That was how he’d lived his life, until these past months.
It wasn’t that he thought he was immune to love, because he wasn’t. He loved his family. He loved his country. He felt fairly certain that the epic punch he’d felt at the first sight of Miles was love, too—one that grew the more time he spent with the boy.
But he had absolutely no intention of wrecking himself over a woman the way his father had. And was still doing after that woman’s death. That the woman in question was his own mother didn’t make Malak any more kindly disposed toward his father’s complete loss of himself.
Malak had never expected to take his father’s or brother’s place. But now that he had, he did not intend to follow in their footsteps and make their same mistakes.
He had vowed to himself that whatever else happened, he never would.
“If you say so,” Shona said, and she didn’t even sound particularly dismissive. But then, she didn’t have to. It was written all over her.
And Malak didn’t understand how he had gone from being completely at his ease to...this. He didn’t know what to call that churning sensation inside of him, as if his skin had suddenly grown too tight and nothing inside of him could bear it.
“I not only know myself, I know you,” he told her, because he felt weaponless, suddenly, and he couldn’t allow it.
She didn’t laugh, though her dark eyes filled with a kind of mirth. “You don’t know anything about me. Thank God.”
“But I do, Shona.” He shook his head at her, regaining his equilibrium as he did. “Do you imagine that I would allow just any woman to walk in off the streets and take her place at my side? Without knowing every possible detail about her?”
“If she was unlucky enough to have found herself pregnant with your child, yes. Absolutely. I think anyone would do.”
Malak didn’t like the way she said that. Especially because she wasn’t wrong.
And he didn’t know why he felt as if he had something to prove, suddenly. Or possibly it was more about regaining the upper hand. He wasn’t precisely proud of that urge—but that didn’t diminish it.
“I know more about you than you might imagine,” he told her. “I know that you spent the first part of your life in the foster system. Is that not what they call it in America when you are taken into the care of the state?”
“I don’t hide the fact that I was in foster care. That’s not exactly a secret.”
“I imagine we can trace your foolhardy stubbornness and unnecessary independence to that experience.”
“Or, perhaps, to me simply being an actual adult. Who, like most actual adults, doesn’t like being bullied by strange men.”
“Yes, men. You know so much about them, you tell me. You have a great many philosophies. And yet my investigators were unable to come up with the slightest shred of evidence that you’ve ever touched one.” He smiled. “Aside from me, of course.”
She studied him for a moment. “Does that make you feel special?”
But before he could answer, she laughed. And Malak did not like the way she laughed. And kept laughing, as if he’d told a marvelous joke. She even wiped at her eyes, as if she’d laughed so hard she’d made herself cry.
“I had a baby, Malak. And not in a palace like this. There were no packs of nannies roaming about the streets of New Orleans, desperate for the opportunity to give me a hand. Even if I’d wanted to date somebody, I had no time. And I definitely didn’t have any energy.” She shook her head at him. “Besides, the experience of having a one-night stand and being left pregnant and alone to handle the consequences was somehow less entertaining than you seem to imagine. Why would I want to repeat it?”
“This confirms what I thought,” Malak said after a moment. “Last night in particular. You don’t know.”
He could feel the tension in the air between them. But he knew, now, it wasn’t the way she looked at him. It wasn’t the lies he imagined she told herself to explain it all away. Perhaps she took solace in them.
But the truth was, she didn’t know.
“What don’t I know?” Shona asked, in the tone of one who would have much preferred not to ask the question at all.
Malak thought about her taste. Her scent. The sweetness that was only hers and that he wanted almost more than he could bear. “You don’t know that this isn’t normal. This thing between us. You think this happens all the time.”
She laughed again, though he thought it sounded far more uneasy than before. “I was under the impression that for you, it did.”
“Sex, Shona. Sex is easy enough. But this?”
He leaned forward then and stretched his hand across the table. He saw her jolt, as if she meant to pull away but then ordered herself to remain still, to fight some more, because that was what she did—what they did, if he was honest. He reached over and took one of her hands in his. That was all.
But it was enough.
“This,” he told her softly, as wildfire arced between them. The sizzle. The burn. “This is in no way usual, my fierce little queen.”
Shona stared at him, her gaze too dark to read.
“Careful,” she said quietly. “You wouldn’t want someone to think you were falling in love, would you? Not after all the bold statements you made.” She tilted her head to one side. “My little king.”
Malak didn’t like any part of what she’d said. Not the absurd mention of love when he’d already told her he was immune, or the insulting endearment he was sure she knew was offensive. But he would be damned if he’d let her see that. Any of that.
He didn’t have it in him to ruin himself the way the rest of his family had.
He refused.
“You don’t need to worry about whether I might fall,” he said, somehow keeping his temper in check. He imagined it had something to do with the wildfire greed that coursed through him, making him hard. Making him as close to desperate as he’d ever been. “Better by far you should worry about yourself.”
“I’m not worried about me at all.” That belligerent chin of hers lifted. “Are you?”
