The king had caught us in a moment. That was no reason to think we were getting married.
His laugh held a bitter edge. He traced the outline of my jaw then brushed his thumb over my bottom lip. His finger lit fiery trails over my skin. “You think this is pretend?” He leaned in, dusting his lips over my cheekbone then bringing his mouth to my ear. “Because it feels pretty fucking real to me.”
It made perfect fucking sense.
It made zero sense.
My father thought we were getting married, that I had made some grand gesture in order to appease a dead man. I knew what he meant about peace—that if Matteo’s followers thought his daughter loved the Crown, they suddenly would too. Fat fucking chance. This war was five years in the making. It was going to take more than that to silence them.
What the fuck was I thinking? Bringing Katie to see Dad was a mistake. I knew that now. I only worried about how she would react to knowing the man she once blamed for taking her father’s life was losing his own as well or if she would resent me for not telling her sooner. I never thought about what he might say if he woke up and found her there. If I was honest, I never thought she would stay long enough for him to wake up at all. I thought she would see him and realize that all the answers to her aggravating goddamn questions were locked up nice and tight inside the mind of a dying man. They would never see the light of day, so she could move on. We could move on.
She stepped away from my touch. “You’re talking about sex. Not marriage.”
Touché, little sheep. I guessed in most people’s worlds, “sex” and “marriage” weren’t synonymous. That didn’t mean they shouldn’t be. My queen would go to bed every night with the steel hard cock of her king buried deep inside her and wake up the same way.
Katie tipped up her chin and glared at me with those adorable fucking eyes. “Where I come from, marriage isn’t a business proposition. And I’m not a consolation prize for the war between my father and yours.”
I curled my fingers around the nape of her neck and squeezed, making her breath hitch. I would never hurt Katie, not in a violent way. But I wanted to ruin her body, to watch the delicious way her flesh bruised where my fingertips dug into her skin. “You think this is as simple as a war between two people?”
Her pulse fluttered under my fingertips. Her pupils dilated. She was turned on.
Fuck. Me.
“Isn’t it?” she challenged.
Again with the fucking questions. I loosened my grip on her throat before shit got out of hand like last time. We would never get anywhere if I kept letting my dick get in the way. This was it—the moment when she would stand and face the truth or run from me forever. It was time to tell her everything and let her decide for herself.
“Your dad was an asshole, Katie. He sent threats once a week for five years. He called my father a liar but never told him why. He said my dad was a thief but wouldn’t say what he took. He gathered people… thousands of them… to fight with him. Thousands of people refusing to pay taxes or support the military or even pay fucking parking tickets… anything to defy the king. Thousands of people writing letters to Parliament and spreading rumors. Spitting on his feet when he tried to feed the elderly. Sending death threats to my mother, for fuck’s sake. My father’s life has been hell for the past five years and your dad is the one who opened the gate.”
“My dad would never do those things.” Her eyes glossed over, letting her vulnerability shine through, but she blinked away the unshed tears before they fell. There was no running or cursing or calling me a liar. She just stood there, blinking away her pain. The air in the hall was hushed, solemn, until finally she spoke. “Why?” Her voice broke on the word.
Jesus, she was stronger than I thought. A fighter to the core. A motherfucking queen. My queen.
“I wish I knew.”
I did. I wished I knew every dark and fucked-up thing that ever went through Matteo Bellizzi’s mind so that I could calm this storm inside her soul. I wished it so hard my chest ached.
“And I wish you could just be Sutton and I could just be Katie. But we’re not, are we? There’s a war out there with my name on it, and a crown in here with yours.” She reached out to cradle my cheek, and my throat closed shut. “In the Piano Room, you asked me if this was a moment. I didn’t know the answer to that then, but I do now.” She dropped her hand, and all I wanted to do was grab her wrist and put it back. Her hands belonged on me. Only me. Always.
She swallowed. “A moment is all this can be. I never realized it until today, until you, but I want the fairy tale. I want to lie in bed and listen to church bells on a Sunday morning. I want to wake up next to the love of my life and watch as the sunlight breaks through the window and turns the dust motes into tiny dancers. I want to sip coffee outside of a café in a city where people don’t look at me and see war. I want you to stop looking at me and seeing the pain my father caused.”
I watched her mouth move. I heard the sounds. And with every word, another piece of me slowly died. What the fuck was I supposed to do with that? I held the power of a nation in my hands, and still there was no way I could give Katie what she wanted—peace. I couldn’t change the past. I could handle the threats, but Katie was consumed with them. My crown was secure, but her thoughts weren’t. Every single one of them was filled with whats and whys. I needed to give her peace, wanted it so bad my body burned with it, but peace was the one thing she had to give herself. She was wrong about one thing. When I looked at Katie, I only saw my future, not her father’s past. I did my part. I said I would give her the truth and let her decide, and she decided to run. Maybe I just needed to let her go, because letting her go would break me but keeping her would destroy us both.
Twenty-Two
The white walls with their ornate gold trim, the gray marble floors with white swirls, the heavy wooden doors that lined the hallway—it was all a blur. All that existed was Sutton. I drank in the way light brown hair covered the sculpted cut of his jaw, the way his copper-blond hair fell perfectly into place and the expensive fabric of his suit hugged every toned muscle. I memorized it because this felt final. I couldn’t change my last name any more than I could change his.
We stood in silence. I stared into his eyes and waited, praying for him to say something, to tell me there was no rebellion, to say I was wrong, that he didn’t see my dad when he looked at me, that all he saw was Katie. I wanted him to snap his royal fingers and make it all go away. He stared back, his gaze hard and jaw tight, like he wanted to speak but struggled with the words. Then he dropped his hand from my neck, sending an instant chill where his fingers were.
“I should go. I think we’ve both had enough moments for one day.” His voice was cold. His hard eyes held mine for a breath, then he walked away without another word.
I wanted to chase after him, to yell and scream and pound my fists on his chest and tell him he didn’t get to tear down my walls then walk away without a fight. Fight for me, dammit. Fight for us. After all, fighting was what we were good at. Fighting was the spark that lit our flame, and now—like with any fire I supposed—all we were left with was ash. I wanted to fight him. Fight myself. Fight fate. But I couldn’t. I was too busy trying to remember how to breathe. Instead I stood in the middle of the hallway with a stabbing pain in the pit of my stomach and watched him walk away.