To enjoy pastries.
She wanted those things. She did not think that it made her bad or selfish. Yet he was all about control. But he would not tell her why.
Here again, she was to be a figurehead.
His wife, but not for real. He would not share with her. He would not sleep with her, because he’d been undone by what had happened between them. She knew it. She’d seen it. Her honesty was a devastating weapon to him. And she would have to hide herself from him. As he would continue to conceal his own secrets.
It would be far too similar to living that dungeon life she had been in for this many years.
She was sad for it.
When the luncheon finished, and the guests had cleared away, she found that Maximus had vanished as well. She gathered her skirts, lifting them up from the ground, and swept back into the palace, moving down the corridor, heading toward his chamber.
Then she walked in. Without knocking, because why would she? He had come into her room without so much courtesy the morning of their dance lesson.
And she was not disappointed. For he was there, his jacket discarded, his shirt partly open, showing a beautiful slice of his chest. That she had licked. Bit. She wanted more of him. She was just so...hungry.
And she wanted someone to share that with.
“I am a woman,” she said.
“Yes,” he answered. “You are not a coffeepot. That much is certain.”
Perhaps her honesty was her greatest weapon, and why should she shield him from it? He was hurting her with his distance. Why should she protect him?
“I am a woman, and a Queen. I am both. And I had the terrible sensation today as I stood up there before the crowd that I would lose myself as the crown was placed upon my head. I thought to myself...this is why I lived. This is. This coronation. This moment. The opportunity to take care of my people. But then I thought...it is not why I lived. I would have lived if I would’ve lost the country. I would have lived, and it would’ve mattered. Does it matter?”
“Of course it does,” he said. But his face gave nothing away, and he stood rigid.
Though it was that blankness that spoke volumes, at least as far as she was concerned.
“It does,” she said. “It matters that I breathe. It does matter.”
How she wished she could break down his walls. But maybe the fact that she had broken them was evident here. Maybe she had, and that was why he was so horribly blank. So she pressed on. “I am not a person who died.” Tears pushed against her eyes. “My family died. There was nothing to be done. My family died, and it is... True sadness. But I’m not dead. I’m not dead and I am more than a figurehead to be trotted out at the whims of...of those men. Those men who saw me as nothing more than...” She blinked back tears. “I would go days sometimes without seeing the sun. All that time I spent in a dark dungeon. And they would let me out, only to serve them. And in my heart I thought that if I could survive, then I would fix things. And sometimes it gave me the strength to keep going. But sometimes I just thought of being held again. Being loved. Sometimes I just thought that maybe someday there would be a man who would hold me in his arms. And sometimes that was enough.”
She waited. She waited, but he did not surprise her. Instead, he did what she’d feared.
“I’m not that man,” he said.
“I don’t need you to be,” she said, desperate now and not caring if he knew it. “But I would like for you to be you. I would like for you to not hide what you are—who you are—from me. When I am the one who has seen you. I am just so very tired. And so...” She reached behind her back and grabbed the zipper tab of her green dress and released it, letting it fall to the floor. And then stared at him. He looked at her, hunger in his dark gaze, and she felt an intense tug of satisfaction. She was wearing nothing but a strapless lace bra and matching panties. And the shoes that she had not bothered to take off.
“I cannot explain,” she said. “I can only feel. Feel the desperate weight of that darkness closing in around me. It was so horrible. I was nothing. Nothing. A tool to be used. And that was what decided if I lived or died, and that is what I had to be. And you can see now why it angers me. To have to say the right things, to do the right things. To dress the right way. When I want me to matter. Me. What I want. And it never will. Not out there. Because you’re right. I must be appropriate. I must be what my country needs. But I am also a woman. I am not just a Queen. And I want you. Whether you are rough or not. I want you, the real you. The real... Feelings for me.”
“I do not have feelings,” he said, his voice going pitch-dark.
“I don’t have the words,” she said, feeling full to the top with frustration. “Learn French if you want good words. I don’t have them in English. Or learn my language. Learn my language if you want to hear something better. Only... I am tired of being contained. I am tired of easy. I want hurt. Because hurt is better than nothing at all. The gray and darkness and numbness. Do you have any idea? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be locked away like that? No, you don’t. Because you were raised rich and with freedom.”
He moved toward her, and she could feel the crackle of intensity beneath his skin, could feel it barely contained inside of him, fighting to escape. “I know what it is to be trapped,” he ground out. “To be trapped inside a darkness that you cannot fight. To be trapped inside something you cannot even see. Don’t tell me that I don’t understand.”
Her frustration boiled over then, because she was standing there, bared in every way, and he was still resisting this and she simply could not. “Then if you understand, fight against it with me. Feel with me.”
“There’s no reason,” he said, his voice as rough as gravel. “And it benefits no one to care.”
“Lies,” she whispered, the word choked by emotion. “You care. Whether you want to or not, whether you want it to be about the sainted woman that you speak of or not, you must care about the world.”
“Or maybe I’m simply a killer.” He took hold of her arm, drew her to him. She responded. Her nipples going tight, her heart thundering harder. She did not fear him. She felt for him. So much, she might burst with it. “Have you ever thought of that? Maybe I’m filled with hate, and killing is the only thing that makes that feel better. Maybe I dress it up in missions and assignments and all of those cold clinical words we use to justify government-sanctioned death. What if I like it? What if I care about that more than I care about fighting for justice?”
“It is not true,” she said. “Whatever you say, it is not true. Or you would not have offered to be the King here. You would have simply gone about finding a person to assassinate in order to protect me. You would not have allied yourself with me as you did.”