by Maisey Yates
Because she’d been afraid. Afraid to take a definitive stance. To say what she really wanted for fear of it being rejected. For fear of having herself rejected, really and truly.
“Well, it’s sort of do or die now,” she said.
She stood and brushed herself off. This gown didn’t have a hope of being salvaged, not after all the action it had seen tonight. The thought brought an ache to her chest and a sad smile to her lips.
Too bad she hadn’t done it sooner. Too bad she hadn’t grown up a bit sooner.
She turned to look at the place Mak had last stood. Empty now.
“I’ll do it for me,” she said, not caring that the security guard probably thought she was losing it. Maybe she was, but it felt a whole lot more like she was finally getting it. “Thank you, Mak.”
She headed back into the palace, a sense of triumph coming to help ease some of the ache in her body. Right now, she wouldn’t think about what she’d lost. Later—she would grieve for it later.
Because right now she had to go and talk to her father.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THERE was no happiness in the bottom of a bottle of alcohol. Mak knew that for a fact. He also knew there was nothing more than a hole in his chest where his heart should be. Eva had his heart.
He paced the length of his hotel room. He’d gotten a room in town, for the quietness. For a chance to think. He was still tied to this place. To this job.
To Eva. Honor, seeing his commitments through, that was just a thin veil. A facade to give him an excuse to stay where Eva was. To avoid leaving the country, making the ties feel severed permanently.
He walked to the mirror, braced his hands on the edges of the vanity. He looked at his reflection, and he hated the man he saw. “Coward,” he said. “You are a coward.”
The worst kind. He had let himself believe that all of his fear was for Eva, that he was afraid he would take too much from her. But he’d realized something in the twenty-four hours since he’d left her. That the love he felt for her had only ever given to both of them.
So his fear, the fear he had professed to feeling, was a lie, masking the real thing he was afraid of.
Of feeling pain again. Of opening himself up.
But he was open already. He was feeling already. Lost already. In Eva. In his love for her.
“I love her,” he said to his hated reflection. He felt something crack in his chest. Felt so raw and exposed, but alone with that exposure, he felt new. He felt that he’d been given another chance. That his heart had started again.
She was engaged to another man. But she didn’t love the other man. Maybe honor would have him stay away.
But love needed him to go to her. Now.
Freedom should feel more free than it did. It was the weight of missing Mak, that was what kept her from feeling total elation at her broken engagement.
It hadn’t been easy, and her father hadn’t been happy. But, for all his bluster, when she’d come in with confidence, when she’d laid out what she wanted, he’d told her he wouldn’t force her into it.
He also didn’t disown her. Didn’t tell her to hand in her tiara.
She’d also explained her bad behavior, that she’d been trying to stop the engagement from happening without taking actual responsibility for it. That, combined with her flat denial of her involvement with either of the idiots from the casino, relieved him so much his anger fizzled.
It wasn’t as though things were going to be perfect between them. He hadn’t hugged her, or anything. But it was a step. A start. She’d asked for respect and she was on her way to earning it.
Still, she felt a solid ache in her chest that wouldn’t go away. She missed Mak. Missed him more than she could express with words. It was awful. She wanted his arms around her at night, wanted to ride in the car with him when she went down to the city. Wanted to dance with him in the garden. Or just have dinner with him, she wasn’t picky. She just wanted to be with him.
She walked out of her room and headed down the hall, toward the doors to the palace. She was going in to town with another security guard today, getting coffee, making a plan. She had a charity idea brewing, and since she was no longer being sent off into marriage she had some time to think about it.
She wanted to make sure that people with loved ones who needed long-term care, people like Mak, would have some sort of help from the get-go, so that the responsibility wouldn’t fall all on them.
Thankfully, there would be no additional media circus today. At Bastian’s request they were delaying the announcement of the broken engagement. That suited her fine. She couldn’t handle being in the public eye. Not now. Not when she just wanted to hide away and lick her wounds.
Well, she wasn’t going to let herself hide completely. She was going to make herself count. She was determined to.
