The Queen's New Year Secret

by Maisey Yates

  The hall was empty except for him and his mother. He knew that she wasn’t simply going out for a walk. She didn’t have anything in her hand beyond her purse. But still, he knew. As certain as if she had announced it, he knew that this was the last time he would ever see her.

  “Stay here, Kairos,” she said, her voice steady. If there was any regret inside of her, she certainly wasn’t showing it.

  “You can’t go,” he said, calling on his most commanding tone. Of course, his voice chose that exact moment to crack in two, as it had been doing with increasing frequency lately. “I am the prince,” he continued, drawing strength from deep within him. “I forbid you.”

  She paused, turning to face him, the expression in her eyes unfathomably sad. “It will end eventually, whether I leave now or not. Do you think I have anything your father wanted? No. But he wanted you. He wanted Andres. In that way, I didn’t fail. Remind him of that when he’s raging about this tomorrow.”

  She turned away from him again, continuing down the long hallway. And he forgot to be brave. Forgot that he was supposed to be a man.

  A cry escaped his lips and he ran after her, wrapping his arms around her, pressing his head against her back and inhaling the familiar scent of her. Honey and tuberose, mixed with the powder she applied to her face.

  His cheeks were wet, tears falling easily now. “Don’t go. I won’t give you orders again. I’m begging you, please don’t leave. Mom, please.”

  She rested her hands against his forearms, then curled her fingers around his wrist. She pushed down hard, extricating herself from his hold. “I have to.”

  And then she walked away from him. At the palace door.

  And he never saw her again.

  * * *

  He was breathing hard, his chest burning, his brain swimming with memories he usually kept locked down deep.

  And then he looked at Tabitha.

  He was treading on dangerous ground with her. He wasn’t neutral. And this wasn’t strictly sexual. It never had been.

  Dammit. He had to get it together. He needed this time to convince her to stay with him. But he would never, ever be...that again. Never again would he allow himself to feel so much for someone that the loss of them would break him.

  Never again would he be reduced to shameful begging in his own home to keep a woman with him.

  He was different now. Harder. He was the man his father had commanded him to be. Not the boy who’d clung to a woman who felt nothing for him and wept as though his heart were breaking.

  “I didn’t work years to improve my position in life only to settle for an existence that makes me unhappy.”

  “What does happiness have to do with anything?” Kairos asked. “Happiness is just a socially acceptable word for selfishness. We all talk about how we need to be happy. About how our happiness must come first. In which case, leaving her husband and children isn’t abominable. It’s brave. Because you were only preserving your own happiness, am I right?”

  “That isn’t true.”

  Anger fired through his blood, the memory of his mother walking away still at the forefront of his mind, superimposing itself over this moment. Over this woman. “Of course it is. You can wander off into the far reaches of the world and eat, pray, love to your heart’s content regardless of who you leave behind because you’re on a journey to your essential truth and damn anyone else’s.”

  “That isn’t what I’m doing. We were both drowning in that marriage, don’t pretend we weren’t.”

  “I have a feeling we might have drowned either way,” he said.

  “I’m trying. I said I would try. Must you make this unpleasant?”

  He had a feeling that he must. Fighting with her did something to ease the swollen feeling in his chest. And he found he was much more comfortable with anger than he was with anything tender or painful.

  There was nothing wrong with attempting to forge a stronger physical connection between the two of them. But he needed to remember who he was. What his responsibilities were. And what they wanted. He could not afford to be preoccupied with her in any emotional sense.

  He had to maintain control while making her lose it.

  Had to find a way to convince her to stay with him while maintaining the distance he required.

  He had imagined that global distance would be beneficial. That it would prevent his wife from leaving him. He had been wrong. He needed distance. She had to need him.

  “My apologies, agape,” he said. “I’m much more useful when it comes to interacting with heads of state than I am with making pleasant conversation.”

  “I’m not sure I have very much practice with casual conversation myself.”

  “That could be a problem. I’m given to understand that children like to make conversation about very small things. Such as insects and the shapes of clouds.”

  A strange, soft expression passed over her face and had made his heart clench tight. “Well, I have very little to say on the subject of insects. But I do think that cloud looks like a unicorn.”

  He moved so that he was standing beside her, oriented so that he was facing the same direction she was. “I don’t see it.”

  “What do you see?”

  “A war horse. With a lance growing out of his forehead.”

  “That’s a unicorn.”

  “Clearly, we have different perspectives on things.”

  Then she smiled, and he thought that he must be doing something right. As long as he continued on, insulating himself against any sort of attachment beyond the practical, he would be able to bind her to him.

  He had been blinded by the sex. By the unexpected connection it had provided. But now, in the bright light of day, when she was not on her knees before him, offering up the most tempting image and indulgence he had ever experienced, he had a bit more clarity.

