Page 28 of His Hidden Royal Heirs

But she didn’t want him to think that was still the case. As much as she didn’t want to let him into every facet of her life, he needed to understand that obedience and ability to be manipulated had been bred into her.

She didn’t fall for it anymore. Only when she needed to protect Beau. “I think I was only twelve or thirteen when they informed me of the trajectory of my life. Marry a royal my father would choose. Produce many a child with said royal so that, since I would be acting queen of whatever husband’s country, one of my children could be heir to my father’s throneandthis other throne. And so, last year, the crown prince was chosen, and I was told I would marry him. Our countries would be linked in a positive way for both. A familiar pressure was pushed upon me to agree, and I caved to it.”

“You speak of an obedience I have yet to see considering both times we have met, you have been running away.”

She shook her head. “When I first met you, it wasn’t to run away. I had given myself a week to...escape. Briefly. I had a time limit. I just wanted to see what it would be like to make my own decisions, have my own life. I thought it would help. Obviously, I was a bit naive there, and then compounded that naivete with a mistake with you. But at the end of the day, my father had made it very clear to me if I did not domyduty, that Beau’s life would suffer. So I was going to do my duty.”

She poured the tea while he filled both their plates. Small domestic movements that felt strangely...comforting. She supposed because they were stuck here, in this unreal world, where they could get along and nothing outside the walls of the castle had to matter.

But this was very temporary, and she needed to remember that.

“It seems to me your sister is a grown woman who can handle herself if she is as you describe. Why are you so protective?”

“In some ways she is that.” She would not let Cristhian or anyone else in on Beau’s issues. Not because she felt as her parents did that Beau’s panic attacks were embarrassing and a bad mark on the crown. If anything, she felt the opposite. Beau’s issues meant she deserved protecting fromanyone.

Silence fell after that, as if he expected her to fill it. She didn’t. She busied herself with baked goods and tea. When he finally spoke again, it seemed he’d realized she wouldn’t speak any more about her sister.

“And what did you do on this week of freedom you took? Besides me, of course.”

She laughed in spite of herself. Perhaps she was giving him too much information, too much ammunition. But maybe...maybe she could allow him to fall in love with her, if she believed such things possible. As long asshedidn’t fall in love, didn’t have to serve him in that way, that meant she had control of the situation.

Didn’t it?

“I shopped alone,” she said, thinking back to that glorious week. So glorious she’d let everything go wrong, and even now, couldn’t regret it. “I went to a concert and lost myself in the musicIchose to like. I walked in cities at night, in broad daylight, all on my own. I even found an athletic club and joined a little pickup football game one day. No one treated me any different than anyone else. It was like breathing for the first time.”

He didn’t say anything right away. He was staring at her intently, an odd expression on his face she couldn’t quite parse. Intense, yes, but as if he was trying to puzzle her out, like she was some sort of brain teaser.

“Were you expecting something else?” she asked.

He shook his head, looked down at his plate. “I do not know what I expected.”

But he got that look about him. She was beginning to recognize it was usually when he brought up something about royalty. And his mother was a princess. Like her.

“Did your mother ever try to step out of royal life?”

His expression shuttered. “I should like to meet your sister, I think. Perhaps we can get her here for the wedding.”

She did not know if he meant to be provoking, or if he was simply so used to always telling people how it would be that he did not consider her feelings on thewedding she hadn’t agreed to at all.

“I haven’t agreed to marry you, Cristhian,” she stated very firmly.

He looked over at her and smiled then, and she shouldnotreact to that. It shouldn’t flutter through her like some heady liquor. He was smiling because he thought what she wanted didn’t matter.

And still she throbbed with too many memories ofthatnight to name.

“My mistake, Princesa,” he said, his voice a low, sultry menace. “More tea?”

CHAPTER TEN

CRISTHIANFELTASthough he were making some progress. Zia was forthcoming with most information. About her family, her upbringing, what she wanted for the children.

She was a fascinating woman. She had a wide variety of interests, and she talked easily and happily about most of them. When he prodded about her family in an effort to determine the best way to handle them, she presented a strange figure. Obedient, yet driven by an internal need to be herself. Easily manipulated by an authoritarian father, and yet not ignorant or foolish. Most of her purpose, at least as she stated it, was to protect her sister.

If he felt like there were some similarities there, in how she viewed the royal machine in many of the same ways he did, well... He didn’t think too deeply on it. Similarities didn’t mean anything. Not when he had a situation to control in order to ensure the best outcomes for everyone.

He had not yet figured out how she could talk of her sister so protectively, and yet have abandoned the woman to handle the mess Zia herself had made. He could not quite make sense of the spoiled princess who clearly did as she pleased, and yet, at times, had not. And the more he dug into these seemingly disparate facets of her, the more she took up residence in his mind even when he was not spending time with her.

He was quite sure he could have handled all this, even if it was a tad alarming and unique, if it weren’t for the physical undercurrents that still traveled between them.

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