“What do they want from Calista?” Orion asked, and couldn’t help but think that it was an excellent question. One he asked himself nightly, come to that.
He kept waiting for familiarity to breed contempt, as it was meant to do. But instead, the more time he spent with the woman he was to marry, the more feverish his nights became. Because the more he saw her, the more he wanted her.
It hadn’t helped that he’d seen beneath that sharp, edgy surface she wore so comfortably. He could have done without the vulnerability she’d shown before their first ball. Just like he could have happily stayed ignorant of the way she tasted.
It would have made things easier, surely.
During the long nights when all he did was ache for her, he reminded himself that finding himself sexually attracted to a woman he was forced to marry anyway was a gift. That he should celebrate it, no matter how the marriage itself came to be. Because that attraction could only make what lay ahead of the pair of them easier. More pleasant, certainly.
During the day, however, he reminded himself whose daughter she was. And he was horrified that he was allowing the chemistry between them to poison him, when he knew better.
Of course he knew better.
Every week, he collected her from the same salon. She wore a series of exquisite ensembles, all of which were gushed over and picked apart the following day in all the papers, much the way their engagement kiss had been. And not only in the ones her family owned.
There had been no more kissing. No more fraught conversations laced with need. And no more flashes of vulnerability, for that matter.
Instead, they danced.
And it did not help Orion in the slightest to discover that Calista Skyros—blackmailer’s daughter, insolent and disrespectful by nature and inclination alike—fit him like all those steamy dreams he had. Graceful. Lithe. Something like ethereal.
As if she had been specifically created to fit right there in his arms.
When that could not possibly be true. He knew it wasn’t true.
And in case he thought he was imagining such things, no. He’d seen the pictures of the two of them. He could hardly have avoided them if he’d wanted to. And worse, the videos that made it clear their chemistry was not only in his head.
God help him.
“They want Calista to act the way the king’s betrothed ought to act,” Griffin was saying. He shook his head at his older brother, and Orion opted not to let himself notice the speculative gleam in Griffin’s gaze. “It is all so irregular, after all. She has refused to present herself for the proper... How shall I put it? Molding.”
“She dances as a girl of noble blood ought to have learned as a child. She wears appropriate clothing and has yet to embarrass the palace. What else should she be doing?”
“Come now, brother.” Griffin laughed. “Surely you have not already forgotten the greatest joy of our formative years? Day after day after day of royal etiquette pounded into our heads by battalions of grandfather’s private secretaries?”
Orion opted not to mention that he had enjoyed those sessions rather more than Griffin had. “Again, Lady Calista is of noble blood, born and raised right here in Idylla. I have it on the greatest authority that she has already suffered through comportment classes. At length.”
Griffin only shrugged. “I’m not the one who needs convincing. I don’t much care. It’s your staff, Orion. They believe your chosen bride is...” He paused, then, in a manner that Orion might have called delicate had he not been able to see the smirk on his brother’s face. “...too well versed in playing to the press. While ignorant of the duties that await her once she marries you.”
Orion accepted the fact that he did not particularly want to deal with the endlessly thorny problem that was Calista. But when he glanced down at the sheaves upon sheaves of papers on his desk, it seemed less overwhelming a task than it might have otherwise.
Liar, something in him whispered. You want to deal with her. You want to see her when you know you shouldn’t.
He stood, inclining his head grandly at Griffin—who only grinned back, sprawled out with every appearance of idleness. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I am forced to wonder why I employ a staff at all when they are more comfortable gossiping to my younger brother than bringing their concerns straight to me.”
“It is more that I like to gossip, as I think you know,” Griffin said mildly. “What else is Idylla’s favorite playboy to do with his fortune and time?”
Orion smoothed a hand down the pristine front of the suit he wore. “About that.”
“Yes, yes,” Griffin said, rolling his eyes. “I haven’t forgotten what I promised you.”
“If you do not choose a bride for yourself, brother,” Orion said quietly, “you may force me into a position where I must choose for you. Is that what you want?”
Griffin didn’t look remotely concerned. “Father chose your bride. You seem to be holding up well.”
“If by that you mean I am acquitting myself with all magnificence of my station, yes. That is my job.”
“You don’t look at her like she’s a job, Orion.” Griffin flashed another grin when Orion glared at him, and shrugged. “You don’t. And who on this planet knows more about carrying the sins of the fathers than you and me? Perhaps this girl—”
“I understand my duty, Griffin.” Orion sounded harsher than he meant to, especially where his brother was involved. Given Griffin only ever looked delighted that he’d provoked a reaction—any reaction. Today was no different. “And I will do my duty, as always. You may recall you promised me that you would do the same.”
“My problem isn’t finding one woman to marry, Orion,” Griffin said then, his grin so bright it almost concealed the darker gleam in his gaze that Orion sometimes thought only he ever saw. “It’s that there are far too many to wade through, all with their own particular demands.”
“I’m happy to do it for you, then, if you find the task too onerous.”
“Perhaps you should deal with your recalcitrant bride-to-be,” Griffin suggested, laughing. “I’ll find my own, don’t you worry.”
