Читать книгу Billionaires: The Royal: The Queen's New Year Secret / Awakened by Her Desert Captor / Twin Heirs to His Throne - Эбби Грин, Maisey Yates - Страница 18

CHAPTER TEN

KAIROS HAD ANOTHER romantic dinner prepared for them out on the terrace. It was dark, the stars in the sky shining brightly as warm air mingled and cooled with mist from the sea, and washed over her skin as she closed her eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the beauty of it. Of what it felt like to be here.

There were only nine days left. Nine days until she had to make a decision about whether or not she was going to leave him. But then, she wasn’t entirely sure there was a decision to be made.

Yes, she could have his money if she left after fulfilling the terms of his bargain. But she was starting to think that would be nowhere near enough. Neither would shared custody. Because in that scenario she wouldn’t get to be with him. She would never see what kind of father he was to their child. Her child would have a life divided in half. She would never be able to watch the way he interacted with Kairos. Would never be able to fully understand what his life at the palace was like.

Right now, tiny as it was, her baby lived inside of her. She couldn’t imagine relinquishing so much time with him once he was born.

She realized that yet again, she was worrying about the future. Existing in the present, but only by half. She had spent her entire life that way. Living for a moment she wasn’t yet in. It struck her, suddenly and sharply.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever really been happy before,” she said, looking up from her plate and meeting his gaze.

He looked at her, his expression guarded. He had been a bit more cautious with her since their walk on the beach the other day. Had not been quite so relaxed. Initially, she had attributed it to some kind of leisure fatigue on his part. She had rarely seen Kairos being anything but the stately ruler with posture so stiff he would make a military general envious. Now she wondered. It was something else.

But unless he told her, she wouldn’t know. That, right there, was the summation of their entire relationship.

“Another bit of commentary on my skills as a husband?” he asked, his tone dry.

“No. Commentary on myself. I’m always thinking ahead. No matter where I was, it was never enough. It’s never been enough. I arrive at a goalpost and I’m immediately looking ahead to the next. I spent all of high school anticipating how I would get into a university. Then I spent all that time calculating my next move. Spent every moment of my internship with you figuring out how I would parlay that into a fabulous gold star on my résumé, what job I would get when it was finished. And then, by the strangest twist of fate I could ever have imagined, I ended up being queen of the nation. I have no goal beyond that, Kairos. You can’t go up from there. I was—and am—at the very top. Secure for life, in a position where I can make a difference in the world. And I’ve still never been happy.”

“I was born a prince, I’m not certain I’ve ever been particularly happy about it,” he said, his tone hard. “But we are in a position to do much good. Isn’t that more important than happiness?”

“I suppose. As is security. Or at least, in my experience it’s difficult to be happy without security. But... Don’t you think it’s possible to have happiness as well?”

“I don’t give it much thought.”

“I think for me I’ve never allowed myself to rest because of the fear.”

He froze then, his dark eyes flat. “Is that so?”

“Yes. I don’t...I don’t think I’ve ever honestly feared that I would turn into my mother. You’re right, Kairos. I never feared that I would actually pick up a gun and shoot you in a jealous rage. But I... Attachments frighten me. How do you know who you can trust? She was my mother. She raised me from the cradle. I never imagined she would do something like that. I never saw it coming. How do you... I have always struggled to figure out how you trust someone after that. I knew her longer than I had known anyone, and still, she did something so far outside of what I imagined she might be capable of.”

“I do understand something of that. It might have escaped your notice but my trust has been betrayed a time or two in my life.”

Guilt twisted her stomach, because she knew that she was part of that now. A part of the betrayals that he had experienced.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it. A lot about happiness. About trust. I’ve been waiting to feel a magical sense of both for a very long time. For my position in life to hand me happiness, for time to grant me trust of the situation I’m in. Neither has come. And so, I’m left with only one conclusion.”

“That is?”

