‘Ready for what?’
‘Arriving at the palace.’
‘But... I am ready.’
He looked at her long and hard, his dark gaze moving from her hair to her face and then to her clothes and, though she was wearing one of her favourite dresses, the way he looked at her made her feel as though she were dressed in a potato sack.
‘What?’ she asked defiantly, tilting her chin and glaring at him as though his scrutiny hadn’t affected her in the slightest degree.
‘You are my fiancée,’ he reminded her. ‘The future Queen of Tolmirós. You will feel more comfortable dressed for that role.’
She bit down on her lip and if they’d been alone she might have had a few choice phrases to utter. Instead, she stood up, keeping Leo pinned to her hip.
‘I’m sorry if I don’t meet your high standards, Your Majesty,’ she said jerkily, panic rising inside her at the enormity of what she was going to do.
‘My standards are beside the point,’ he said quietly, with all the reasonableness she had failed to muster. ‘This is about what will be expected of you. And Leo.’ As though their child was an afterthought, he gestured to an old woman in the huddle of staff.
Her smile was kind, her face lined in a way Frankie found instantly appealing. She looked like a woman who laughed a lot.
‘This is Liana,’ Matthias said, his expression unchanging as he nodded at the older woman. Emotion stirred in Liana’s green eyes though, feelings Frankie couldn’t begin to comprehend. The older woman’s smile dropped—just for a fraction of a second. Then her attention homed in on Leo and it was as though a firework had been set off beneath her.
‘Liana was my nanny, as a boy,’ Matthias explained, watching as Liana moved between them and began making clacking noises at Leo. He grinned in response and then clapped his hands together. Liana did likewise and laughed, rocking back on her heels so her slender frame arched.
‘May I?’ she asked, a cackled question, presumably directed at Frankie, though Liana didn’t take her eyes off Leo.
‘I...’ Frankie didn’t want to hand Leo over, though. On some instinctive level, she ached to hold him close, to keep him near her.
She stared at Matthias and perhaps a hint of her panic showed itself in her eyes because his expression tightened and a pulse jerked at the base of his jaw. ‘Liana will help Leo change into more suitable clothes,’ Matthias reassured her, everything about him kind, as if he were trying to calm a horse on the brink of bolting. ‘While you are doing likewise.’
It was a simple suggestion, and one that made sense, but the more he made sense, the more Frankie wanted to rebel.
‘I really don’t see the point in changing,’ she said. ‘You told me there wouldn’t be any photographers...’
‘True—’ he shrugged ‘—but there will be staff. Hundreds of them, all looking to see the woman who will become their Queen. Would you not feel happier wearing clothes made for a princess?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said curtly, dismissively. Then, for Liana’s benefit, ‘I’d rather stay with Leo.’
He looked as if he wanted to argue with her, as if he wanted to insist. His eyes locked onto hers, he watched her thoughtfully and then he shrugged. ‘It is your decision, of course.’
* * *
As soon as they arrived at the palace, she wished she hadn’t been so stubborn and short-sighted. She was wearing a nice enough dress—but it was nothing compared to the grandeur of this place.
From the outside, it looked ancient. A huge, imposing castle, with the city on one side and the ocean on the other. It formed a square, and his limousine had driven under a large archway and into a central courtyard. The walls ran on all sides and when the car stopped there was a vibrant blue carpet rolled out, leading to glass double doors that had been thrown open. Servants stood on either side. The men were in suits and the women wore dresses. Most also wore white gloves to their elbows. Many had white aprons around their waists.
All looked somehow more formally attired than Frankie. Even little Leo was a resplendent king-in-waiting. A pair of grey shorts had been teamed with knee-high blue socks, shiny black shoes and a crisp white shirt with short sleeves and round buttons that glowed like pearls. His unruly hair had been combed and tamed, parted on one side, and was sitting neatly on his head with the exception of one disobedient curl that flopped into the midd
le of his forehead.
* * *
The three of them sat in the back of the car—a family, yet not. Matthias regarded her carefully. When he’d held his body above hers and entered her and, upon discovering for himself that she was a virgin, he’d looked into her eyes and murmured words in his language that had taken away any pain and replaced it instead with pleasure and need, so that she’d called his name over and over, an incantation, as surely as if she were a witch.
He looked at her with the desire that had rushed his bloodstream anew two nights earlier—desire that had made him want to shelve any conversation of marriage, bloodlines and their future and simply give in to his hunger for this woman. An insatiable hunger, he suspected, even when he had every intention of spending quite some time trying to satiate it.
‘Well, Frankie.’ He rolled her name around his mouth, tasting it, imagining kissing it against her throat, the sensitive flesh of her décolletage, down to breasts that he longed to lavish with attention. He was hard for her, ready for her already, hungry for her always. He cleared his throat, focusing on her face, forcing himself to be patient. ‘Are you ready?’
Her smile lacked warmth. ‘If I say “no”, will it make a difference?’