Orion did worry. He worried about everything, the way he always had—because there was no one else to do it. But he knew there was no pressing Griffin when he was in one of his languid moods, so Orion left him in his office and marched out to find his staff, half expecting to find that Griffin had misread the situation. More than half. Because sometimes it was hard to tell what was actually gossip swirling about the palace, and what Griffin decided to make gossip.
But when he astonished his staff by presenting himself in their offices, everyone leaped to their feet and began bowing dramatically. And in the resulting chaos, he quickly understood that for once, his brother had not been exaggerating.
“Her behavior is quite extraordinary,” his head secretary confided once they’d left the bowing and scraping behind and repaired to the man’s office, where he looked ill at the sight of his sovereign sitting in a regular chair in front of the desk. But he pressed on. “In the history of the throne, there has never been a queen who...” He blinked, as if he could hardly bring himself to say the word. “Your Majesty, Lady Calista works.”
“In her family firm, yes. I believe she’s quite proud of this.”
His secretary managed to radiate severe disapproval while looking faintly obsequious. A skill Orion doubted he could master. But he was too busy wondering when he’d appointed himself Calista’s champion to study how the other man did it.
“The wedding will be on Christmas Eve, sire,” his secretary pointed out.
“I have not forgotten.”
His secretary bent his head. “And your fiancée has yet to present herself at the palace so that we can begin to instruct her in the duties of her new role. She cannot...simply appear overnight and hope to acquit herself as queen. T
hat would be disastrous.”
Orion did not need his secretary to remind him that there had been enough disasters in the kingdom already. His staff had been forced to help him through his father’s rule, where they’d spent their days attempting to smooth everything out, fix what was fixable, and do their best to present the public with a vision of a better, calmer, more competent king than the one they had.
Of course they were all concerned that his fiancée represented a kind of throwback to those chaotic years.
Still.
“It is not as if she’s a stranger we picked up off the streets,” Orion pointed out, a bit drily. “She is the daughter of Idyllian nobility.”
“Which has no doubt prepared her adequately for a robust role as a socialite, Your Majesty, but can in no way substitute for proper training in how to represent the kingdom as its queen. That is, as they say, a different kettle of fish entirely.”
Despite himself, Orion found himself thinking about his own mother. She had received all that same instruction, presumably. But she’d been so young. And no one could have been instructed in what it took to handle his father. Especially given what Orion knew now, it was perhaps unsurprising that his mother had taken her own life in the end.
He thought of the stark terror he’d seen on Calista’s face in the car that first night. That hint that she was something more than simply her odious father’s daughter, sent to enact his squalid little games.
And the thought that another queen—his queen—might end up in such despair that she followed in his mother’s sad footsteps one day made something in him shift. Hard. As if the notion might take him from his feet.
“Leave it with me,” he told his secretary.
And then he decided to indulge himself while he was off putting out fires.
His father had dearly loved the pageant of monarchy. Always a motorcade. A parade, if possible. Armed guards wherever he went and as much pomp and circumstance as every engagement could hold.
And pageantry had its place, certainly. Orion tried to be careful not to eschew things simply because his father had enjoyed them—like the glorious history of the throne of Idylla, and of his family.
But today, Orion changed into regular clothes and slipped out a side door of the palace where reporters were never allowed to camp out and wait. He would have loved to have gone alone, but he was a king, and well aware of his responsibilities—even when he was shirking them. And so two bodyguards came with him, also dressed down, though they fanned out enough to give him the illusion of living a normal enough life that he could simply...take a walk in the royal city if he liked.
And he did like. Every now and again, he liked to go out from the palace and away from his usual concerns and blend in. Sometimes his subjects recognized him, but they were usually so delighted to see the king out there engaging in normal pursuits—instead of making embarrassing headlines like his father had—that they rarely caused a fuss.
Today, it was a brisk morning. Cool, by Mediterranean standards. Orion followed a meandering sort of path down the hill where the palace sat, a beacon of depravity or hope, depending on how well he was doing his job. He found his way into the affluent part of the city, where the better part of Idyllian nobility lived while in town. He knew they all had their ancestral estates either out in the rural parts of the main island, or on the smaller, supplementary islands that made up the rest of the kingdom.
As he drew close to the street where Calista lived in her father’s grand old house, he slowed, because he could see the scrum of paparazzi from a distance. They heaved about outside Aristotle Skyros’s house, even though, as far as Orion could see, there was no one there to take pictures of.
He didn’t turn down the street. Why give the vultures more to pick apart? He kept walking, flipping up his collar against the damp as he made his way into the central business district.
And once again, he saw paparazzi six deep, milling around outside Skyros Media’s flagship building.
After a brief consultation with his bodyguards, he let them lead him around to the back, down an alley where he slipped in a heavy door that was marked Exit Only.
He jogged up the stairs to the third floor, where he’d been told Calista’s office was, thinking he would drop in on his lovely fiancée for a little chat she wouldn’t have had time to prepare for. He was imagining her reaction to that, sharp and exhilarating, when he stepped into the hallway. And then stopped, because he heard raised voices from around the corner.
