“Meaning?”
“The lucky royal who takes me as a wife should have an idea of what he’s getting into. He should know I’m not simply some docile piece of arm candy.”
He treated her to that look again. Cool. Assessing. Penetrating. He spoke slowly, as though each word was chosen carefully. For the purpose of irritating her, she imagined. “I doubt anyone could possibly believe you’re docile.”
“Then my job is at least half done,” she said, trying to play it a whole lot cooler than she felt. “I’m tired now. I think I’ll go to my quarters.” She turned away from him and started walking back down the hall.
She could hear heavy footfalls behind her. She turned and saw Mak following behind her. “I said I’m going to my quarters. You aren’t invited,” she said, even as her stomach tightened, thinking of inviting him in.
“I’m simply ensuring you arrive as you should,” he said, completely unperturbed by her prickly responses. She was usually very good at putting her guards off. The palace guards had given up on her, Makhail’s guards hadn’t been able to keep up with her.
And Makhail was … calm. Maddeningly so. As though he felt nothing. Nothing more than a mild amusement over the disaster area that was her life. As though the idea of her being sold into marriage was nothing.
“Think I’m going to knot the bedsheets together and rappel out the window?”
“You’ve done it before.”
Heat rushed into her cheeks. “Once. And I was fourteen. Did you read my file? Oh, theos, have I got a file?” She’d never, ever felt more like one of her father’s assets in her life. Not a person, a thing. A thing that was catalogued, like the antiquities, like the artifacts from the temples of Kyonos. She was another item from the royal collection.
“Of course you have a file. And considering you burn through guards at such an accelerated rate, it’s a good thing too. It made it much easier for me to know you.”
She gritted her teeth, tightening her hands into fists. “You can study that file all you like, read it cover to cover. You still won’t know me.” She turned her back on him and took short, quick steps down the hall, ignoring the sound of him still behind her.
When she reached the door to her quarters, her hands shook as she entered the code that would unlock the door.
“I make it my business to know people,” Mak said. “I profile them. It makes it easier in this business if I understand human nature. You think you’re so special that I can’t figure you out?”
She turned to him, her heart raging in her chest. “I’m not a list of characteristics. I am a person. I …”
“You are spoiled. Selfish. Characteristics brought on by a life with every amenity you could possibly imagine—and some most people can not—at your fingertips. You feel persecuted while surrounded by luxury, because you know nothing else. Because you don’t know what it is to go without food or shelter. Oh, I think I know you, Eva. Better than you know yourself, quite possibly.”
His assessment made her feel ill. Made her tremble from the inside out. Was it so wrong to want more out of her life than being an object? She wasn’t an artifact, which made being wrapped in silk and put on display boring and unsatisfying.
She sucked in a breath and met Mak’s eyes, ignored the shiver that worked its way through her as she did. “You can continue to think all of that if you wish. Frankly, you underestimating me works to my benefit.”
He chuckled, low and slow. “Perhaps you are simply overestimating yourself.” He moved closer to her and her heart kicked into high gear. He leaned in, his palm pressed flat against the door to her rooms, his face so near hers she could hardly breathe. For one moment, it all stopped. There was only Mak, his face filling her vision, his scent teasing her. “Sleep well, printzyessa.”
He pushed back from the door and turned away from her, walking down the hall, his abandonment leaving her cold. His recent nearness leaving her shaking.
“Bastard,” she said, loud enough for him to hear.
He didn’t turn. He just laughed.
She pushed the door open and closed it firmly behind her. This was a disaster. A nightmare. She’d been downgraded to a maximum-security playpen.