The Righetti whore.
Pato was only one person, not a crowd of cruel teenagers, and yet she recognized that this was worse. Much, much worse. She could feel it deep inside, in parts of her that pack of kids had never touched.
But she’d be damned if he’d see her cry again, Adriana thought then with a sharp flash of defiance. She’d rather he executed her alongside Almado Righetti’s ghost in the old castle keep than show him one more tear.
“Is this the part where you call me a whore?” she asked, her stomach in a hard knot but her voice crisp. Her head high. “You’re not doing it right. It works much better when mixed with public humiliation, so you can get the satisfaction of watching me walk a little gauntlet of shame. Would you like me to assemble a crowd? We can start over when they arrive.”
Pato didn’t move, but his eyes went completely black. Frigid and furious at once. Adriana crossed her arms over her chest and refused to cower or cringe. That deep defiance felt like strength, sweeping through her, making her stand tall. She would never bow her head in shame again. Never. Not even for a prince.
“If you want to call me names, feel free to do it to my face,” she told him. “But I should warn you, I won’t fall to pieces. I’ve survived far worse than you.”
It shouldn’t have been possible for his eyes to flash even darker, but they did, and she could feel the pulse of his temper rolling off him in waves. She told herself it didn’t bother her in the least, because it shouldn’t. It couldn’t.
“You think you’re ready to go to war with me, Adriana?” he asked, that mild tone sounding alarms inside her, sending a little chill racing down her back. “I told you what would happen if you used that word again.”
“Here’s a news flash, Your Royal Highness,” she snapped, ignoring the alarms, the chill, that look on his face. “I’ve been at war since the day I was born. I’m hardly afraid of one more battle, especially with a man best known for the revealing cut of his swimming costume and his ability to consume so much alcohol it ought to put him in a coma.” She eyed him while a muscle she’d never seen before flared in his jaw. “Is that what today’s little display of temper is all about? You’re drunk?”
Pato straightened from the door, and her heart kicked at her in a sudden panic, not quite as tough as she was trying to appear. Adriana almost took an instinctive step back, but forced herself to stop. To stand still. He looked nothing less than predatory and the last thing she wanted to do was encourage him to give chase. Because he would, she knew on some primal level. In this mood he might do anything.
“No,” he growled in a voice like gravel, when she’d almost forgotten she’d asked him a question. “I’m not drunk. Not even a little.”
She didn’t like the way he watched her then. Panic and awareness twisted inside her, sending out a shower of sparks, but Adriana didn’t let herself back down. She wasn’t going to break. Not this time. Not here.
“Perhaps you should consider getting drunk, then,” she suggested icily. “It might improve your disposition.”
She didn’t see him move, and then he was right there in front of her, his hand on her jaw and his eyes so tortured, so dark, as he gazed down at her. Adriana didn’t understand what was happening. The things he was saying, that dangerous tone of voice, his dark demeanor—but then she looked in his eyes and she wanted to cry. And not for herself.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
Something she didn’t understand flashed through those eyes. Then he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. It was soft and light, hardly a kiss at all, and even so, Adriana felt it as if he’d wrapped both hands around her heart and squeezed tight. Her eyes closed of their own accord, and she felt the sweetness of it work through her, warming her, making her feel as if she glowed.
And then he let go of her, though he didn’t step back, and when she looked at him he was that dark, edgy stranger again. His mouth was severe as he gazed at her, a grim line without the faintest possibility of any curve. Much less anything sweet.
“For the first time since you walked through the door and started ordering me around,” he said quietly, “I feel like myself.”
Adriana stared at him for a long moment. He looked back at her, that wicked mouth unrecognizable, those beautiful eyes so terribly dark and filled with things she didn’t understand—but she understood this. He didn’t need to call her names. He didn’t need to stoop to the level of seventeen-year-olds. He was a royal prince. He could do it with a glance, a single sentence.