Such things simply never happened, not even back when he’d been at Cambridge and had enjoyed the illusion of slightly more freedom while his father had run the country toward ruin. He’d still had guards who made sure no one ever got too close to him or approached him without permission, especially any women he might have wanted to meet. And even then, he’d been too conscious of the responsibilities that waited for him and his own father’s do as I say, not as I do expectations of his behavior to risk something that could end up in tabloid photographs and appalling tell-alls.
As a sitting monarch—and the son of a father who had bent the rules because he’d allowed himself to get into a position where he could be blackmailed in the first place—Reza obviously could not date. He could not participate in anything remotely like a date, in fact. In the years before he’d been seriously looking for an appropriate queen, he’d had to find his women a different way entirely, as there could be no chance meetings for a man in his position. No happening upon a bar or whatever sort of place single people congregated. No accidental meetings of the friends of his friends, given that no one appeared in his presence without both permission and a thorough vetting. Reza’s advisers presented him with thick dossiers detailing any woman deemed appropriate for his notice. He sifted through them when he was of a mood until he found any who appealed to him. When he did, arrangements would be made to meet privately, usually at dinners like this one or with a careful selection of very old friends who proved indisputably loyal and discreet.
But the women in question, vetted or not, had ample time to decline the invitation to meet with him before they ever set foot in any room where he might appear. Refusals were not common, of course. Still, they happened every now and again. Reza was a powerful and public figure forever bound to his country first. Some women didn’t wish to put themselves into that kind of fishbowl, and how could he blame them?
The ones who did, the ones who met him in artfully arranged places like this one far away from the eyes of the world, were always sure things. Give or take a bit of artful flirtation and the appropriate amount of flattery on his side and awe on theirs, if they sat down with him, they were his.
His lost princess, however, was nothing like a sure thing. She had thus far ignored every reference he’d made to the fact they had been betrothed years ago and, beyond that, made no secret of the fact she did not exactly respect him or even note his eminence. These things were remarkable enough. But more than that, Reza found the unusual sensation of being in some suspense about what might happen here made him...restless.
Maggy sat before him as if she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him—still. When she’d clearly discovered that he was exactly who he’d said he was. It pricked at something in him, that her disrespect hadn’t eased in any way. The truth was, he’d expected her to have a full personality shift into the sort of overawed obsequiousness that usually marked his interactions with other people. Especially because she was the only living human who had ever insulted him to his face. He’d imagined this woman would be even more determined to smooth things over with him now that she knew his identity.
That she did not appear to care in the least what he thought of her seemed to stroke him, like hot hands all over his body.
Which was not acceptable. At all.
“What exactly do you want to do to me?” she asked, snapping him back to the dinner at hand.
And for a moment Reza was entirely a man. Not a king. Another sensation that was entirely new to him, and threw him into his father’s territory. I am as much a man as I am a king, his father’s voice echoed in his head. It should have appalled him. Yet he was focused much too intently on her lush mouth, not to mention all the things he’d like to do with that mouth—
Enough. This was neither the time nor the place. This wasn’t who he was. He’d made certain of it.
But his body was not paying the slightest bit of attention to his cool, rational mind. It wanted her.
He wanted her.
Not as the queen he’d been promised since her birth, though he wanted that, too. But as a man.
Reza had absolutely no idea what to do with that. Of course, it was not his emotions. Not with a woman who still looked like a servant. Though the fact it was something far more earthy didn’t exactly thrill him.
“Because I have to tell you,” she was saying, utterly unaware of what was happening to him as far as he could discern, and thank God for that, “as amusing as it is to be compared to an entire zoo’s worth of rescue animals, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that, probably, I don’t want to do it. Whatever it is.”
He was relieved—to an unseemly degree—when the doors opened again and his staff swept in, trading out one course for the next with brisk efficiency. He ordered himself under control, and for the first time in a life dedicated to his duty and the necessity of projecting a great calm whether he felt it or not, he wasn’t sure he could manage it.
What the hell was happening to him? Was he genetically predisposed to repeat his father’s great folly? He would not allow it. He could not.
Reza glanced up when the door did not close behind the waitstaff, to see his own personal aide waiting there. Something pounded in him, hard and triumphant. Because this was a formality. He was sure of it.
“Do you have a result?” he asked his man.
He was aware of the way Maggy stiffened in her seat across from him. And more curious, the fact she didn’t turn around to look toward the door. She kept her eyes on the plate before her and her hands in her lap. He was certain that if he looked more closely, she’d have balled them into fists. But he kept his gaze trained on the man at the door instead.
“It is a match, sire,” the man said, as Reza had known he would since the moment he’d seen that picture of Maggy ten days ago.
He nodded his thanks and his dismissal at once. His blood seemed to roar through him, making him hard and focused and needy in a way he didn’t quite understand. He was not a man who needed. A good king does not need the things a man does, his mother had always told him. The memory set Reza’s teeth on edge. He was a king who had all that he needed, thank you. He’d never felt anything like this in his life.