“I want you in my bed,” he told her, and watched that molten heat make her eyes go glassy again, just the way he liked them. “I’m tired of this game. There is no escaping this marriage or this throne, and I regret to inform you that you are stuck in it as surely as I am. But what I don’t understand is why you want to fight when you know how good it is between us.”
“You’re talking about sex,” she bit out, though her voice was hoarse. “That’s not a marriage.”
His hand gripped hers tighter when she tried to pull it away. “It’s the best part of a marriage. And the only part I have any interest in, if I am honest.”
“Marriage is more than stunts out on balconies,” she threw at him, her voice stronger. And this time, when she pulled her hand away, he let her. “It’s about sharing your life. It’s not about threatening someone with their own child. It’s not about battles for custody and kidnap attempts. It’s supposed to be a partnership.”
He bared his teeth. “What do you know about marriage?”
“Nothing,” she threw at him, as if this was another battle. But he thought she sounded desperate, as if she feared she was losing it. “Nothing at all, except that I don’t want to marry you. I don’t.”
And this time, when she stood up and made as if to walk from the room, Malak concentrated on her desperation, that suggested he’d already won, and let her go.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOME DAYS LATER, Shona was escorted back to her rooms in the middle of the day when she would normally have expected to be corralled somewhere with another set of dour royal advisors for more tedious lessons about the role she resolutely declined the opportunity to play.
“What’s going on?” she asked Yadira drily when she was delivered to her own sitting room and found the other woman waiting for her. “Am I finally getting a little bit of built-in naptime in between all these exhausting stonewalling episodes?”
Yadira smiled in that way she did that told Shona that her personal servant—a term Shona still didn’t care for on any level—didn’t think much of her witticisms. And maybe there really, truly was something wrong with Shona. Because the less the people in the palace seemed to find her amusing, up to and including the king, the more she kept right on doing the very thing it was they found so distasteful. Over and over and over again.
She was beginning to think that she was naturally perverse. Or something worse. Something a little closer to boneheaded, another familiar term she’d been called by various foster parents.
“I have laid out clothes for you, mistress,” Yadira said in her deliberately calm manner that Shona understood was her own form of a weapon—and one she aimed well, every time.
“I think you can see that I’m already dressed.”
“Indeed. But the king has specifically requested that you wear what has been chosen for you today.”
“I was under the impression that the king made the same request every morning.” Shona eyed the other woman, who stood there emanating a kind of wholesale meekness Shona was beginning to suspect she didn’t actually possess. “Has that been you, all along?”
“Shona.”
She didn’t have to turn to identify that voice. She would know it anywhere. It haunted her dreams in ways she pretended she couldn’t remember every morning when she woke up, heart pounding with an ache between her legs.
But she had never heard Malak’s voice here before. Here in this suite of rooms that she had, perhaps foolishly, begun to view as her refuge. The one place in the palace she could escape this crazy new life she’d been hauled into, at least for a little bit.
And better still, where she could escape from him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her gaze on Yadira. “I thought these were my private rooms.”
“I think you will find it is my palace,” Malak said.
Shona didn’t want to look at him. But she made herself do it anyway because what she wanted even less than a glimpse of him was to show any hint of weakness. Particularly in front of Yadira.
“Forgive me,” she said, and she was proud of how steady her voice was. “I’m only emotionally prepared to see you at dinnertime. This is...alarming, to say the least.”
“There is no need to be alarmed.”
“And if I was truly, deeply alarmed, your telling me not to be would change it...how, exactly?”
Malak’s dark green eyes flashed, but he ignored that. “There is a small ceremony taking place shortly. Your presence is required. And I’m afraid that it will be recorded for posterity, so you must dress according to expectations. My expectations, before you ask.”
“I thought we had discussed your expectations already.”
His mouth curved. “But in this case, my expectations are not my problem—they instead carry the weight of the whole kingdom. It is unavoidable, I’m afraid. You might as well resign yourself to that now.”
There was a kind of disconcerting steel in the way he gazed at her, and it occurred to Shona that there could be only one reason that he had actually come all the way over to this side of the palace. And was actually standing here, personally demanding she dress in a certain way. She glanced at Yadira, then back at Malak, but could read nothing on either one of their faces.
“Are you here to force me into some awful costume?”
“I don’t like that word. I am the king of Khalia, am I not? Surely I need only make a request for my will to be done. Force is quite beneath me.”
“I know we’ve covered this. You’re not my king.”
She heard Yadira’s shocked gasp, but what really bothered her was the fact that she felt a kick of shame along with it. As if she’d agreed, somewhere or somehow, to keep her fight with Malak to herself, when she knew very well she’d done no such thing.
His gaze was steady on hers, and she didn’t know why that made it worse. Only that it did.