“I have to choose it. I’m going to have to make a decision to be content. I mean, for the love of God, I’m a queen with a handsome husband, a private island, a palace and a baby on the way. Choosing happiness should not be that difficult. But I think in order to achieve that I’m going to have to choose trust as well. I’ve been so reluctant to do that. Because the idea of having my trust misused scares me. The idea of trusting myself scares me. But...I can’t predict the future. Neither can I control you. I can’t control any of the circumstances around us, all I can do is make choices for myself. If I want to trust you, then I have to decide to trust you.” She looked down, then back up again. “Trust is just like happiness. You can’t wait for the evidence. Then it isn’t trust. You have to choose it. And be ready to be damned along with that choice if it comes to it. But I trust you.”

“So simple, agape?”

“Why not? So many things in life are hard. We have no control over them. I know you’re well familiar with that too. Who can dictate the things that live inside of us if not us? Why do we look around, trying to claim dominion over things we cannot, while we let the things we could dominate us?”

“I didn’t realize I was going to get psychology with my meal.”

“I thought it paired nicely with the fish, as we can’t have wine.”

“And here I thought anthropology went better with fish.”

“Not my field of expertise.”

“A disappointment,” he said. “You always seem expert in everything you try.”

“Everything?” she asked, arching a brow.

His gaze turned hot. “Yes,” he said, his voice rough now. “Everything.”

“Hmm. Well, but then, you haven’t got much experience with some of what we’ve been doing.” She had a feeling she was edging into forbidden territory, but she wanted to ask him about this.

“This is true,” he said.

“You were not a virgin when we married.”

He paused, his fork halfway between the plate and his mouth. “No,” he said.

“So it isn’t inexperience that caused you to go without a woman...without...what I gave you recently.”

“True. Are you really in the mood to examine my past relationships?”

“No,” she said. “Not especially. I only want to know why. I mean, you had sex with other women but not...not that. Is it control?”

He set his fork down. “I...I’m not certain how to answer that.”

“With the truth. Not your carefully reasoned version, or what you think I might want to hear. Or even what you think makes sense. The real reason. The truth.”

He looked as though she’d hit him, and for a second, she felt sorry for him. But not much beyond a second. “I never felt like I deserved such a thing.” The words fell from his lips reluctantly, and she could tell that even he was mystified by them.

“Why?” she asked.

“I’ve never liked the idea of sitting back and taking something like that as my due. You can’t... You have to earn things. And serve. You can never just...take.”

“I mean, I agree. Reciprocation and being generous is certainly appreciated, but what does that have to do with letting your partner show you she wants you?”

“I’ve never felt I could afford such a thing. To give in to such selfish desire,” he said, uncomfortable now. Clearly.

“Don’t you think now after so many years...don’t you think you might deserve something for you, Kairos?”

He curled his hand into a fist and she watched the tendons there shift. Everything about him was so strong. So beautiful. “Are you through eating?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I find that I am ready for bed.”

Her heart fluttered, excitement firing through her body. She never tired of this new, more physically attentive Kairos. He didn’t bother to hold back the attraction that burned between them. This was sex for the sole purpose of forging a deeper connection between them, finding pleasure with each other, rather than timing their unions around her cycle. It was an entirely different experience, and she loved it.

“Then, I am too,” she said, without hesitation.

It occurred to her, as he swept her into his arms and carried her away from the terrace, that he might have been redirecting the conversation. That he was replacing the promise of honest talk with sex.

But she wouldn’t allow those thoughts to poison the moment. She had chosen happiness. She had chosen trust. And so, she would cling to those things, as she clung to him.

In his arms, it wasn’t difficult to feel perfectly content in the present. To feel secure.

And to trust that everything would work out in the end.

* * *

In spite of her resolution to trust more, she found herself overtaken with a sense of disquiet over the next couple of days. Kairos was definitely distancing himself again. She had lived under the carefully constructed frost blanket he preferred to lay out over everything for too many years not to recognize when he was gearing up to roll it out again. He made love with her every night, yes, but she didn’t wake up held securely in his arms as she had done initially here on the island.