But he kept his voice cool when he spoke, amazed that it, too, was far more difficult than it should have been.
“Congratulations, Princess.” He waited for her to look at him, but she didn’t. He studied the elegant line of her neck that no cheap black dress could obscure. There were centuries of good breeding right there in her still form. And she would be his queen. All of him—man and king alike, not that he’d ever found there to be much difference between the two before tonight—exulted. “You are, as expected and now beyond any shadow of doubt, Magdalena of Santa Domini.”
Naturally, this woman did not swoon. Or carry on in any way. Or even seem to react to the news that must surely have been near enough to magic or a lottery win after so many years of hardship and toil. She took a breath that was slightly deeper than any she’d taken before, that was all. Then she raised her head.
There was no joy there on her lovely face. No gleam of victory or relief. Her caramel gaze was flat. Blank.
Reza found her fascinating. And that was the trouble. He had wanted women before, in appropriately discreet ways. He had enjoyed their company, but mostly that was because every woman he’d ever encountered—especially in private—had dedicated herself to entertaining him until the inevitable day he lost interest. He hardly knew what to make of this, that his lost betrothed was about as enamored of him as she was of the table they sat at, and made no attempt to hide it. And while all his previous mistresses seemed to blur together in his mind, this princess who called herself Maggy and sat there before him with badly colored blond hair and a dress that could most charitably be called beneath her station...was not blurry at all. If anything, she was the only thing in sharp, intense focus.
He only just repressed the urge to shake his head, as if to clear it.
“What if there’s been a mistake?” she asked.
“There is no room for error,” he told her. He found it was preferable to discuss concrete facts than it was to interrogate himself about the strange things happening inside of him tonight. “For various security reasons, samples of many royal families’ blood are taken and stored. One never knows the circumstances under which one’s identity or paternity might be called into question. A sample of yours was given to my family when our betrothal contracts were executed. Your blood tonight has matched it.” He studied her proud, intent face. “There is no mistake.”
He watched, drawn to her in a way he chose not to analyze just then, as she reached up and rubbed behind her ear with one finger. Touching that birthmark that marked her, the same way he had earlier.
Again, he expected a reaction. And again, he was disappointed.
Maggy only swallowed, as if against a constriction in her throat, but when she spoke her voice was smooth. “What happens now?”
Reza needed to get ahold of himself. If only because it was unacceptable to imagine any scenario in which the king of the Constantines was the less composed person in a room. In any room.
“First, you must look the part,” he said, forcing himself to concentrate on the practicalities. Not this madness that was sweeping through him, rendering him a stranger to himself. When he had known exactly who he was and all the contours of the life he would lead from the day of his birth, and had never deviated from that knowledge in all his life. Especially when it came to matters of the flesh, after his father’s terrible example.
Uncertainty did not suit him. It horrified him, in fact. Deeply.
Maggy’s unreadable eyes were fixed on him. “You said I already look like the late queen. Problem solved.”
He noticed she did not refer to Queen Serena as her mother, but he tucked that away. “I’m afraid it is not your bone structure that the paparazzi will focus on.”
“Oh, wait.” Her caramel gaze turned hostile then. But not surprised. “What you’re trying not to say is that I don’t look like a princess. I probably look like a cheap townie who’s had to work her ass off to get anything she has, no matter how crappy it looks to visiting royalty. Because guess what? That’s who I am.”
Reza did not quite sigh. “I cannot imagine any reason the phrase cheap townie would exit my lips,” he told her. He eyed her mutinous expression. “And certainly not as a description of the woman I am contracted to marry.”
“I don’t know why not,” she retorted. Once again sliding right past their betrothal. Reza found that fascinating, too. What he didn’t know was if that was because he was interested in what she tried to ignore—or if his ego was a bit stung by the continuing proof that this woman was the only one alive who, apparently, wasn’t transported into a froth of joy at the idea of marrying him. He had the lowering suspicion it was the latter, especially as Maggy kept going, her voice hard. “You weren’t quite this shy or retiring back in the coffee shop. Hit me with it. I can take it.” She lifted her hands, palms up, but didn’t shift her gaze from his. “Tell me all the ways I’m defective. I dare you.”
Reza was not used to direct challenges. Much less outright dares. And he was certainly not used to such displays from those who ought to have found his very presence nothing short of miraculous. Worth gratitude, at the very least—but he shoved that aside. That was most definitely his ego talking. The inbred arrogance he’d been born with. He was self-aware enough to recognize he had both in abundance. What he didn’t recognize—and did not care for one bit—was this uncontrolled, dark thing he couldn’t identify as it swelled in him. It was as if with her, he truly was nothing but a man.
From one breath to the next, he couldn’t decide if that was unforgivable or intriguing.
Nonetheless, he took that dare.
