His sneer was mortifying. That humiliating blush burned again. She hadn’t meant it about the chains, yet here he was implying that she was doing this only to...to flirt? She never flirted.
What was wrong with her? This man made all the rules—he owned the nation...his face was on the currency—and she was snapping at him like some schoolgirl with an immature crush.
‘Of course not.’ She avoided his eyes and muttered contritely, ‘I’ll just get my bag and then we can leave.’
She was startled when he kept pace with her as she went into the small office.
‘Why are you following me?’
‘I’m not giving you a chance to hide anything or any time alone to contact him.’
Contact who? She stared at him uncomprehendingly.
‘Just get your things,’ he muttered.
It finally dawned on her that this had to be a case of mistaken identity—he’d confused her with someone else and there was nothing she could help him with. She was nobody. She did nothing but work at the hospital and then go home to read up about more work. But she’d go with his assistant now and they’d soon realise she wasn’t the person the King sought. Then they’d bring her back here and all would be forgotten.
Reassured by this reasoning, Kassie grabbed her satchel and slung the strap over her shoulder.
She almost had to run to keep pace with him moving through the hospital. He’d lost patience and wasn’t slow. She stepped into the sleek black car idling right outside the back entrance. To her surprise King Giorgos walked around and got into the seat on the other side.
‘I thought I was going with your assistant?’ she said. She’d been looking forward to a quick resolution.
He directed a quelling look at her as the car glided off, taking them away. ‘Do you ever stop questioning?’
‘Not when there’s this much to be questioned. Where are you taking me? And why?’
‘I’m the one who has the questions, Ms Marron.’
The edge in his tone forced her to regard him directly. Something lurked in the back of his eyes—a streak of wildness that surprised her.
But it wasn’t entirely a surprise. From what she’d seen of him at a distance—in the news and on the television—King Giorgos had always appeared to her like a wild man forced into refined clothes. It wasn’t that he wasn’t civilised—of course he was—but it was as if he might break free from the polished uniform at any moment. He was too elemental to be contained.
Idiot.
She scoffed at her wayward thinking. She was just unused to a man his size. He was taller than average, with a powerful set to his extremely broad shoulders. Lean and muscled, his physique and demeanour were imposing. And this close she could see his hair was a little bit too long, and a faint edge of stubble showed on his jaw, adding to the impression of edginess—of a man chafing at his constraints. And right now he was clearly inwardly struggling to contain a fierce emotion.
But the thought that King Giorgos might be struggling with latent rebelliousness was pure imagination. This was King Giorgos. The man had been King since his late teens—earnest and capable beyond his years. Yet suddenly all she could do was think about that streak of wildness and the size of his muscular thighs and the promise of physical power...
What was wrong with her? She swallowed, but it didn’t ease the dryness in her throat.
She realised that he was silently scrutinising her as much as she was him. But he had that hostility in his eyes again, and a moody set to his jaw. His whole positioning was tense. Something was off. Something was wrong. And she had no idea how she was supposed to help.
‘Is it Princess Eleni?’ she asked softly.
He sat very still. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘She missed her visit today. She never misses her visits.’
He watched her...waiting. Something swirled in the atmosphere between them. The luxurious car suddenly felt cramped—as if she were too close to him, as if he could see into her mind. She felt compelled to fill the silence—anything to deflect this pull she felt, pushing her nearer to him.
‘She was unwell last week,’ she added, licking her dry lips.
‘Unwell in what way?’
Foreboding slithered down her spine at the ice in his voice.
‘She was dizzy. She said she’d had a bug recently.’ She frowned as she swallowed again. ‘Is she okay?’
If she wasn’t then the King ought to be summoning a doctor, not a physiotherapist.
‘Did anyone else notice that she was unwell?’ he asked. ‘Did anyone ask about her?’
Kassie shook her head—then froze. Damon, her half-brother, had appeared just after the Princess had walked away. He’d asked her who she’d been talking to. Now she thought about it, Damon had been too curious—and stunned when he’d learned the Princess’s identity. Why had he been so surprised?
‘Ms Marron?’ the King prompted.
Chills whipped across her skin, chafing where heat had burned only moments ago. Perhaps this wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. Perhaps there was something very wrong. She barely knew her half-brother, Damon, but she wasn’t about to throw him under a bus. Not until she understood exactly what was going on.
King Giorgos’s expression hardened as she remained silent. He knew she was holding something back. How did he know that?
‘You attended a ball at the palace a few weeks ago,’ he said coldly.
‘Yes.’ There was no point in lying—but she didn’t need to offer any more information than necessary, right?
‘Why?’
Her heart thumped. ‘It was for charity. For the hospital.’
‘But you didn’t go with the hospital staff. You attended as the guest of someone else.’
She hadn’t been one of the lucky staff to win a lottery invitation, but Damon had taken her—the only thing she’d let herself take from the half-brother she’d met only a few months before. Damon had seemed preoccupied when they’d left the ball, but she’d been too deep in thought herself to notice much; she didn’t really know him well enough to ask if he was okay. She should have asked.
But then Damon had asked that random question—more than once. ‘Did you see that woman in the blue wig and black mask? Do you know who she is?’
Kassie hadn’t even seen who he’d meant—there’d been plenty of women in wigs...it had been a masquerade ball, after all. It could have been anyone, right? But not Princess Eleni. Everyone knew that the Princess hadn’t attended the ball that night because she’d been unwell with a migraine.
But once more Kassie remembered the look of utter astonishment on Damon’s face when he’d learned that Princess Eleni was the visitor he’d overheard at the hospital that day a few weeks later.
‘You see my sister every week. I hear she likes to talk to you?’
She hadn’t answered King Giorgos’s earlier question. She realised now he hadn’t needed her to because he already knew. Just as he already knew the answer to this question too.
‘I take her on her tour of the ward, yes.’
‘And when she was unwell last week...?’
‘She didn’t stay. No one else was aware she was unwell.’ None of the other staff, nor the other patients.
‘No one?’ he pressed, astute and seeking. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
She panicked, desperate to deflect his questioning. ‘Your sister might put up with your bullying, but I’m not going to.’
He stiffened. ‘That’s what she told you? That I bully her?’
She couldn’t hold his scorching gaze, and was unable to lie. ‘No. I never spoke with her about anything personal. She never mentioned you.’
Her foolish eyes had minds of their own and they couldn’t resist looking into his again. He kept watching her, and suddenly nothing else seemed to register or matter. Not
hing but this moment in which the world tilted, shifting something within her. Something deep and profound and frightening.
She forced herself to glance away, but he reached out and touched her chin, drawing her gaze back to his. There was no veil over his expression now. He was lethally, icily angry.
‘Tell me everything you know,’ he ordered.
‘Or what?’ That deep curl of fear forced the defiance from her—a primitive instinct to hold him at bay even though she knew it was rude, perhaps wrong. ‘You’re going to torture me?’
‘It’s a tempting thought,’ he muttered. ‘And you seem to like the idea of chains. But I can think of a better way to extract the information I need.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘A more fitting way.’
She couldn’t breathe. His words—his promise—sucked all the air from her lungs.
The opening of the car door startled her. Only then did she realise that they were inside the palace grounds. The large iron gates had automatically closed behind them. Locking her in.
‘Come into my palace,’ he demanded, curtly exiting the car to stalk ahead of her.