Page 55 of The Reluctant Queen
“Gods, Hev, I had no idea you were so powerful,” he mused as he tugged each leg free of their gritty prisons.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry,” he said softly.
She pressed her lips into a thin line and exhaled a tired sigh. “What do you want, Your Majesty?”
That hurt.“Please, will you walk with me?”
“To what end?”
Images of his original plan, of her in the grotto, fizzled through his mind. He groaned at his own stupidity.
She raised her brow.
“Please? To talk.”
Probably because the Lords Nithim and Koulos were coming their way, and not because she wanted to, Hevva pushed to her feet and turned to stand beside him. “Fine. Let’s go.” Chin raised in defiance, she stared out at the sea, making the very clear point that next to none of her attention was reserved for him.
He crooked his arm.
She ignored it.
With a cough, he pleaded, “There are people watching.”
Ehmet knew he was manipulating the countess, but he couldn’t say he regretted it, because it worked.
She took his arm—sort of—and they set off. Relief plagued with a sliver of anxiety zinged through his bones, making his jaw tick every few seconds and his toes wiggle in the sand. Her palm hovered expertly a hair’s breadth above his flesh. If he jostled enough with each step, the points of her fingertips grazed him, burning with a fierceness that was not topped, not even by the sun-drenched sand beneath his bare feet. In an effort to calm himself, Ehmet’s thumb began its favorite repetitive motion, rubbing the knuckle of his forefinger over and over as they walked.
He angled their bodies toward the water on a diagonal, heading west. Those damned cliffs were ahead, the ones with the cloaked passage that would take them through to King's Cove. He sighed.
When they reached the hard-packed sand, and crashing waves lappedlazily at their ankles, he risked speaking, “Please, let me explain myself?” At this rate, he’d rub his knuckle raw from anxiety.
Her fingers bit into his arm for a moment before she caught herself and released them. “I have no interest in listening to your rambling excuses. It matters not to me.”
“If I speak, will you at leastletme ramble on?”
He caught her terse nod out of the corner of his eye.
“Two nights ago, the day after we...you know.” The tension in her hand told him she knew which incident he referenced. “I was wallowing in my apartments when a note came under my door.”
He chanced a glance at her to find she was staring determinedly out at the sea. The set of her shoulders said she was relying on her countess’s composure, and the tick of her jaw assured him she wasmad.
“The note—I thought it was from you, Hevva, honestly.”
She pulled her gaze away from the waves and settled it on him, searching his face for any sign that he was lying, or maybe any sign that he was speaking the truth.
“I thought it was fromyou.It asked me to meet in the billiards room at the end of the first set at the ball the next night. And I needed to see you. I desperately wanted to speak with you alone...so I went.”
Her chest rose and fell in quick breaths. He imagined if the surf wasn’t so loud, he would hear bursts of air escaping her nose every few seconds.
“When I got to the room, I thought you were there, because I so badly wanted it to be you. A few candles were lit, andshewas standing there, facing away from me, and I should have known—I should have known. Her posture, her shape, it’s all different from yours. But I only looked at her hair. I went in, and I closed the door. Then those candles went out with a burst of air I didn’t even question—and she grabbed me about the waist and shoved me into the table. As I brought my hand to her waist, and herface,I realized she wasn’t you. I was beginning to question her, and demand the candles be relit, when the door flew open, and you waltzed in with Nekash.”
They walked in silence for several moments, nothing but the rhythmic crashing of waves to align with his frantic heartbeat every sixth thumparound. His thumb was out of control, so he wrapped it in a fist to tame the thing.
“I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t do anything, except walk in there like a fool.” Ehmet figured he should clarify a bit, in case she was still wondering. “I don’t know her motivations, but—”
“Lie.”
