely can’t tell him that if he’d just open his damned eyes…
No. I definitely can’t tell him that.
I set my jaw, pushing away whatever the hell it is that’s bubbling inside of me. I straighten, jutting my chin out the slightest bit to cover the aching I can feel with every beat of my heart. “I’ll do your story, Andrew. I’ll write whatever it is you want me to write. I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do. But only because I don’t want to see you fuck it up. I don’t want you to have to hang for this if someone finds out. But you need to know—there are too many moving parts here. You need to narrow it down. It can’t be five women. It probably shouldn’t be more than two or three, and that’s still risking a lot. And you also need to know that this is a huge risk for me.”
“It is…” He looks into my eyes and I can see something there—something I don’t quite recognize. “It is a risk. For us both.” He reaches out and touches the skin on the top of my arm, his gaze falling to his hand. His mouth opens as though he’s going to speak, but no words come out. Instead, his finger traces the length of my arm and he pulls my hand gently into his again.
I close my eyes at his touch. Why in the hell is he so stupid? Why is he doing this?
I press my lips into a line and open my eyes to stare at him, but he doesn’t lift his gaze to meet mine. “That, Andrew. That is what you need to stop.”
He nods, but his eyes remain fixed on my hand, still clasped in his. He frowns at it for a few moments before he finally meets my gaze. He looks into my eyes for a long moment before he leans
over, tilting his head in what is an obvious attempt to kiss me.
I suck in a breath and lean away. “What are you doing?”
“I… I believe I was going to kiss you.” He looks back into my eyes. “Would that be so wrong?”
I feel my brow furrow. “You just told me that commoners aren’t appropriate. That you could never be with a commoner. That you could never fall in love—”
“I never said anything of the sort. What I said, Victoria, is that I would never marry for love. And I never said anything about not being with a commoner.”
Andrew
I don’t know what’s come over me.
Perhaps I’m merely overwhelmed with relief and hope now that Victoria has agreed to help me. Perhaps it has been too long since I allowed myself to indulge in any sort of pleasure. Or perhaps it is simply the fact that I am near Victoria, touching Victoria, and there seems to be no other choice.
There’s a stunned expression in her eyes, almost as if she can’t believe the words that have come from my mouth—and in truth, I can hardly believe them myself. They sound much more like something Leopold would say.
“I know this is not perhaps the best time for such things,” I say, looking down at her fingers in mine. “But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about our kiss the other night. I thought…well, that’s exactly it. I haven’t thought. I can’t.” Not when it comes to her, anyway. All I do when I look at her is think about how much I want to taste her again, how much I want to feel her body against mine.
But Victoria yanks her hand out of mine. “What makes you think I’d be okay with that sort of arrangement?”
I straighten. “What sort of arrangement?”
“Don’t play stupid, Andrew. You’re looking for a wife. A noble wife. Which means what you and I had could never be anything more than sex.”
I frown. “I fail to see what’s so wrong with that. Many people embark on relationships entirely based on sex—”
“And many people don’t consider those arrangements relationships at all,” she says.
“Then I chose the wrong word. But the idea is the same.” I study her face. “Can you honestly tell me you haven’t thought about it, Victoria? That you haven’t imagined what it might be like between us?”
Before the final word is even out of my mouth, a reddish hue has blossomed on her cheeks. But she still refuses to look at me.
“It doesn’t matter if I have or not,” she says. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“And yet you are the one who has implied multiple times that I need to loosen up. That the world would like me better if I didn’t insist on following the rules. I must start somewhere, mustn’t I?”
“This isn’t what I meant. Can you even hear yourself?” she says. “You’ve asked me to help you find a wife. What do you think the world will think if they find out you’ve been sleeping with the reporter the whole time? What will your potential brides think?”
In truth, I haven’t thought about it. But something about that blush on her cheeks—and about that gleam in her eyes, visible even through her anger—gives me hope.
“You never answered my question,” I say. “Can you truthfully tell me you’ve never thought about what it might be like? That over these past few nights, as we’ve slept in each other’s arms, you never once considered what it might be like to take things one step further?”
She finally raises her gaze back to mine. “Does that mean you have?”
“I should think that would be obvious, given our current conversation. But yes—yes, I have. Many times. Every night we’ve spent together.” My hand falls to her arm again. “And yes, I’ve told myself that it was inappropriate. That it was an unnecessary distraction. That it was irresponsible and ill-advised. But I thought about it anyway, because I had no other choice. You can sit there and tell me the reasons why this is a bad idea, but it doesn’t matter. I already know the reasons. I just want to know if, despite all the reasons we can’t or shouldn’t do this, you’ve found yourself in a similar dilemma.”
I let my fingers trail down her arm, and I feel a shiver move through her. She wants me. I can feel it in her skin, see it beneath the other emotions warring in her eyes.
She doesn’t say anything. I find myself leaning toward her again, drawn to her in spite of myself. This time her eyes fall closed as my face nears hers, and my chest tightens as I close the distance between us.
