She blinked back tears, his words settling over her like a heavy cloak, making it hard to breathe. “I don’t pity you. I don’t approve of you. I’m not sure that I like you, but I don’t pity you. This is...a marriage of no one’s convenience. What we do, we do for our country. And...I do it for children. Because I do want them. And I had thought that wasn’t possible for me, so to have the chance...I do want it. Power is something I don’t crave anymore, status is almost my enemy because it means I’ll be under scrutiny.”
“A marriage born of a sense of national duty and disdain then,” he said, dryly. “You flatter me.”
“I would imagine you’ve been flattered enough in your life that you don’t require much from me.”
“I’m sure my ego can weather it.”
“I’m not sure mine will survive any of this.”
“It will,” he said, his tone certain, authoritative. And in that moment, she saw a hint of the king he would be. So strange, because she knew the boy he’d been. Cocky and obnoxious in so many ways, but handsome as sin and just as tempting. She’d barely gotten to know the man he was now, wounded, damaged and self-deprecating. As much as the boy had loved himself, she had a feeling the man hated himself just as much.
But for one second, all of that fell away. And she saw nothing more than confidence. Nothing more than a smooth, unswerving focus.
“This is why I’m marrying you,” she said, her voice hushed now. “Because I believe that, no matter where you’ve been in the past, your future is tied to Kyonos. That with you we will rise or fall, and if we fall it will be because the people can’t get past what has been done. You leaving...”
“Me killing the queen,” he said.
“You didn’t kill her,” she said. “You were driving, but it was an accident. It was...”
“People think it, Layna. Just as the man who threw acid on you, trying to get to your father blamed him for his troubles.”
“Then this is why,” she said, suddenly feeling the need to close the gap between them. To make contact. “This is why I’m marrying you. Because if I can help in any way, if I can heal some of the wounds from that time, I will do it. Because you are the future here, Xander.”
He frowned and lifted his other hand, touched her damaged cheek with his thumb. “It is a shame that time won’t heal your wounds.”
“It is.”
“Sometimes I think it won’t heal mine, either.” He released his hold on her and turned and walked out of her room, leaving her standing there in an evening gown, in the middle of the day, more confused than she’d ever been in her life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HELL. XANDER HAD forgotten how much he hated these kinds of events.
The engagement celebration was small compared to some of the parties thrown at the Kyonosian palace, due to the short notice and out of respect for the king’s health.
Xander’s recently noisy conscience pricked him. He should go and see the king. It was a hard thing to do. The last time he’d stood before the old man, his father said in no uncertain terms that he blamed Xander for the queen’s death.
And because he hadn’t been wrong, Xander had finally done what Stavros, and the man who believed he was Xander’s father, had wanted. He left.
Because it had been easier for everyone. And it had been easy, most especially, for him.
He wasn’t truly the heir after all.
You can’t tell him, Xander. You have to be king. You are my firstborn son and the right should be yours, regardless of the mistakes I’ve made.
Xander shut out the sound of his mother’s pleading voice. He hated reliving that conversation. Mainly because it was the last one they’d ever had. It had changed everything.
He straightened and looked across the room at Layna. She looked...well, she did look beautiful in her way.
She was wearing makeup. He’d brought in a team to help her get ready. He wondered if she’d ever bothered to put makeup on her face, or if it had been too discouraging. There was no hiding the fact that the skin was damaged on one side. It looked...aged with makeup on, rather than just scarred.
But her eyes were highlighted to perfection, and they glowed with golden warmth, her lips painted a deep rose. And that dress. That dress that made his body tighten. That made him want...
He wanted her, and that was the most surprising thing about this arrangement. He hadn’t expected to want her. He’d had an endless array of models, mainstream actresses and actresses who did the kinds of movies that rarely had scenes outside the bedroom. Women who were perfectly beautiful, either by birth or with the aid of a surgeon’s knife.