A Royal Without Rules

But he wasn’t done.

“It will be hard and lonely,” he promised her. “But when it’s done, my brother will sit on that throne, his heir will be hale and hearty and his, and I will make you a princess.” Pato moved his hands to her head, smoothed back her pretty hair, then tilted her face up. “I will marry you in the great cathedral and make every single one of these Kitzinian hypocrites bow down before you. Our babies will be fat and happy, and know as little as possible of palace life. None of this intrigue. None of these games. And I will make you happy or die trying, I promise you.”

“I love you, Pato,” she told him, fierce and sure, the truth of it a wild light in her gaze. There was nothing tepid or lukewarm about it, and it burned into him like fire. “I’m not going to give you up.” Her mouth curved. “And that means your famous debauchery starts and ends with me. No ambassador’s daughters. No nameless former lovers. No energetic threesomes.”

He grinned. “You think you can handle me all by yourself?”

“Try me,” she whispered. “I know how much you like a challenge.”

He took her mouth then, hot and hard, making them both shudder. And when he pulled back again, her eyes were shining, and he knew. She was his, at last.

His. For good.

When he let her go again she was smiling, until she glanced at the portraits on the wall and a shadow moved over her face.

“I have to think that someday my family will forgive me for this,” she said quietly. “It will hurt them worst of all.”

He kissed her again, bringing her attention back to him.

“I suspect they’ll find a way to work past the shame,” he said, amused, “when their daughter is a princess and the Righetti lands and fortunes are restored to their former glory by an eternally grateful monarch. I suspect they will discover that, secretly, they supported you all along.”

Her smile then was like the sun, warm and bright, lighting up all the dark places inside him. Filling in the hollows. He would do the same for her, he vowed. He would take away the darkness. He would bathe her in light until she had no shadows left to haunt her.

He would spend the rest of his life chasing them away, one by one. She was right—he loved a challenge.

“I’ve never been scandalous on purpose,” she said then, as if the idea thrilled her.

Pato laughed. “I’ve never been anything else. You’ll catch on. We can practice at my brother’s wedding. I believe we’re already late.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard,” she told him, in that way of hers that made him want to lock the door and indulge himself in the perfect taste of her, especially when she looked at him as if she saw nothing but forever in his gaze. Then she smiled. “Rule number seven. I’m a Righetti. Scandal is in my blood.”