CHAPTER THREE
SOMETHINGWASTELLINGInara that she should do exactly what he’d said and leave, yet another part of her kept whispering that she should stay. That it had been a long time since she’d seen him like this, all stretched out, long and lean and as muscular as a panther half-asleep in the sun.
When she’d been younger, in the first couple of years after they’d married, he’d set her up in a house in Katara, with Henri and Joan to run the place and keep an eye on her. She’d been ignored by the King and Queen, Cassius’s parents, because they had strongly disapproved of Cassius marrying her, but that hadn’t mattered to Inara. She was used to parental disapproval, and besides, being safe from her own parents’ plans had been more important than anything else.
Cassius had been a regular visitor back then. They’d have dinner together before he’d go out to a club or a party or some royal function. He’d been funny and charming and interested in what she’d had to say. His eyes hadn’t glazed over when she’d talked about her mathematical studies and he hadn’t scoffed at her enthusiasm or forbidden her to talk about it, the way her parents had done. He hadn’t picked at how she looked, or criticised everything she did, or talked about her while she was in the room as if she weren’t there.
She’d always found talking to people in social situations difficult, but nothing was difficult about being with him, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was simply that he was the first person who’d actually seemed to listen to her. Whatever, his visits had made her happy.
But that had been before Prince Caspian and the King and Queen had died, and Cassius had ascended to the throne.
After that, he’d changed.
He’d become distant, colder, more rigid. He didn’t smile or laugh, and soon enough he didn’t visit much either. It had been like watching a flesh-and-blood man turn slowly into stone and she’d been powerless to stop it.
She wasn’t sure if this happened to every man when they became a king, or whether it was just him, but the one thing she was sure of was that she hated it.
Except he didn’t look like stone now. He was sitting sprawled out in her favourite arm chair, the one large enough for her to curl up in and roomy enough to accommodate his broad shoulders and powerful chest with ease. The cold distance she’d always felt in him had receded and the line of his stern mouth was relaxed, as if he might at any moment give her the warm, effortlessly charming smile she’d fallen in love with.
In fact, every line of him seemed relaxed, as if he were a soldier who’d taken off his suit of armour after a hard day’s battle.
She didn’t want to move or even breathe in case something changed and he turned back into stone again.
He tilted his head, studying her from underneath thick, black lashes, a strange, glimmering heat in the smoky amber of his gaze.
It reminded her of him in the limo all those years ago, sprawled just like this, all coiled, muscled strength and devastating masculine charm, with his pick of the women standing at the kerb, waiting to be his chosen partner for the evening. She hadn’t taken much notice of them that night—she’d been too busy being scared, yet determined to go through with her own plan—but she did remember wondering why they’d all looked so flushed and excited.
She knew the reason now, and she knew why they had been desperate, and she wished suddenly that she’d been one of them. That she’d had the chance to be his chosen lover for the evening.
Well, why can’t you be?
The thought came like a light switching on in a dark room, illuminating everything, and she had to blink a couple of times to get used to the glare.
‘That’s probably a mistake.’ His voice had deepened, the timbre of it warm, soft and velvety. ‘I’m not feeling kind tonight.’
Inara barely took in what he’d said, too busy examining the new and quite frankly exciting idea that had sprung to glaring prominence in her head.
Why couldn’t she be his lover for the night? True, he’d never shown an interest in her but, as he kept saying, that was because he still saw her as the sixteen-year-old girl who’d slipped into his limo.
She’d told him she wasn’t sixteen any more, but he hadn’t seemed to listen. Like everyone in her life while she’d been growing up...
Annoyance twisted inside her, along with a new determination. Perhaps she needed to be more obvious. Perhaps he needed to see that she wasn’t a teenager any more. Perhaps she needed to prove it to him. And perhaps, if she did that, he might actually see her differently. He might...want her.
Her heart was beating very fast and her mouth had gone dry. She knew how to work out complicated algebraic equations, but she didn’t have the first clue how to go about making him see her as a woman.
‘I don’t need you to be kind,’ she said distractedly, her brain too occupied with sorting through plans and discarding them. What was the best way to go about this? Where did she start? What did other women do in this situation?
More than once she’d spent whole evenings on her computer, searching for anything she could find on him—scrolling through endless articles and gossip columns, studying the photos of him and the women he had on his arm. Sometimes they’d been drop-dead gorgeous, and sometimes they hadn’t been conventionally beautiful, but they’d all seemed to have...something that had drawn him to them. She’d wondered what that something was and had concluded it wasn’t something she’d ever have.
But was that actually the case? She was a mathematician, and all good equations needed to be proved. This was exactly the same. If she had conclusive proof that he didn’t want her, then it would hurt, but she could accept that. She could accept the divorce too. But if he did want her...
Maybe you could make him change his mind about the divorce.
Inara swallowed. A strange tension filled the room that hadn’t been there before. It prickled over her skin, made her breathing get faster.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Cassius asked. ‘It’s obviously very important.
Inara forced herself to look up from the mess she’d made of her dress. He was watching her in a very focussed, intent way, his long fingers cradling his brandy glass, swirling the liquid in it idly.