A Royal Without Rules

She hung there, unable to breathe, unable to think, suspended between his hands as surely as she was caught in that dark, ferocious glare he kept trained on her.

“What do mean by that?” she asked in a whisper, and then shivered when he pulled her so close to him that his lips almost touched her as he spoke.

“You didn’t kill any Kitzinian kings,” he snapped. “And last I checked, the only prince you’ve slept with is me. Stop accepting the blame for history you can’t change.” Something flashed in his gaze then, and she felt the echo deep inside her, deep and threatening, as if might tear her in two. “For God’s sake,” he growled at her. “You are not a painting on the wall, Adriana. You don’t have to shoulder this. Fight back.”

* * *

Pato let go of her and stepped away.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost his temper. Not like this, so that it hummed in him still. And certainly not with that rough edge of need running through it, making him want nothing more than to continue this conversation while naked and deep inside her.

Even after she’d thrown what he’d told her in his face, he wanted her, with the same desperation as before. More, perhaps. He didn’t know whether to laugh at that or simply despair of himself.

Adriana was breathing hard, and looking very little like the brazen harlot he’d read so much about yesterday. He could see the smudges of exhaustion beneath her beautiful eyes, the vulnerable cast to her sweet mouth, the flush in her cheeks that failed to disguise the paleness of her face. He let his gaze fall over her, from the blond waves in a messy knot on the back of her head, to a face scrubbed free of cosmetics, to the loose cotton clothes she wore that might very well be her pajamas. And her bare feet.

For some reason, the fact that he could see her toes made his chest hurt.

“I didn’t plant that story,” he told her then, biting out the words he shouldn’t have to say. She raised a hand to her mouth as if she thought she might cry, then lowered it again, as if she was still trying to put on a front for him. He hated it. “It was Lissette.”

“What?” Adriana shook her head. “Why?”

“Lenz told her the truth.” Adriana’s eyes flew to his, shocked. “He felt she deserved to make an informed decision about whether or not to marry him. She, in turn, felt that my father couldn’t be trusted not to pull a last-minute stunt at the wedding, so she decided to make it clear that he was without options.”

Adriana swallowed. “Lenz must be happy that she wants him anyway.”

“That, or she very much wants to be queen of Kitzinia,” Pato retorted. His voice lowered. “But I’m certainly pleased to learn that your opinion of me is as poor today as it ever was. And why is that, do you suppose?”

She blinked, and when she looked at him again, there was an anguish in her eyes that tore at him.

“You’ve been working toward this for a very long time,” she said in a hushed tone. “You’ve given up so much. I thought that if you needed to do it, you would. And I’d volunteered, hadn’t I?” He only watched her, until she shifted uncomfortably, her expression pure misery. “It seemed like the kind of thing you’d do.”

“Why?” he asked quietly, though his voice was like a blade. He could see it cut at her. “What makes me so untrustworthy, Adriana?”

“I never said that,” she whispered, but she was trembling.

“I know why,” he told her. “And so do you. At the end of the day, I’m nothing more than a whore myself, and in my case, a real one. And who could possibly trust a whore?”

She flinched, and then she simply collapsed. Her hands flew up to cover her face and she bent over her knees, and for a simmering moment, Pato thought she was sick. But then he saw the sobs shake her body, silent and racking.

Pato couldn’t stay away from her, not when she was falling apart right in front of him. Not when he’d pushed her there himself.

He moved toward her, but she held up a hand to ward him off, and straightened, tears streaming down her face. He considered that for a brief moment and then he simply took hold of her hand and pulled her into his arms.

“Listen to me,” he said, his voice raw. “I can’t give you what you deserve. I can’t give you anything except tabloid gossip and innuendo, and I hate that. I hate it.” He shifted her against him, taking her chin in his hand and gently bringing her eyes to his, those melting chocolate eyes, wet and hurt and still the most beautiful he’d ever seen. “But you have to know that I love you, Adriana. I love you and I would never deliberately hurt you. You can trust that, if nothing else. I swear it.”