Eva felt the conviction in his words, felt it cut straight through her. Into her. She had a tendency to roll her eyes at advice, mainly because there was always someone telling her what to do. And half the time, it wasn’t so much to help her as it was to try and control her. She’d learned to tune it out.
But she couldn’t tune this out. This came from deep inside him. From a place of honesty.
“I … but is it so wrong to want more than a cold union based on … nothing more than political gain?”
Mak turned to her, his eyes searching her face. It felt like a caress. It felt intimate. “It’s not wrong. But you don’t know if it will be cold. Maybe you will grow to love him, at least in some respects.”
“I’ve met the front runner, and he … I don’t feel anything for him. Nothing … I’m not attracted to him.”
She was even more aware of that now. More aware of the fact that what she felt for Bastian was lukewarm at best. Mak, being near him, it was unlike anything she’d ever felt. It made her heart beat faster, made her limbs feel weak.
And she didn’t even like him.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true. At the moment, she almost liked him. More than that, she felt a sort of strange connection with him. She wasn’t certain where it came from. What he spoke of came from a place that was well beyond her experience.
“There’s more to marriage than sex,” he said, his tone flat.
“But it matters,” she said, her cheeks heating, her heart pounding in her temples. “In fact, I sort of thought it was one of the things that made marriage worth it.”
His expression was unreadable, his black eyes flat, emotionless. But something had changed, even if she couldn’t read what it was. The lines of his body had hardened, his posture getting straighter, every muscle tensing. “Are you ready to go back?”
“Yes.” No. She wasn’t, but she could sense that he was. And, since she could also sense it wasn’t because he was simply annoyed with her, it made her care.
She shouldn’t care. But she did.
“Bastian is coming tonight.” Stavros, her older brother and future king of Kyonos, poured himself a drink and sat in one of the white chairs she had positioned in her living area.
Three weeks after Mak had taken over as her bodyguard and she was completely on edge. His presence, constant, unnerving, had her blood pressure permanently spiked and her stomach perpetually tight. But having Stavros around always helped.
“Is he?” She tried to sound uninterested. Unconcerned. She wanted to vomit.
“I think our father is still hoping you’ll fall head over heels in love with him.”
“Not happening. We don’t have …”
“Chemistry?” he finished when she paused for too long.
“Yes.” It went deeper than that, but that was the simplest way of putting it. She wasn’t about to start talking love again, not to Stavros. He was quite possibly the only man to rival Mak for cynicism. Or maybe cynicism was the wrong word. When it came to his family, Stavros was protective. When it came to other areas of life … his emotions seemed turned off.
“He’s a good bet for Kyonos.”
“And is that all you’ll consider when you take a bride?”
Stavros shrugged one broad shoulder. “It’s the most important thing.”
“Not … not companionship or … anything?” She wasn’t bringing up sex in the presence of her brother.
“It’s not my goal to find someone I clash with, but in the end, I’ll do what’s best.”
“For Kyonos, not for yourself,” she pressed.
“That’s what this life is about, Evangelina.”
“That’s not how Xander sees it.” Any time she mentioned their brother’s name, a sickening silence followed. Stavros preferred to pretend their brother was dead, but Eva tried to hold onto the good memories. The ones of Xander smiling, being her partner in crime. Yes, he’d been the heir, fifteen years her senior, but he had made her laugh. Had encouraged her to run across the palace lawn with the wind blowing through her loose hair.
Xander had at least felt like an ally. Stavros seemed to see Mak’s perspective as perfectly reasonable. Duty and honor, or death. Jolly good fun.