“It is always such a delight to have these arguments with you, Shona, particularly when they inevitably end my way.” He didn’t look delighted. But he didn’t look particularly affronted, either. And Shona was starting to view that veneer of laziness he liked to cloak himself in with suspicion. “But there is no time for the game today. I’m afraid this is a matter of some urgency and importance, or I would, of course, continue to support your curious need to wear and rewear the least attractive items of clothing in your wardrobe. And stand through dinners. And ignore your tutors. And all your other pointless attempts at defiance.”
“There is no way—”
“Shona.” And with that, he flipped a switch. She could see it just as easily as she could hear it in his voice. She felt her spine straighten against her will. “This is not about you. This is not about any battle you seem to feel you need to keep fighting with me. This is about Miles.”
She swallowed, though it was harder than it should have been. “Miles doesn’t care how I dress.”
“I am certain he does not,” Malak said coolly. “But we are discussing my official coronation and what will happen there. Miles will be introduced as my son and heir, the crown prince to the throne of Khalia. This will be his first introduction to the kingdom and, more than that, to the world. Do you really want every eye to focus on you and the inappropriateness of your outfit? Is that what you want them to take away from their first exposure to your son?”
Her heart seemed to squeeze too tight at that question. As if she was actively failing her child when none of this was what she’d wanted in the first place.
“I didn’t agree to this. I didn’t agree to any parading of Miles in front of—”
“I have put this off for as long as I could already,” Malak said, still in that implacable way of his that made her fight to keep from showing her reaction. “It cannot be put off any longer. Miles is here now. He is happy. I cannot imagine he will view a stuffy, private ceremony any differently than he would one of his usual adventures in the palace. The worry is not Miles, Shona. It’s you.”
That bit of shame she’d felt before bloomed wider. Deeper and hotter. She sucked in a breath, amazed that something like this could get to her. Surely she shouldn’t care. Surely she should be sure enough of herself and who she was to scoff at the notion that the clothing she wore might make any kind of difference to her child.
Not your child, a voice inside said in a similarly implacable manner. But his prospects, his future.
And that was worse. That hurt more.
“You’re presenting him to your kingdom as your crown prince,” she said quietly, because there was no use arguing that he wasn’t just as happy and well-adjusted here as Malak had said he was. And it didn’t matter how she felt about that, or the fact that her baby had a role to play in this place whether she liked it or not. “You don’t need me there. What I wear while out of public view shouldn’t matter at all.”
Malak looked past her for a moment and did something with one eyebrow that sent Yadira hurrying from the room. Then he returned that imperious gaze of his to Shona.
“I have been patient with you,” he told her, though there was no evidence of that patience in his tone, then. Much less in his glittering dark green eyes. “You can spend every night between now and eternity arguing with me in the privacy of my rooms, if you wish. I welcome it. Perhaps I even crave it, since it is the only remnant I have left of the carefree life I will never have again, one in which people talk to me as if I do not have the power to end their lives with the click of my fingers.”
Shona swallowed. “Is that a threat?”
“I have allowed you to keep reality at bay too long, clearly. Is this really so much to ask, Shona? There is a certain way the mother of the crown prince of Khalia must look. Act. It is not to put you in a box or whatever your objection to it is today. It is to protect him. I am starting to believe it is not that you don’t see the truth of that, but that you do not want to see it.”
“Miles do
esn’t care how I dress,” she said again. And more fiercely this time. “What I wear has absolutely nothing to do with him or the role you want him to play for you.”
“I wish that were so,” Malak replied, all ice and certainty. “Perhaps it is true where you come from, but this is Khalia. There are expectations of royal behavior, whether we like it or not. And the tragedy for you is that I have spent my life ignoring those expectations. I was a playboy. I was a disappointment. I was everyone’s favorite scandal without even trying. I reveled in the fact that I could be depended upon to horrify the good people of this kingdom without even rising from my bed in the morning, because it is all fun and games when there is no possibility that you might ever ascend the throne. But now I have.”
“My condolences,” Shona gritted out.
“What it means, sadly, is that everything I touch, everything going forward, must be excruciatingly correct to make up for all my misbehavior.”
“You seem to be under the impression that your life and your problems are somehow mine, too.” Her voice felt strangled in her own throat. Her chest felt much too tight, as if she might crack in two at any moment.
“What is it you want, Shona?” Malak demanded then, and though there was fire in that gaze of his, his voice was cold. “You do not want to be queen. You do not want to take on board even the smallest lesson my people try to teach you about how best to fit in here. You do not want to learn a single thing that might help you feel more comfortable in this world. You would prefer to stalk about the palace, scowling at everyone, making certain that even the lowliest maid knows full well you do not belong here and never will. Is that it? Is that truly what you want? Because you are already well on your way to achieving it, if so.”
That it was such an accurate description of her behavior over the past few weeks stung. But more than that, it was an apt description of her behavior in every foster home Shona had ever been thrown into.
And that rocked her.
Had nothing changed at all? She’d been out of the foster system for eight years, and a mother for four. Had she learned nothing in all that time? Was she still that same surly teenage girl, well aware that no one would ever happen along and adopt her at her age, and was therefore determined to push everyone away before they could do the same to her? Or worse?
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