A man in a black suit rounded one of the corners and her heart stopped. It might be a vision. A mirage. She usually saw them in her dreams, but a waking one didn’t seem that odd. Which was telling.
“Mak?” she breathed.
His pace quickened. He was nearly running in the halls now and she couldn’t keep her feet still. She went to greet him, throwing her arms around his neck as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I missed you so much,” she said. She didn’t care that last time they’d spoken he’d rejected her. It didn’t matter now. Not in this moment. This was pure emotion, and she could feel it flowing from him too. Feel that his reaction was real, not something to keep from hurting her feelings.
He dropped to his knees in front of her and she looked over her shoulder, trying to see if anyone was walking by. “What are …”
“Marry me. Don’t marry him,” he ground out. “Marry me, because I love you. I’m not perfect. I’m not a prince. I’m a widower who spent too many years living in the bitterness life gave me. I let it change me. I let it harden me. I was afraid to love, afraid of what it would cost me. Cost you. But then I realized that all your love has ever given me was happiness. More happiness than I’ve ever felt. I think it had just been so long since I felt the emotion I didn’t recognize it.”
“But … but …”
“I can’t make you a queen, not in the eyes of the world. But I will treat you like one. I will give you everything I have to give.”
She knelt down in front of him and put her hand on his face. “You … first of all, you make me happier than any man … than anyone ever. You make me feel so free. You make me feel like me. And I … I can never thank you enough for that.”
“I make you happy?”
“So much. I broke the engagement. The night of the ball. I went and told my father I couldn’t do it. Then I went to Bastian’s hotel and I told him it was off. I don’t think he was sorry. Because you were right. And you showed me that I … that I needed to grow up. And I did. So I am now free to accept the hand of any man I choose. And I choose you, Makhail Nabatov. Not in spite of your past, or the scars it’s left. Those things have made you the man you are. The man I love.”
He lowered his head. “I was a coward. It was easy to tell myself that I was afraid of taking too much from you. Because I’ve been there. But in truth, I was afraid to open myself. To find it in me to love. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was too late. It was so effortless to love you I almost didn’t recognize it. You brought down my walls so easily, I hardly realized.”
She laughed through her tears, cupped his chin and raised his face so he was looking at her. “You actually,” she fumbled for her purse and unzipped it, taking out a length of black silk, “you saved me a trip into the city. You see, I found this, and I tried it on Bastian, but it didn’t fit. And I was about to go searching to see if there was any man down in the shops it might fit … but …” She draped it over his shoulders. “You know, if looks like it fits you perfectly.”
He laughed, a smile, a real smile, on his lips. He tugged her to him. “Ties are sort of one size fits all.”
&n
bsp; She shook her head. “That one’s very special. It fits the one man who fits me.”
“Eva, my love, how close I came to losing you.” He leaned in and kissed her. “I am so sorry.”
“I can handle you, as long as you can handle me,” she said.
“More than. It’s no chore.”
“I feel the same way. I love you, you know,” she said.
“I know.” He reached into his pocket. “I have a ring for you.”
“I’d love to see it … but … I think maybe after we spend some time in my bedroom.”
He stood and took her hand, tugging her up with him. “You, my princess, are scandalous.”
“I don’t plan on changing, so I hope that’s all right with you.”
“It is. Don’t ever change.”
“You neither.”
He took her hand and they walked toward her quarters. They would deal with her father, her brother, the rest of the world, later. Today was for them. And then, the rest of their lives.
“Hey, are you still going to do security for my wedding?” she asked.
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, a small smile on his lips. “I think I’ll just be the groom at your wedding, and leave the rest to someone else.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
“I was so hoping that night in the garden wasn’t our last kiss,” he said, studying her face.
She stretched up on her toes and pressed her lips to his, lingering, reveling in the feel of him, the taste of him. Her Mak. Her future husband. “No, agape mou,” she said. “That wasn’t the end of our kisses. That was only the beginning.”
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All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited.
Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Maisey Yates 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97422-3
Table of Contents
Cover
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Copyright
