Page 47 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

‘You…can’t want to marry me,’ she forced out, knowing she had to say something, since it was clear he was waiting for her to do so. ‘There must be m-many other—’

‘No,’ he said, in the same implacable tone with which he appeared to say everything. ‘I do not want to marry you. But this isn’t about you or me. This is about what is best for Kasimir. I need a queen and you, as an Accorsi, are the most logical choice.’

The tips of her fingers were icy, her chest tight. ‘But…but you don’t love me.’

The words seemed to echo in the room, the desperate sound of her own voice bouncing off the walls and making her cringe in embarrassment. Why had she said that? What on earth was she thinking? What did love matter anyway?

Of course he didn’t love her—not when he’d only just met her.

Love happened in the books she devoured, between people who respected and accepted one another. It happened in real life too, she knew that, but she’d never seen any evidence of it. Her mother had died while she’d been a baby, and it had been made very clear to her, very early on, that neither her father nor her two older brothers had any kind of feelings for her at all.

Beside her, one of the soldiers shifted on his feet as if uncomfortable.

Up on his throne the King stared down at her with an unwavering gaze. His dark winged brows drew down, making her feel all of two inches high as he studied her from the tip of her head down to the soles of her feet and back up again.

‘Love?’ He said the word as if it was foreign to him. ‘This is not about love,signorina, this is about duty. All I require from you is your name on a marriage certificate and your presence at my side for official events. Nothing more and nothing less.’

Well, that was something at least, wasn’t it?

She’d grown up the only female in a world of men. Selfish, violent men. She’d never had any gentleness, never any kindness and never any care from any of them. To her father she was a nuisance and to her brothers she was prey, to torment and tease and bully whenever they could.

Men were different in books. Some of them were kind and gentle and caring, protective and loving too, so she knew those types of men existed. But not anywhere she would ever meet one—and certainly this king wasn’t one of them.

He was probably just like her father. A man who loved power and bending people to his will. Who believed completely that only the strong survived.

She took a little breath. If he was, indeed, that kind of man, then she knew from experience that it was better not to argue. With those kinds of men your only option was rolling over and playing dead. Either that or hiding.

She couldn’t hide now, which meant the only thing left was doing what he said.

Still, it was better than the marriage her father had been in the process of arranging for her, to one of his younger advisors. She’d never met him, but if he was anything like her father’s other advisors then she knew he’d be awful. They were all awful.

She hadn’t had a choice about that either, and all the hiding in the world wouldn’t have got her out of it. Her feelings mattered not at all, as her father had so often said. She was only a tool, to be used by him to solidify his support base—nothing more.

However, thatwouldhave involved more than a mere legal marriage. She would have had to have been in his wife in every way, and the thought of that had left her cold and very afraid.

Give him what he wants. That’s your only option.

Yes, it was. And, looking on the bright side, she wouldn’t have to sleep with him at least. Then again, what else did he want to do with her bar public events? Would she be his prisoner? Would she be allowed to go anywhere…do anything?

‘Th-then what?’ she asked, mustering up a courage she hadn’t known she possessed. ‘How long would the marriage be for?’

His odd light eyes swept over her. ‘It will be for as long as I require it to be.’

‘But then you’ll let me go?’ It was tempting fate to keep questioning him and she was appalled at her own temerity. She should just agree to everything and not draw his attention. Yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She’d been so close to freedom that she couldn’t quite let it go. ‘Once you don’t need me, I mean.’

His gaze narrowed and he continued to stare at her for what felt like yet another eon. ‘Are you trying to bargain with me, mouse?’

An unexpected flickering anger caught at her. Angelo and Alessio, her twin brothers, had called her mouse. Because she was small and insignificant and afraid. She’d hated the nickname but never had the courage to protest at it. She’d told herself that she didn’t care what they called her, because mice knew how to hide and that was the main thing.

But to have this man, this terrifying enemy, call her the same thing, tarring her with the same brush her brothers had used, rubbed against a place she hadn’t realised was raw.

‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped, before she could think better of it. ‘My name in Guinevere.’

Silence crashed down like a lead curtain.

The guards beside her had frozen and Tiberius, up on his throne, was a figure carved from stone.

She’d spoken out of turn. Yet despite her fear, despite the fact that she was his prisoner, she found she didn’t want to take it back. She’d rolled over and played dead before with her brothers, who’d used to hunt her through the palace hallways. She’d been traumatised by that as a child—so much so that most of her childhood had been spent in a haze of fear. And now the freedom that had been so close had been snatched away…

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