But as Max said it, I felt that damn warmth spread across my body.
“Love?” Arthur said, arching a brow. “Really? Who’s the lucky girl?”
I pasted on a grin, transitioning into my normal cocky self. I wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction of seeing me weak because bloody hell, that was what I was around Anna. “Max is full of shit. Do you think I would really settle on one chick?”
Arthur’s glower grew darker. “Then why the fuck did he say it?”
“This is too fucking much,” Max announced, placing his glass on the table. “I’m going to raid the kitchen.”
I waited until Max left before I made a great show of drinking the contents from my glass. Arthur watched my every movement, a murderous glint in his eyes. “She doesn’t deserve you,” he stated in a low voice, finally figuring out who Max was talking about. “She was mine.”
I set the glass down, wincing inwardly as the cut crystal clunked against the bar. “You lost your fucking chance at her heart when you broke it.”
Arthur let out a bitter laugh. “Like you have a fucking shot.”
I clenched my fist. God, it would be so easy to plant my fist in his face! “I have a better shot than you do. At least my future is secure.” It might not be the future I wanted, but my family was cozied up with the members of parliament and didn’t carry any sort of financial or political ruin. Anna could do no better and I could give her a comfortable life.
The moment the thoughts crossed my mind, I shoved them back in. What the hell was I thinking?
Did I really want a future with the pauper?
Arthur was on me quickly, jacking me up against the wall with his hands clenched in my shirt. For a split second, I thought about throwing a counter and putting his ass on the ground but decided to let him think he had the upper hand for now. It would be too easy to put the other king on the ground. “She’s too good for you,” he seethed.
“She’s too good for all of us,” I answered, my voice taking on a lethal tone. “But at least I am fucking smart enough to see that.”
Arthur’s jaw clenched, but there was indecision in his eyes. “I’m not letting her go.”
I wasn’t about to touch that right now. “Fine, but you need to let me fucking go before I do something I will regret.”
He did as I asked, putting some distance between us, the tension high. “I don’t know what your deal is,” Arthur stated after a moment, his voice gruff. “Or if you love her or not, but remember, you aren’t the only one.”
I pushed away from the wall, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “Maybe not, but don’t get in the way of it, or you will be drinking out of a straw for the rest of your life, pretty boy.”
Arthur didn’t say anything as I walked out of the living room and toward the backyard, breathing deeply as I stepped outside. Fuck Arthur. He thought he had claim to Anna because he got her first.
Anna was her own person. She was going to decide herself, no matter what we thought or who we thought was the right person for her. It was one of the many reasons I had fallen in love with her.
I didn’t like admitting the fact, but Max was right. My father would be having a shit fit if he knew I had fallen for an American orphan with no political gains. It was likely he already had my bride lined up like he had the rest of my life organized. I was to be the dutiful son, meant to carry our family name and finally insert it into the monarchy to make our own way to the crown.
I was to do what I was told, which was one of the reasons I had started the underground sword-fighting club. I wanted that burst of freedom, that one thing that my father couldn’t control about my life. Honestly, I probably was one of the few students that didn’t want to leave the academy because of what I had waiting for me at home.
I tugged on my hair with my fingers, feeling the pain shoot through my temples. This shit had to be over soon. I couldn’t last much longer. I hadn’t anticipated when we had concocted this plan to manipulate the American that I would actually fall for her, yet here I was, acting like a jealous boyfriend.
In Anna’s eyes, I was far from that title and unless I wanted her to find out, she would not know how I felt. If being a royal had taught me nothing, it was to keep my feelings close, as they could be used against me. Caring for a person made me vulnerable as well as provided weaknesses that someone political could not afford.
Anna was my weakness.
Slumping against the house, I kicked at the dirt at my feet. Still, it wouldn’t be bad to know how she felt. Did she even care about me, or were her feelings for the kings all the same?
What would I do if she did love me? “Bloody hell,” I muttered. I was hoping that she did love me. I wasn’t an easy person to love, but damn, it would be nice to know someone genuinely cared.
Plus, my future would be completely different with her in it. If she chose her father’s will, then her future would be chosen and if by some fucking miracle she chose me, then we would be expected to turn into our parents. We would be a political power couple unlike anything else.
But if she didn’t choose her father’s will, then her options were endless when it came to her future.
And Anna could easily leave the other kings and me behind.
Idly, I rubbed my chest right where my cold heart lay. I didn’t like that fucking feeling, thinking of not having Anna in my life. She was the only one I had let in, the only one that I had this fragile bond with, and I didn’t want to not feel it in this shitty life.
Everything was in Anna’s court.
Chapter 14
Anna
I breathed in the air around me, not even caring that sweat trickled down my back under my T-shirt. After two days of being cooped up in Arthur’s mansion, I was glad to get out and about.
The kings had even allowed me to go to class today, under the pretense that I had some nasty stomach bug and had been holed up in my dorm room by myself. I didn’t know if anyone honestly believed it, but it was a great story anyway, explaining the reason I didn’t go to the cafeteria or the commons room.
Arthur had invited me to ride horses with him this afternoon before we returned to the mansion and I was grateful that we didn’t rush back.
It wasn’t that the kings were horrible, or my accommodations were bad. No, they made sure I had everything. Johanna even came over every day while I was ‘indisposed’ so that I would have some girl time.
Every night, Arthur invited me to supper, but I took my meals in my room or with Johanna instead. One reason was because I was confused about spending time with the kings all together. It reminded me of the beginning, when this life started, and I really didn’t know what to do about them. They confused me, but also made me wonder what life would be like if I chose any of them and took my rightful place as my father had wanted me to do.