Page 29 of Vows to a King
It took them three hours to figure out how to listen to each other, how to get their ideas across and then how to understand the problem that was bogging down the trade treaty that should have been signed eighteen months ago.
At the end of it, Jemima sat sprawled in the armchair in the most un-queenly manner, her fingers wrapped around a whiskey tumbler that she was precariously balancing on her belly.
Adonis, for his part, had taken to the floor thirty minutes into their discussion, clad only in linen pants that highlighted the tight cut of his hips and deliciously taut ass, claiming that he thought better when he performed his grounding exercises. When he was moving and interacting with the world around him.
Halfway through his stretches, she had muttered that while the routine might be grounding him, it distracted her like hell.
In response, he’d kneeled in front of her—this tall, gorgeous stud of a man, buried his hands in her hair and kissed the hell out of her.
It struck her suddenly that Queen Isadora had been exactly right. Apparently, the more honestly she gave of herself and demanded from him, the more Adonis would give her.
After that detour, Jemima finally finished reading the dense summary and highlighted the crux of the problem for him. His anger and frustration at bureaucratic red tape that bogged down the matter were as hypnotic to watch as when he grabbed a pen and started doodling.
It hadn’t taken him long to understand that Ephyra was struggling with the worst economic crisis in decades, with a young queen leading it, and was therefore digging its heels in.
And finally, the brilliance of his unique approach when he’d come up with the suggestion for creating a joint adventure tourism company with their neighbor Ephyra, using its natural beauty and Thalassos’s technical advances.
A new partnership, he declared, pooling resources and technology rather than constantly being at each other’s necks.
Exhausted and yet somehow wired, Jemima stared at the man who clearly was still tormented by the rift with his father, who didn’t see himself as the right man to rule the nation, who spoke of Thalassos with such deep love and loyalty…and marveled at how he was an even better fit than Adamos to be the King of Thalassos.
A chill enveloped her as she wondered how close Prince Adonis was to the man she’d always imagined would come into her life and sweep her off her feet, despite the fact that even dreaming had been forbidden to her.
It terrified her that her fairy-tale fantasy had somehow turned real and that it might all disappear in a puff of smoke if she didn’t hold onto it with both hands and her heart.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ADONIS STARTLED ATthe sudden strength in the older man’s clasp as he knelt in front of his father and took his hand.
In front of his eyes, the gold-veined marble floor blurred, making his knees quake. His coronation day had dawned bright and clear, with the capital city dressed like a bride. That he and Jemima, after two days of intense discussions with their teams, had a solution for the trade treaty problem and he was about to meet Ephyra’s ambassador soon—without the crown council’s permission—set the right note. Still, something in him resisted fully giving in to the day.
What had begun as a hazy headache between the royal procession and the anointing by the high priestess had turned into a viselike clamp by the time he had been required to recite the Oath of Kingship with his hand on the Scroll of Kings.
Adonis couldn’t admit it to another soul, not even Jemima maybe, but the fact was that he was overwhelmed by the sanctity of the rituals and could feel the shadow of his brother Adamos press down upon him with each step of the long, laborious ceremony. His brother’s absence felt like a void in his heart and yet, he wouldn’t be standing here if Adamos were present.
And nothing in his life, no extravagantly lethal stunt that he had performed, had readied him for this moment. For this responsibility.
“Give me your blessing, Father,” he whispered, having been ordered to kneel in front of the King by the high priestess.
“Adonis…” King Aristos said, with such sudden urgency that Adonis looked up, warmth a flickering kennel inside him. Finally, would his father give him one measly moment of recognition, if not approval?
With the sun at its zenith, bright golden light streamed through the large stained-glass windows of the Grand Sanctuary Hall within the palace. But only darkness and confusion dwelled in his father’s eyes.
Until the moment he suddenly wasn’t confused. His blue eyes turned shrewd, almost calculating.
“Adonis,” he repeated, his hands reaching for his son’s shoulders. “What are you doing here? Why are we here in the Grand Sanctuary?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Adonis saw his mother and Jemima move in closer. More to protect the King’s sudden confusion from prying eyes than to listen to Adonis’s whispered attempt at a conversation.
“I’m to be crowned King, Father. I come to seek your blessing and words of wisdom.” The words felt like ashes on his tongue and still, a tiny flame of hope flickered.
The King’s head reared back, a sudden glint in his eyes. “King? You?” Harsh laughter escaped his mouth. “The Crown of Thalassos is not for you, Adonis. It would have been better if you had perished in the crash instead of Adamos. You’re nothing but my taint, my shame, a crow in the cuckoo’s nest, for all that Isadora tried to hide it. A maid’s son and no more.”
It was the first time Adonis heard the words straight from the King’s mouth. Of course, he had known the truth of his birth, having heard it during a heated discussion between his parents, hiding himself behind one of those bloody columns that littered the palace.
He had been nineteen, already a captain in the air force, and more than anything in the world, wanted to be his father’s son, to be loved and appreciated like Adamos had been.
Instead, the bitter truth was that he was the son of a maid his father had either forced himself on, or blackmailed, or simply commanded with his bloody royal authority to submit, when his mother had been heavily pregnant with Adamos. The great King Aristos was nothing but another predictably powerful man who preyed on those that depended on him for their livelihood.
