Page 30 of Vows to a King
Of course, Queen Isadora, being principled and refusing to compromise and wanting to teach her cheating, conniving, power-bloated husband a lesson, had brought Adonis to the palace as an infant, to be raised alongside her own son. As her own son.
His mother had been careful enough to make it look like Adonis had been born during the time she had spent in Paris, during a temporary separation from King Aristos, persuading him by threatening a scandal of disastrous proportions. Knowing full well that King Aristos would have to see his mistake grow up in his own household, in the palace, as his younger son, as another contender to the throne.
She had also, whatever her feeling toward her husband, loved Adonis as if he were truly her own, trying her best to protect him from the King’s fury. But neglect and apathy were much harder to fight than direct cruelty, for his father had never made even eye contact with Adonis.
He had never forgiven Adonis for existing, for being the walking, talking symbol of his weakness. And when a host of learning disabilities had plagued him as a growing boy, the King’s satisfaction had been cruel and prevalent, for he had started calling Adonis a crow in the nest.
“Hush, my love,” his mother said, bringing a glass of water to King Aristos’s mouth, her eyes filled with anguish and anger. Like a puppet whose strings were pulled, the King sat back in his seat, his eyes panicking like a child’s.
Drawing back her shoulders, his mother pinned Adonis with the same intensity that she had used to talk to him as a confused, desperate-to-please boy. “You’re my son, Adonis and the Prince of this realm. Do your duty by Thalassos. Make me and your brother and all the Thalassans that love and trust you justice.”
Adonis nodded, tried to swallow past the hard rock lodged in his throat and got to his feet. And when his gaze clashed with Jemima’s shocked amber one, he pretended to not see the fat tears that his new queen didn’t let fall.
A part of him was suddenly glad that he had bucked tradition and married Jemima in a quiet, private ceremony at dawn that morning with no one but his mother present. Still the obedient daughter, she hadn’t liked going through it without her father present. But he had insisted on it and the Queen’s request that it was better that way, with Adamos’s death so recent, had finally convinced her.
Even as he felt Jemima’s inquiring gaze on his face, Adonis refused to meet hers. He didn’t want to see her shock or her disgust or her distaste at the dirty secret of his birth. Her pity would be both the best he could hope for and the worst to bear.
Hardening himself against the tumult, he proceeded toward the royal balcony that overlooked the courtyard where thousands of Thalassans waited to bestow their cheer and trust and blessing on him.
But everything inside him craved freedom from the pain, craved a challenge, craved something that would take him so close to the edge that all the conflicting emotions pummeling him from all sides would burn out in flames.
* * *
She was married.
To Adonis Vasilikos, possibly the most beautiful man in the world.
She, Jemima Nasar, of cunning mind and round body and far too ambitious bones, as one tabloid magazine had called her after their engagement had become public, was now not only the Devil Prince’s convenient wife but Thalassan Queen.
She was married to the man she’d spun fantasies around as a teenage girl, the man she’d stolen a kiss from on one bold, daring evening of her life, the man who now held her entire future in the palm of his hands.
The man she’d just learned carried a torment no boy should have had to shoulder, who had bent but not buckled at the casual cruelty with which the King had greeted him at the most important moment of his life. The man who was a bloody legend and a billionaire in his own right, who had always marched to his own drum and forged his own path.
In the infinitesimal moment that their eyes had met, he hadn’t let the strain seep through into his expression.
Suddenly, she realized what a sacrifice it was that Adonis Vasilikos was making by returning and agreeing to be crowned King of Thalassos. And that she was part of the sacrifice that he was making out of some blind loyalty to the mother who had raised him as her own, to the kingdom he had once called home.
Another horrifying thought struck her as her royal attendants stripped her out of the heavy velvet gown she’d worn for the coronation, to ready her for the public tribute Adonis had planned to honor Adamos’s memory.
Was that why he had insisted on the quiet ceremony for the wedding? Had he taken stock after the endless rituals and meetings of the last two days and decided he’d had enough of the pathetic pomp that he didn’t even want?
Jemima met her own gaze in the full-length mirror, automatically lifting her legs and arms as the attendants pulled a burnt-copper-colored dress over her head. The color instantly made her golden skin shimmer and she made a note to thank the new stylist that had come on board with Adonis’s team.
She tugged at a couple of pins and her silky waves tumbled out of the complicated knot they’d been set into. In the reflection, her gaze fell on her engagement ring and the plain platinum and gold band, an inexplicable ache making her chest heavy.
Was she anything but a part of the sacrifice he was taking on for the greater good? Had she been deluding herself that they could have a meaningful relationship?
He had barely made eye contact with her as they had made vows to each other, after he had insisted on a secret, dawn wedding that was nothing like what she had imagined.
Even the Grand Hall of the Palace, with its opulent high ceilings adorned with intricate frescoes depicting the history of Thalassos, only seemed to mock her. The arched windows and the stained-glass panes, filled with dawn’s pink light, couldn’t banish the solemnity of the occasion.
Jemima, surprising herself, had resented the hell out of the whole damn thing. She hadn’t wanted a grand celebration or extravagant festivities but she had wanted a ceremony that was meaningful to both of them. She’d wanted to choose a beautiful dress, wear her mother’s jewelry, have her brother present for the occasion.
She’d wanted to honor the tenuous but real connection between her and Adonis and she wanted to nurture it without guilt or grief or any of the million constraints that seemed to surround them.
And now that she had learned of the final piece of the puzzle that made up her mysterious husband, Jemima understood why he had pulled away, why he had turned their wedding into nothing but a somber ceremony he had to go through. She had a feeling she was nothing but another piece of duty he had tacked on for the good of his country. And having come to know the honorable, kind man he was under all the suffocating masks, she detested being no more than a placeholder for him.
* * *