  His path was clear. And he would allow nothing to make them deviate from it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  KAIROS HAD ANOTHER romantic dinner prepared for them out on the terrace. It was dark, the stars in the sky shining brightly as warm air mingled and cooled with mist from the sea, and washed over her skin as she closed her eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the beauty of it. Of what it felt like to be here.

  There were only nine days left. Nine days until she had to make a decision about whether or not she was going to leave him. But then, she wasn’t entirely sure there was a decision to be made.

  Yes, she could have his money if she left after fulfilling the terms of his bargain. But she was starting to think that would be nowhere near enough. Neither would shared custody. Because in that scenario she wouldn’t get to be with him. She would never see what kind of father he was to their child. Her child would have a life divided in half. She would never be able to watch the way he interacted with Kairos. Would never be able to fully understand what his life at the palace was like.

  Right now, tiny as it was, her baby lived inside of her. She couldn’t imagine relinquishing so much time with him once he was born.

  She realized that yet again, she was worrying about the future. Existing in the present, but only by half. She had spent her entire life that way. Living for a moment she wasn’t yet in. It struck her, suddenly and sharply.

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever really been happy before,” she said, looking up from her plate and meeting his gaze.

  He looked at her, his expression guarded. He had been a bit more cautious with her since their walk on the beach the other day. Had not been quite so relaxed. Initially, she had attributed it to some kind of leisure fatigue on his part. She had rarely seen Kairos being anything but the stately ruler with posture so stiff he would make a military general envious. Now she wondered. It was something else.

  But unless he told her, she wouldn’t know. That,
right there, was the summation of their entire relationship.

  “Another bit of commentary on my skills as a husband?” he asked, his tone dry.

  “No. Commentary on myself. I’m always thinking ahead. No matter where I was, it was never enough. It’s never been enough. I arrive at a goalpost and I’m immediately looking ahead to the next. I spent all of high school anticipating how I would get into a university. Then I spent all that time calculating my next move. Spent every moment of my internship with you figuring out how I would parlay that into a fabulous gold star on my résumé, what job I would get when it was finished. And then, by the strangest twist of fate I could ever have imagined, I ended up being queen of the nation. I have no goal beyond that, Kairos. You can’t go up from there. I was—and am—at the very top. Secure for life, in a position where I can make a difference in the world. And I’ve still never been happy.”

  “I was born a prince, I’m not certain I’ve ever been particularly happy about it,” he said, his tone hard. “But we are in a position to do much good. Isn’t that more important than happiness?”

  “I suppose. As is security. Or at least, in my experience it’s difficult to be happy without security. But... Don’t you think it’s possible to have happiness as well?”

  “I don’t give it much thought.”

  “I think for me I’ve never allowed myself to rest because of the fear.”

  He froze then, his dark eyes flat. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I don’t...I don’t think I’ve ever honestly feared that I would turn into my mother. You’re right, Kairos. I never feared that I would actually pick up a gun and shoot you in a jealous rage. But I... Attachments frighten me. How do you know who you can trust? She was my mother. She raised me from the cradle. I never imagined she would do something like that. I never saw it coming. How do you... I have always struggled to figure out how you trust someone after that. I knew her longer than I had known anyone, and still, she did something so far outside of what I imagined she might be capable of.”

  “I do understand something of that. It might have escaped your notice but my trust has been betrayed a time or two in my life.”

  Guilt twisted her stomach, because she knew that she was part of that now. A part of the betrayals that he had experienced.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about it. A lot about happiness. About trust. I’ve been waiting to feel a magical sense of both for a very long time. For my position in life to hand me happiness, for time to grant me trust of the situation I’m in. Neither has come. And so, I’m left with only one conclusion.”

  “That is?”

  “I have to choose it. I’m going to have to make a decision to be content. I mean, for the love of God, I’m a queen with a handsome husband, a private island, a palace and a baby on the way. Choosing happiness should not be that difficult. But I think in order to achieve that I’m going to have to choose trust as well. I’ve been so reluctant to do that. Because the idea of having my trust misused scares me. The idea of trusting myself scares me. But...I can’t predict the future. Neither can I control you. I can’t control any of the circumstances around us, all I can do is make choices for myself. If I want to trust you, then I have to decide to trust you.” She looked down, then back up again. “Trust is just like happiness. You can’t wait for the evidence. Then it isn’t trust. You have to choose it. And be ready to be damned along with that choice if it comes to it. But I trust you.”

  “So simple, agape?”

  “Why not? So many things in life are hard. We have no control over them. I know you’re well familiar with that too. Who can dictate the things that live inside of us if not us? Why do we look around, trying to claim dominion over things we cannot, while we let the things we could dominate us?”