Instead, she awoke with a yawning stretch of space between them. He slept on the side of the bed nearest the door, and she couldn’t help but think that one morning she would wake up and he would have gone completely. As though he were inching ever closer to the exit with each passing night.

Trust, she reasoned, was not blind stupidity. Trust was going to have to extend to herself as well, not just to him. She had to trust her own instincts where he was concerned. Something had changed, and it wasn’t anything good. It was reverting back.

She couldn’t help but wonder if he had gotten too close to that fire she talked about earlier, and was running from it now. If all of the intimacy, not just the sex, was getting to him. For the first time, they had really begun to talk. To peel back the layers beneath their clothes and look at who they were, not who they pretended to be.

This thing between them was uncomfortable. That much she knew. It always had been. That was why they had both turned away from it so resolutely.

She was done with that. Sadly for him, she wasn’t going to allow him to run.

They had less than a week. Less than a week to fix this thing between them. She wanted to stay with him. She had made that decision. But she wanted their marriage to be something more. She was not going to determine to remain his wife only to have things revert back to their icy state.

No, she was going to effect change. Permanent change.

Conversation didn’t seem to work with him. The only way through to Kairos seemed to be using her body. When he decided to transform her from personal assistant to wife, it had been because of her mind. Because they connected on a logical level.

She was done appealing to logic. She was going to make the appeal with her body. She was going to come at all of this from a different direction. She wondered now if she had tried to seduce him sooner if things would have changed before she walked out.

There was no denying the heat that shimmered between them.

But intimacy had been missing from their sexual encounters in the past. Honesty had been missing.

She intended to reach for both tonight. To strip him bare completely, not just of his clothes, but everything else.

She had dug into the back of that wardrobe, every piece of clothing provided her by a stranger, and found a bright red dress that she would normally never have chosen. She felt as though it was painted over her curves, clinging so tightly to everything, she was certain that each and every flaw her body claimed as its own was on very loud display.

She had never worried terribly much about her figure. Why, when her husband spent so little time looking at it? But now, she intended to use it as a weapon. To be sufficient ammunition to blast that mountain of a man down to his knees.

She took a breath and looked at herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized the woman she saw there. Her blond hair was spilling over her shoulders, unrestrained. She had not styled it within an inch of its life, had not tamed it into submission. Rather, it looked a little bit wild. She was wearing lipstick that matched the dress, also much bolder and brighter than she tended to be.

But a seduction of this importance required bold and bright.

She walked down the sweeping staircase, her fingertips skimming the rail. She had repainted her nails to match the dress and to get rid of the chipped polish she had been wearing for the past few days. She wasn’t going to nervously pick at this manicure. In part, because she wasn’t going to be nervous.

She gritted her teeth, repeating that mantra over and over again. As though, if she thought it enough times it would make it true.

Then she saw Kairos, standing at the foot of the stairs, wearing a white shirt that was unbuttoned at his throat, revealing a tempting wedge of bronzed skin, just a hint of his dark chest hair. She loved his chest. Could spend hours exploring it with her hands, her lips and her tongue. She found that she had very few inhibitions where he was concerned. That, at least, had made the past week fun.

She smiled as her foot hit the floor and she stood, waiting to see if she could discern his reaction to her appearance.

He was stoic, as ever, his expression schooled into hard granite. But it was that grim set of his mouth, that determination in his eyes that let her know that he was in fact affected. His jaw was so tight, the veins in his neck were standing out, his hands clenched into fists, the enticing muscles of his forearms flexed with the strength that it took for him to restrain himself.

Yes, she was certainly having an effect.

“Are you dressed for dinner?” he asked.

“Actually, I’m dressed for dessert.”

* * *

Kairos was not entirely certain when he lost control of the situation. Whether it was the moment he caught sight of Tabitha descending the stairs in that dress that clung to her body like a lover, outlining her full breasts, slim waist and perfectly rounded hips. Whether it was when his eyes zeroed in on her lips, painted a bold red, and he immediately imagined her leaving that color all over his skin.