Hedidwant Rita.
His want of her was an ever-increasing presence in the back of his mind, constantly growing in size like a monstrous tumor, threatening the life of the arrangement he had made with her as well, not to mention his own. He could not afford to want anything, not like this. Not the kind of want that led to feelings and attachment. It was too much of a risk.
No relationship could ever again become a tool with which he could be manipulated.
But he could no longer deny it. Not to these men and not to himself.
“I want her,” he said, lowering his head in defeat.
While his plans were by no means completely devastated by his desire for Rita, he would be a fool to deny that it put everything in jeopardy. It was already too much that he had eaten dinner with her each night since the first, and that he’d come to crave her company enough every day that he made excuses to ensure that it happened.
“So have her. So long as she wants you, too,” Zeus egged on, ever the voice of the devil on his shoulder. “Isn’t that one of the few known benefits to come with the baggage of matrimony?” he asked, as if he were not more than happy being burdened by the baggage of matrimony and family himself.
“Did she reject you?” Rafael asked, his characteristically bored tone lifting with the ring of real incredulity.
Jag wished there were space inside him to take pride in the thread of disbelief and doubt interwoven in his friend’s question, but it didn’t truly matter if there had never been a woman interested in denying him before if he could not have the woman that he shared a life with now.
Shaking his head, he said, “No. But I must keep my distance.”
“Must.” Zeus shivered with distaste. “Such an ugly word.”
Jag agreed. “The only way this works is if Rita and I remain professional. Otherwise, she becomes a liability. This close to seeing things through with my father, there is no room for trust and opening up. Not in Hayat. It was different with the three of you. My father is on his home turf. If he were to sense even the slightest hint of emotion he would use that, and her, against me.”
A new seriousness coming into his voice, Rafael said, “If you think that is even a possibility, you must keep her as far from you as possible.”
But Jag waved his warning away. “It’s not. Not with Rita. The woman doesn’t have a grasping bone in her body. All she wants to do is save the world, one car at a time,” he said, and if he sounded exasperated by his own devil’s advocacy it was only because it was true.
He could not seem to stop going back and forth when it came to Rita.
“If you’re that certain, then once again I do not see your problem,” Zeus said. “You trust her, so have her.”
Incensed, Jag whipped toward his friend. “I can’t risk a kingdom on a hunch, Zeus!”
“I don’t envy you your position,” Vin said.
“It is rather sticky,” Zeus added, unperturbed by his friend’s outburst.
“No, it’s not,” Rafael said. “It’s clear what you need to do. There is no challenge to it whatsoever. As you said, you can’t risk a kingdom. Not on a hunch, and not on pent-up desire, either. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be alone with her. All you need to do is remember how long you’ve been implementing this plan, how much you have sacrificed along the way, the peace of your people, and what remains on the line while your father is still in power. And if that is not a strong enough deterrent, think about your mother.”
A bastard, as well as having served as regent of his nation for his child half brother, family ties—as well as mothers—were simultaneously fraught and rigid subjects in Rafael’s world view.
Vin let out a laugh that sounded like a cough. “May we all be blessed with such self-control, Rafael. I know the three of us have not shown ourselves to be so endowed.”
“Self-control is overrated,” Zeus chimed in. “All one truly needs is power.”
“Well, power—” Jag grabbed on to the idea like it was a lifesaver “—is something that I have in spades. Therefore, worry not, my friends. Today is not a day for ominous warnings. Today, I have the rare triple pleasures of visiting friends, enraging my father to the glory of my nation, and announcing my marriage to a brilliant and beautiful woman. What more could a man want?”
“Well, I for one can’t wait to meet the more that you want,” Zeus said, at which Vin smiled and Rafael’s eyes lit with humor.
Only briefly, Jag wondered if he needed friends as much as he’d thought.
After weeks now dedicated to putting together a showcase for her work at the exhibition, she could not believe it was all ready for the grand finale.
Her babies had done exceptionally on the world stage, her private fleet of vehicles making its world debut as if it had been born for the moment. Her inbox was overflowing with commission requests and she’d made some connections that she was excited might mean her dream was that much closer to becoming real.
And her baby, the astonishing car that she had been dreaming of her whole life until the day the Prince had sent it to her garage, the very catalyst for all of it, had eviscerated the competition in the all-electric race.
All of it had been better than she’d even imagined.