“Enjoy the view. That’s what we’re up here for.”
She looked out the window for a moment before looking back at him. “I don’t like heights.”
“Why didn’t you say something before we came up here then?”
“Because I appreciated the offer. And I thought I would try it. I’m all about having new experiences. Especially since I have to cram as many as possible into the next six months.”
“It isn’t as though your life is ending after you get married,” he said.
“It feels like it.” She blinked rapidly. “Do you know, and I’m sure this is slightly too much information, but here you are, that my underwear is chosen for me? It’s true. I mean, yes, I do go shopping in boutiques occasionally, but not often enough to supply my entire wardrobe. For the most part, it’s delivered. A whole new set of clothes every season, complete with undergarments. I’m not consulted, they have a stylist handle it all for me. He works off my color wheel, whatever that is. Whatever it means practically, I’m not allowed to wear brown near my face, that much I know.”
She leaned forward and tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. He had to fight himself, fight every urge in his body, to keep from going to her, to keep from sliding his fingers through the silken strands.
“Anyway, I don’t have any freedom now,” she said. “I don’t imagine it will change when I get married. It’ll just be new people ordering my clothes. That’s … the thought of that makes me feel sick.”
Mak felt his throat tighten, his chest aching, echoing what Eva had just said. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, Eva, but it doesn’t matter what underwear you’re wearing.”
Her dark eyes widened. “Oh, really?”
“No. Because no matter what you wear, you are Evangelina Drakos. There is no one, man, woman or king, who can change that.”
She stood, her hands locked in front of her. “But who is that? If I don’t know … I can’t expect anyone else to care. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe no one has ever really valued me because they didn’t know who I was. How can you love someone you don’t know?”
Propriety be damned, control too, if only for a moment. He moved to her and cupped her cheek, his eyes locked on hers. “Anyone who hasn’t treated you with the care you deserve is a fool, and the problem lies within them. Never with you. Never. You are strong, strong enough to fight against a system you were born into rather than simply accept it. You are beautiful and intelligent, and yes, you’ve made some mistakes. But haven’t we all?”
Her dark eyes glittered. “Do you really see all of that, Mak?”
He moved his thumb along the line of her high cheekbone. “Only a blind man could miss it.”
She put her hand over his, her skin soft. He’d been touched more times in the past few days than he could remember being touched in the past ten years. He hadn’t realized how much it mattered. How much a touch could soothe, how much warmth it could bring.
“I wish … I wish things were different,” she said, her voice a whisper.
In that moment, she was giving him honesty. He could give nothing less. “So do I.”
Telling Eva about Marina hadn’t been a part of the plan. Of course, a ride in the cable car hadn’t been a part of the plan either. Just as confronting her with the fire that was crackling between them hadn’t been part of the plan.
Yet it had all happened.
He was good undercover. The man no one questioned. The man who belonged at every event. And he felt naked. Exposed. And he was trapped in the damn tram until they made their way back down the mountain.
Bitterness tore at the edges of those exposed parts of him. Bitterness, not over the past, but the present. That he wanted Eva so badly, with a hunger that made him ache to his bones, and that he couldn’t have her, seemed one too many things to ask. He was only a man, and after trying so hard for so long to be more, he was becoming more and more aware of the fact that he was not.
He was human, even if sometimes he felt more like stone.
“I expect you have … calls to make or something when we get back,” she said, staying to her side of the car.