“This is not a request, Calista. Have you looked out in the street lately? It’s a zoo!”
Orion knew that voice. Aristotle, sounding more vicious and bombastic than usual.
“Papa. Please.” Her voice was strained. “I can’t abandon my work!”
“Vice presidents grow on trees like olives, girl. You’re going to marry the king. That is far more important.”
He could have revealed himself, then. He could have marched around the corner and let them know he was there, eavesdropping.
But Orion stayed where he was. Which was how he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was not as upright and honorable as he’d always like to imagine he was. Because if he was, he would never stand there and listen as they discussed him and his upcoming marriage. If he was truly a man of honor he would let them know that he could hear their conversation.
He and his bodyguards exchanged a long glance, but none of them moved.
Orion was as surprised as anyone that it turned out he was human, after all.
“That’s not a career, is it?” Calista snapped. “That’s a vanity project. Your vanity project, not mine.”
And the sound of the slap Skyros delivered was still resounding in the air as Orion moved. Without meaning to.
But he had to see it with his own eyes. That red handprint on Calista’s cheek and her wide eyes.
Both father and daughter looked stunned to see him as he rounded the corner, but he couldn’t take any particular pleasure in that.
Not when he was too busy trying to keep his hands from bunching into fists.
“You do know, Skyros,” he managed to say, with what he felt was admirable calm, “that there are penalties for striking a member of the royal family? It’s an ancient law, handed down across centuries. But whether or not the nation still likes a hanging, it is illegal to put your hands on any one of us. Treasonous, in point of fact.”
So was blackmailing kings, of course, which hadn’t given Skyros a moment’s pause.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Aristotle barked.
But Calista, Orion noted as he bore down on them, only held a palm to her bright red cheek, and glared.
At him, not her father.
“Do not put your hands on my fiancée,” Orion growled at Skyros. “Or I swear to you, I will see you in chains.”
“You wouldn’t like the consequences,” Aristotle sneered at him. “Mark my words.”
“Shall we try it and see?” Orion retorted.
Aristotle only sneered again, then curled his lip at Calista. “My decision stands, girl. You’re fired and that’s final.”
And even though she made a strangled kind of sound at that, as if he’d truly hurt her, Aristotle ignored her. He stormed away, heading toward what Orion assumed was the rest of the Skyros Media offices.
“Did he hurt you?” Orion asked, aware only then that his heart was kicking at him, as if he’d been sprinting for time.
“He slapped me,” Calista said brusquely. She dropped her hands from her face—her pretty, lovely face—one red, angry cheek with Aristotle’s handprint all too visible. Orion felt something roll over in him, like a fault line about to blow. “He’s never shy to dole out a slap or two, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m just out of practice. I’ve managed to avoid getting smacked for a long while now. And you turning up here like this d
oesn’t help anything.”
“Calista.” There were so many things he wanted to say. Too many things, and he could see her stiffening, as if she knew what they might be. So he looked down his nose at her instead. “You forget yourself. I am your sovereign. I go where I like.”
“The balls, the dresses, all that king and queen malarkey—” She shook her head, a hectic kind of light in the gaze she trained on him. “None of that has any place here. This is a corporation. People work here.”
“But not you,” Orion pointed out, perhaps not as kindly as he could have. “Or did I misinterpret the fact that your father just fired you?”
He saw something wash over her, some strong emotion that wasn’t as simple as her temper. “He’s overwrought. He’ll come around.”
“As it happens, I don’t want him to come around.” He inclined his head as if he was inviting comment, when he wasn’t. “I would prefer it if you didn’t work.”
She blinked, then scowled at him. “What is that supposed to mean? Did you plan this with him?”
“I do not ‘make plans’ with a man like your father, Calista. His plans hijacked my own. But as it happens, my staff has been agitating—”
“All your staff does is agitate,” she snapped at him. Interrupting him, which made his bodyguards bristle, but at this point he rather thought that was an endearment on her part. Or as close as he would get. “They’ve been harassing me for weeks.”
“It’s their job to prepare you for your new role. A job they cannot do if you are here, doing your old one.”
Now that his temper was cooling a little, and he was no longer tempted to take a swing at Aristotle, he was able to take in everything else. The way she looked, cool and blonde and untouchable, there in the stark-white hallway. He did not spend a great deal of time surrounded by corporate fashions, but it was instantly clear to him that Calista was dressed to send a specific message.
A message he quite liked.
The high, dangerously sharp heels. The miles of her legs exposed beneath the tailored skirt she wore. Her blouse that managed to hint at her figure while showing none of it, and the soft wrap at her shoulders he shied away from calling a cardigan when it looked far more like an elegant piece of feminine armor. Her hair, as usual, was caught back in something sleek—and his enduring trial was that he liked it. He liked all of it. He liked the way Calista vibrated with tension and intelligence. He liked how tough she looked, if a man knew where to look.
Christmas In The King's Bed (Mills & Boon Modern) (Royal Christmas Weddings, Book 1) Page 7