“That false color in your hair does not suit you,” he told her, keeping his tone even, because he was a king, not a common lout. He did not attack those weaker than him, or in need of his aid. And no matter the mouth on her, his lost princess was very much both. He needed to keep his heavier artillery to himself. “And only partly because it is inexpertly applied. But the rest is a cosmetic matter, easily handled. A question of more appropriate clothing. Garments made to flatter your particular figure rather than off some bargain rack somewhere. Some tutoring in deportment, so you might comport yourself in a manner more in line with your heritage. Perhaps even some time in a spa to tend to your general air of exhausted desperation.”
“It must be some spa,” Maggy replied darkly, “to combat twenty years of poverty and loneliness. Will a massage do the trick, do you think? Or will I need something a little more theatrical to get the stink out, like some of those hot stones?”
“You asked me to tell you these things and I thought you could take it. Did you not say so?”
“This is me taking it. I didn’t promise I’d be mute.” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Anyway, I don’t care about cosmetic things. This might be hard for you to comprehend, but for some people, primping is pretty far down the list.”
“That is all very well for a coffee shop drone in the middle of nowhere.” He lifted his shoulder, then dropped it. “But we are no longer speaking of that woman. We are speaking of a princess who will return from the dead and find herself in the center of intense public scrutiny.”
“You mean me. Not a random, theoretical princess. Me.” Maggy shook her head. “And let me tell you something about me, since you’re so interested. You can’t pretend the last twenty years didn’t happen, no matter what a blood test says. I certainly can’t.”
“Do you wish to be ridiculed?” he asked her quietly. “Do you imagine you will enjoy snide tabloid articles about your inability to attend to your own grooming? You didn’t care for it when I called you a wild animal. Will you like it when the tabloids screech that you are a feral creature more deserving of a wilderness habitat than a palace?”
She looked as if he’d thrust his fork into her jugular, and he didn’t much care for the sensation.
“These are realities you must consider now. Who you are is essentially meaningless. It is who you let them see that matters.” He waved a hand at her dress, obviously mass-produced, which hugged her figure in a way that would have rendered his own ruthlessly correct mother pale with horror. Reza found that the man in him appreciated the close embrace of all that cheap, stretchy black material more than he wished to admit. “You cannot simply throw on any old thing and step out in it.”
“This is the only dress I own,” she said, her tone a frozen thing. “I apologize if it offends you. Had I known that I’d be having dinner with a mighty king, I might have made a trip to the mall.”
He placed it then. She almost sounded as if he’d hurt her feelings. He couldn’t imagine how.
“I am not insulting you,” he told her, frowning. “I am trying to prepare you for what will come. You will need to plan your appearances very carefully, as you will no longer be a private citizen. You will represent the crown.”
“As its ungroomed, trailer trash face in a cheap black dress. The poor crown. What if I tarnish it?”
Something inside of him turned over, surprising him.
“Do you think you are the only one who finds these boundaries and necessities absurd?” he bit out at her, and the fact he was shocked by the flare of his own temper should have kept him from continuing. But it didn’t. “Insulting, even? Let me assure you that you are not. But there are things that matter more than your feelings.”
“So far,” Maggy said softly, “it seems that everything matters more than my feelings.”
“You can, of course, be the sort of royal beloved by the tabloids for different reasons,” Reza said, his tone grim. “There are any number of blue-blooded tarts who fall in and out of Spanish clubs and make fools of themselves at so-called ‘edgy’ parties in Berlin. The brightest beaches in the Côte d’Azur have dark and desperate shadows where many an heir
ess loses her way, usually quite publicly. This is always a path that is open to you, if you wish it. You would hardly be the first princess to choose hard partying over hard work.”
“Yes,” she said, her words a bare whisper, though her caramel eyes were fixed to his and glittered hard with something much darker—something he felt like an echo deep inside of him, and he didn’t like it at all. “My goal in life is to be an international whore. It seems like such an upgrade.”
Heat seemed to rise in the air between them, electric and impossible. Reza did not want to imagine this woman as any kind of whore, international or otherwise. Or perhaps the truth was, now that she’d said it, he was having trouble thinking of anything else except how much he’d like to descend into a few depths with her. And what the hell did that make him?
“The choice is yours.” He sounded darker than he should have. Grittier. “I, personally, prefer a more respectable approach, but then I have been the ruler of the Constantines since I was twenty-three. There was no time for me to make a name for myself in all the wrong ways.”
Maggy folded her hands in her lap and Reza suspected it was to keep them from shaking. And if so, he wanted to know if it was anger or some other emotion that worked in her—like maybe some faint echo of the things he felt inside himself that were causing far too much of a commotion. She sat tall in her seat, and he wondered if she knew how very regal she looked while she did it. Or if it was something innate in her. As if her very bones had been calling out her true identity all this time, if only someone had thought to look in the back of beyond and on the wrong continent.
“But nothing you’re telling me is about me, really,” she said after one long moment dragged into another. She held his gaze and there was no pretending he didn’t still see the challenge in her eyes. In the proud tilt of her chin. It was as novel as it was astounding. “You didn’t come all this way with a lab in your back pocket because you were concerned about me. This entire thing is all about you.”
Bride by Royal Decree Page 6