  “I didn’t realize I was going to get psychology with my meal.”

  “I thought it paired nicely with the fish, as we can’t have wine.”

  “And here I thought anthropology went better with fish.”

  “Not my field of expertise.”

  “A disappointment,” he said. “You always seem expert in everything you try.”

  “Everything?” she asked, arching a brow.

  His gaze turned hot. “Yes,” he said, his voice rough now. “Everything.”

  “Hmm. Well, but then, you haven’t got much experience with some of what we’ve been doing.” She had a feeling she was edging into forbidden territory, but she wanted to ask him about this.

  “This is true,” he said.

  “You were not a virgin when we married.”

  He paused, his fork halfway between the plate and his mouth. “No,” he said.

  “So it isn’t inexperience that caused you to go without a woman...without...what I gave you recently.”

  “True. Are you really in the mood to examine my past relationships?”

  “No,” she said. “Not especially. I only want to know why. I mean, you had sex with other women but not...not that. Is it control?”

  He set his fork down. “I...I’m not certain how to answer that.”

  “With the truth. Not your carefully reasoned version, or what you think I might want to hear. Or even what you think makes sense. The real reason. The truth.”

  He looked as though she’d hit him, and for a second, she felt sorry for him. But not much beyond a second. “I never felt like I deserved such a thing.” The words fell from his lips reluctantly, and she could tell that even he was mystified by them.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I’ve never liked the idea of sitting back and taking something like that as my due. You can’t... You have to earn things. And serve. You can never just...take.”

  “I mean, I agree. Reciprocation and being generous is certainly appreciated, but what does that have to do with letting your partner show you she wants you?”

  “I’ve never felt I could afford such a thing. To give in to such selfish desire,” he said, uncomfortable now. Clearly.

  “Don’t you think now after so many years...don’t you think you might deserve something for you, Kairos?”

  He curled his hand into a fist and she watched the tendons there shift. Everything about him was so strong. So beautiful. “Are you through eating?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I find that I am ready for bed.”

  Her heart fluttered, excitement firing through her body. She never tired of this new, more physically attentive Kairos. He didn’t bother to hold back the attraction that burned between them. This was sex for the sole purpose of forging a deeper connection between them, finding pleasure with each other, rather than timing their unions around her cycle. It was an entirely different experience, and she loved it.

  “Then, I am too,” she said, without hesitation.

  It occurred to her, as he swept her into his arms and carried her away from the terrace, that he might have been redirecting the conversation. That he was replacing the promise of honest talk with sex.

  But she wouldn’t allow those thoughts to poison the moment. She had chosen happiness. She had chosen trust. And so, she would cling to those things, as she clung to him.

  In his arms, it wasn’t difficult to feel perfectly content in the present. To feel secure.

  And to trust that everything would work out in the end.

  * * *

  In spite of her resolution to trust more, she found herself overtaken with a sense of disquiet over the next couple of days. Kairos was definitely distancing himself again. She had lived under the carefully constructed frost blanket he preferred to lay out over everything for too many years not to recognize when he was gearing up to roll it out again. He made love with her every night, yes, but she didn’t wake up held securely in his arms as she had done initially here on the island.

  Instead, she awo
ke with a yawning stretch of space between them. He slept on the side of the bed nearest the door, and she couldn’t help but think that one morning she would wake up and he would have gone completely. As though he were inching ever closer to the exit with each passing night.

  Trust, she reasoned, was not blind stupidity. Trust was going to have to extend to herself as well, not just to him. She had to trust her own instincts where he was concerned. Something had changed, and it wasn’t anything good. It was reverting back.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if he had gotten too close to that fire she talked about earlier, and was running from it now. If all of the intimacy, not just the sex, was getting to him. For the first time, they had really begun to talk. To peel back the layers beneath their clothes and look at who they were, not who they pretended to be.

  This thing between them was uncomfortable. That much she knew. It always had been. That was why they had both turned away from it so resolutely.

  She was done with that. Sadly for him, she wasn’t going to allow him to run.

  They had less than a week. Less than a week to fix this thing between them. She wanted to stay with him. She had made that decision. But she wanted their marriage to be something more. She was not going to determine to remain his wife only to have things revert back to their icy state.

  No, she was going to effect change. Permanent change.

  Conversation didn’t seem to work with him. The only way through to Kairos seemed to be using her body. When he decided to transform her from personal assistant to wife, it had been because of her mind. Because they connected on a logical level.

  She was done appealing to logic. She was going to make the appeal with her body. She was going to come at all of this from a different direction. She wondered now if she had tried to seduce him sooner if things would have changed before she walked out.

  There was no denying the heat that shimmered between them.

  But intimacy had been missing from their sexual encounters in the past. Honesty had been missing.