Page 90 of Duty and Desire

I shook my head. “You have no idea how I feel, do you?” I clenched my hands, my fists so tight my nails dug into my palms. “And do you know why? Because you’ve never had to choose. You’ve never had to decide who you are, what you are. This isn’t just about duty.” My chest tightened with something that felt like betrayal, fear shuddering through me. Fear of losing everything I’d achieved on the island, everything I kept hidden.

I’d already lost Gio. I was about to lose myself.

“I understand more than you think.” Karoline leaned forward, her gaze locked on mine, steady and unflinching. “I know this is not what you want, Niko. But it’s what wehave to do.”

She repeated it as though it was the final truth we couldn’t escape.

As though there was no other way.

I wanted to rage at her, to do something,anythingbut sit there trapped in this hollow, suffocating moment.

But what can I do? My father is dead, and the crown looms.I could already feel its weight upon my head. As for the marriage…

I yearned to give voice to the one thought hammering inside my head.

I can’t marry you. I love someone else.

Except I couldn’t.

Karoline studied me in silence, as if she was trying to read my mind.

Her indulgent smile sent a trickle of unease through me.

“Maybe you’re right. We should wait a while before we have the wedding. Your subjects are in mourning, after all.” She reached over and laid her hand on my knee. “And when the time is right, we’ll get married. It needn’t be the way your father intended, in the palace chapel. We’ll choose another way, another location, if that’s what you want.” Her eyes twinkled. “Just don’t expect me to fly with you to Bora-Bora for a beach wedding. I think you’ve spent enough time there already.” She rose. “And now I’ll go to the Great Hall to do my duty.”

Her words were said with such calm, laced with resignation.

She’s already accepted the role she’s been given.

Maybe that was what angered me the most—how easily she’d accepted it. Marriage. The crown. Me.

I had to face facts.

I’d lost.

I walked with her to the door, and as soon as she was out of sight, I closed it. I leaned forward, my forehead pressed against the smooth wooden surface.

I hadn’t managed to slow the freight train down. I might havebought myself a little more time, but it was still coming, just as relentless.

Then it hit me.

Gio will be here soon.

The only man I’d ever loved. The man I’d have married in a heartbeat, given the chance, was to share the same space as the woman who was going to be my wife, my queen.

And I was going to do my best to keep them apart.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

May 26

Korenz, capital of Eisenland

Gio

The taxi pulled away from the train station and sped through the narrow streets, and the more I saw of the landscape, the more confused I became.

“This is the capital?”

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