Page 60 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

The awareness deepened into shock. He forced it back. Renzo was a monster, but she was a grown woman. She must have had some inkling about what kind of ruler her father was.

You say that like you expected her to have stopped him, somehow, or done something about it.

Perhaps. He needed to know more—and not just for himself, but for Kasimir. He needed to know if the woman he’d married so abruptly was indeed the right Queen for his country. Possibly it was something he should have questioned her more thoroughly on the day before, but it was too late to regret that now.

‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ he said coolly. ‘That’s not what I was saying.’

She was still trembling with emotion. ‘Then what were you saying?’

His first instinct was not to be comforting. He had no experience of it. He was a leader, a commander, a soldier. A man of quick, decisive action. He left the job of reassurance and comfort to others more skilled in giving it than he was.

Yet it was clear that Guinevere needed more than decisive action, and since there was no one else around to reassure or give comfort, his would have to suffice.

Pushing his impatience aside, he took a step towards her, then stopped and gestured to the chair. ‘Sit,’ he said, in what he hoped was a gentle tone, though it came out sounding more like an order than he’d wished. ‘Please,’ he added.

Her chin was jutting at a stubborn angle, but after a moment she let out a breath, unclenched her hands and sat back down again.

‘This is about Kasimir,’ he said. ‘The short answer is that your father mismanaged the treasury, spent too much money on palaces and monuments and not enough on infrastructure or on basic social services. The country is in a terrible state, and it is my job to rebuild what he almost destroyed.’

She glanced away, her shoulders hunching, as if what he’d said was another attack.

‘Marrying you is part of that,’ he went on. ‘As I told you yesterday, there are still deep divisions within Kasimir and people still sympathetic to your father. I want to unify this country, heal those wounds, and our marriage is a potent symbol of that healing.’

Again, she said nothing, her head bent, her gaze on her hands, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d come over to her chair and reached out, taking one of her hands in his. He had no idea what prompted the urge to touch her. It hadn’t ever occurred to him before to touch another person in comfort.

She didn’t pull away, and because her fingers were cold he began to rub them gently with his thumb. ‘I should not have implied that the wellbeing of our country was of no importance to you,’ he allowed. ‘Especially when I don’t know anything about your life.’

Now her gaze was fixed on her hand in his, and he became conscious that her skin had warmed. It felt smooth and silky beneath the brush of his thumb. A familiar electric awareness swept through him, tightening his muscles, and he wondered if she was as smooth and silky all over…whether that faint, sweetly feminine scent that surrounded him was her hair or her body or a combination of the two.

Not that he should be thinking about her body. He should not be thinking such thoughts at all. And he definitely shouldnotbe touching her.

With an effort of will that cost him far more than it should, Tiberius let go of her hand and stepped back, ignoring how the warmth of her skin lingered on his fingertips.

‘I think you need to tell me, Guinevere,’ he said. ‘About what your life was like here.’

Guinevere could still feel the warmth of his hand around hers. His skin had been so hot, and there had been a slight roughness to the pad of his thumb as he’d stroked it over the back of her hand.

It had been unexpected, and she’d had to steel herself not to flinch, since the last touch she’d had from anyone male—her brother Alessio—had involved a chunk of her hair being torn out.

But there had been nothing violent about the way Tiberius had taken her hand within his. Nothing rough about the gentle chafe of his thumb. The feel of it had sent the most delicious shivers down her spine.

She couldn’t think when he was near her…her thoughts getting as slow and heavy as thick treacle.

That afternoon, because of a couple of things Tiberius had said, she’d found one of his aides and pestered him into telling her what her father had done to Kasimir. He’d always boasted about the good things he’d done for the country, and how his subjects loved him, and while she’d doubted that—because she’d certainly never loved him—she hadn’t seen anything to the contrary and hadn’t been able to get any information from anyone.

Finding out the truth had been like a sliver of glass in her heart. It had made her feel dreadful, and complicit in some way, even though she’d had no choice about her imprisonment. And then Tiberius accusing her of knowing what had gone on and not doing anything about it had shoved that sliver even deeper.

It had hurt, his accusation. But it had been his admission of regret for the way he’d spoken to her that had taken the wind completely out of her sails. No one had ever apologised to her for anything. Not her brothers for their treatment of her, and certainly not her father.

For Tiberius to reach out and touch her had further shocked her. Not so much the fact that he’d done it as her own reaction to it. Being touched with gentleness was a new experience for her, and there had been something infinitely warm and reassuring about his hand around hers. A big hand, and scarred, yet it had held hers carefully, as if it were precious.

She hadn’t known men could be capable of gentleness. Her father hadn’t been, for example, and neither had either of her brothers. They’d taken pleasure in having power over others, as if cruelty were a kind of strength, and they’d encouraged it in the guards they had surrounded themselves with too.

Guinevere had spent all day anticipating this meeting and not in a good way—especially after hearing what had happened to Kasimir. She’d known Tiberius would be angry, and that he might be accusatory, and so she’d dreaded facing him.

But part of her knew that she had to face up to what her father had done, even though it wasn’t her fault, so she’d showered and changed into one of her favourite dresses to give herself courage. And then she’d forced herself to meet him here in the King’s study.

He had been angry and accusatory, as she’d known he would be, but what had surprised her was the anger that he’d woken in her that morning had once again ignited, roaring up inside her like a bonfire.

---