The first brush of my lips against hers is soft, tentative. The second, a little more demanding.
Victoria seems to be frozen, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far, pushed her too much—but then suddenly her hands come up and clutch my shirt, pulling me closer, and the last of my restraint breaks.
I yank her fully against me, and my mouth comes down harder on hers. Her soft body seems to melt against mine, and I’m consumed by the feeling of her against me. Her lips are velvety and warm, the taste of her as sweet as I remembered. My tongue traces the line of her bottom lip before plunging into her mouth. I want to drink her.
I want to do more than that, too. Already my body is responding, aching for more of her. One of my hands finds the opening at the back of her hospital gown, and she gasps against my mouth as my fingers brush against her bare skin. My hand drifts up her back, finding the strings that hold the gown in place. I tug at the end of one as I push her back against the pillows.
Suddenly, a voice crackles through the air. “Can I help you?”
I freeze, startled. Victoria does, too. Slowly, I turn my head and glance at the door, but there’s no one there.
A moment later, after neither of us has spoken, the voice comes again. It sounds like it’s coming from a speaker. “Ms. Simpson? Do you need assistance?”
“Shit,” Victoria says, sitting up and trying to push me off of her. “No—no, I’m fine. I didn’t mean to hit the button.” She shifts to one side and reaches beneath her. A moment later, she lifts a remote from the sheets—the same one she used to call that angry nurse in here earlier. She must have leaned on it accidentally.
Well. Now that that’s settled… I reach for her again, but she places a hand at the center of my chest, pushing me back.
“We can’t,” she says firmly. “I… I don’t know what just happened, but we can’t.”
“Victoria—”
“No,” she says. “What the hell are we doing? This isn’t…” She shakes her head and gives me another firm push. “Get off my bed. I don’t know what the hell came over me. It must be the drugs.”
I stand, frowning. “Victoria…”
“I mean it, just…fuck.” She doesn’t even seem to be talking to me anymore, just muttering to herself. She reaches over her shoulder, trying to grab the strings to her hospital gown.
“Here,” I say. “Let me help.”
“I can do it.”
I don’t argue with her. She struggles with the strings, refusing to look at me, but I refuse to take my eyes away from her. Her lips are still slightly swollen, her cheeks still redder than usual. Her hair has come undone from its messy bun, and it falls over her shoulder as she struggles to tie her gown closed again.
God, if we hadn’t stopped…
If we hadn’t stopped, I’d have had that gown off her by now. I would have seen how far that pretty blush spread down her body. I would have tasted the skin on her breasts, on her belly, and lower—and compared it to the intoxicating taste of her lips. She would be writhing beneath me, rather than trying desperately not to look at me.
“Forgive me,” I say after a moment. “I would not have kissed you if I hadn’t thought it was welcome.” It was welcome, for a moment—and from the way she pulled me closer to her, she wanted even more than that. “I won’t do it again until you ask.”
She stops struggling with the gown strings and looks at me again. “I’m not going to ask you. That is never happening again.”
Oh, I doubt that very much. Not after the way she grabbed me. Not after the way she just kissed m
e. But I straighten my shirt. “Very well.”
My easy acceptance of her response only seems to frustrate her. “You can’t just go around kissing people when you’re going to be publicly searching for a wife. Especially not a commoner.”
“First of all,” I say, clasping my hands behind my back and walking over to the window, “my search has yet to begin. Secondly, you keep saying commoner like it’s some sort of terrible word.”
“Isn’t it?”
My body still aches with need for her, but I do my best to look composed. “Hardly. It simply refers to someone who isn’t of the nobility.”
“You mean someone who isn’t good enough to marry you.”
There’s something sharp in her voice—something that makes me turn away from the window and look back at her.
“Is that what you think this is about?” I say. “That I don’t think anyone but a noble woman is good enough for me?”
“That’s essentially what you said.”
“Not at all. I simply said a woman of noble blood would be better suited for the position.” I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “Victoria, I’ve already explained this—this is about finding someone who already has the necessary skill set for what a future with me would require. But I suppose it’s about more than that, too. Ruling a country isn’t an easy task. The politics, the responsibilities, the demands of the state—people underestimate the stress involved in a position like this. They see the glamor, the money, the fancy homes and titles—the fantasy. Not the reality. But people who are born into this life, who’ve known nothing else—they understand. They’ve been trained since they were born to handle the publicity and the responsibilities of a role like this.” I take a step back toward the bed. “This is not purely an intellectual decision, though. The truth is that I could not in good conscience bring someone into my world without knowing that they fully understood the consequences of that choice, and no one not born into this life could understand. The world sees in me as a man who has the money and means to do whatever he wishes with his life, but in truth, there is no freedom for a man of my position. Every choice I make has a consequence. Every mistake I make is displayed for the entire world to see—and often affects the lives of the very people I’ve dedicated my life to serving. I serve my role with pride, but it is not a burden I would wish upon anyone else, not even my worst enemy.”
