Andre smiled his faint smile. “Then it is a good thing you are on my side, is it not?” he said gently. He placed a conciliatory hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “We can discuss this further, but not now, if you please. Come see me tomorrow morning—marshal your arguments and I will listen to what you have to say, I promise. Tell my appointments secretary I said to make room in the schedule for you.”
He waited for Zax’s reluctant assent and watched until his cousin was out of sight, a slight frown furrowing his brow. Things had grown so strained between them these past few weeks. And now he wondered how Zax had heard about his latest proposition. Someone on the Privy Council must have talked—there was no other explanation. Had whomever it was hoped Zax could dissuade him from pursuing this course?
He continued on to the DeWinters’ suite and knocked on the door, mentally shelving one problem to confront another, but his sharp rap wasn’t answered immediately. Impatient, he knocked again, harder this time.
“Just a minute!” The solid oak door was jerked open suddenly, and DeWinter stood there, a casually inquisitive expression on his face that turned into surprise when he saw the king framed in the doorway. The surprise quickly turned into something else. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly. “Bree was right.”
“Accept my apologies for the intrusion on you and your wife.” Good manners dictated the apology, but despite Zax’s earlier interruption Andre was riding with his emotions on a curb bit, so his tone was perfunctory. “I must speak with you...about Juliana.”
“Who is it, Dirk?” Sabrina came up behind her husband. “Oh.” She glanced from Andre’s hard, set expression to her husband’s dawning smile, and she put a restraining hand on his arm. “Honey, I don’t think—”
He cut her off. “I know you don’t, but it’s okay,” he reassured her. He looked back at Andre and cocked a questioning eyebrow. There was also a bit of a challenge in his eyes, in his stance. “What did you want to know...about Juliana?”
Andre’s gaze slid toward Sabrina. “Privately,” he insisted after turning his attention back to DeWinter. The two men assessed each other like gamecocks, each noting the strengths in the other man...and seeking out the weaknesses, the chinks in the other’s armor. Then came the realization in both sets of eyes that there were no weaknesses to exploit. Andre inclined his head slightly, acknowledging an equal. “Walk with me,” he demanded softly.
“Dirk, I—”
“It’s really okay,” he told his wife. “I’ll be back shortly. I promise.”
The two men strode silently but purposefully back down the East Wing’s lengthy hallway, then down the Grand Staircase, the king leading the way. The two guards at the front doors snapped to attention and saluted when Andre came into sight, but he turned away to a side corridor. “This way,” he said, leading the other man into the music room.
Andre locked the door and stood with his back to it for a moment, watching silently as DeWinter wandered toward the grand piano on a dais in one corner of the room, sat down and began playing. Then, his voice hard and unrelenting, he stated, “Juliana tells me you and she are not lovers.”
DeWinter’s hands paused in midstroke, and he looked up at Andre. “You’ve got stones, I’ll give you that.”
“I would know if that is the truth.”
One corner of DeWinter’s mouth quirked up in a half smile. “Far be it from me to contradict a lady.”
Andre took a step forward. “Are you saying you are lovers?” he demanded coldly, clenching his right fist despite his promise to himself not to lose his temper. Had Juliana lied to him about this?
“No, I’m saying you’ve yet to prove to me it’s any of your damn business.” DeWinter obviously wasn’t about to back down to anyone, king or commoner. There was a long tense pause, during which DeWinter seemed to reach a decision. “I’ve known Juliana for ten years,” he said finally. “I’ve been married for twelve.” His voice was as cold and hostile as Andre’s had been. “That’s all the answer you should need. And it’s all the answer you’re going to get.”
Eventually Andre nodded. “Fair enough. But you are an intelligent, observant man, so answer me this. Is Juliana in love with you?”
DeWinter laughed suddenly, and Andre slowly let out the breath he was holding. No man could sound that unconcerned if there was any truth to the question. Not where someone as devastatingly beautiful as Juliana was concerned. “Juliana’s a brilliant actress. On screen she’s loved me since our first movie together—her Tessa to my Terry O’Dare was incandescent. Incomparable. And if she looked at me in real life the way she looks at me on the set of this movie, as if I’m her whole world and her only chance for salvation, I’d be hard-pressed to walk away from her. Although I’d like to think I’d remain faithful to Bree,” he added drily. “But that’s all there is between us. Make-believe. She’s not, nor has she ever been, in love with me.” The confident, forthright way he made that assertion convinced Andre his suspicions were wrong. Dead wrong.