Marrying Her Royal Enemy. Jennifer Hayward

that had been hard to get close to even though the Constantinides boys had tried to befriend him, having their own painful knowledge of a larger-than-life father.

      Where had he drawn his strength? His belief in his vision? From some unshakable core inside of him?

      She sank her teeth into her lip. “What happened when you developed a mind of your own? When it became apparent your philosophies differed from your father’s?”

      “I tried to keep them inside in the beginning. My grandmother said it was better that way. But eventually, as I gained in confidence, as I acquired external validation of my ideas, they came out. I was considered a threat then. A competitor. Anyone who questioned my father’s practices was, and was suitably disposed of, but I, of course, posed the biggest threat of all—the blood heir who wanted a different way for his country. I wasn’t so easy to contain.”

      “How could you coexist like that?”

      “Uneasily. I made it clear to my father I would bide my time until it was my turn. In the meantime, I did the official engagements he couldn’t manage, presented a civilized facade to the world, attempted to keep the internal workings of the country moving while he obsessed about taking Akathinia. But with the onset of his dementia, with his increasingly erratic behavior, it became harder and harder to talk sense into him—to stand back and do nothing.”

      Given how passionate Kostas had always been about his beliefs, it must have been crippling for him. A gnawing feeling took root in her stomach. A feeling that she had been vastly unfair. “Things escalated before you left.”

      “Yes. There were those who wanted my father replaced, those who supported me and my democratic ideas and those who fought any decentralization of power that would strip them of theirs. It was a...tenuous situation threatening to implode at any minute.”

      With him squarely in the middle of it—loathe to turn on his own flesh and blood no matter how wrong his father’s actions. Surrounded on all sides. The man in the middle of the storm.

      The uneasy sensation in her gut intensified. She lifted her gaze to his. “Was that why you raced Athamos that night? Because you were frustrated? Because you weren’t in your right head?

      “It was...complicated.”

      Clearly, from the myriad of emotions consuming those dark eyes of his. The pieces of what had happened the night she’d lost her brother started to come together, beyond what Kostas had told her. She didn’t like the doubt that invaded her head as they did. The gray zone it put her in with the man she needed to have zero feelings for.

      Confused was not how she needed to enter this evening.

      Kostas straightened away from the dresser. “I should get dressed.” He handed her the sheaf of papers he was holding. “The final guest list. You should look it over.”

      She curled her fingers around the papers, glad for something to do rather than feel things for this man she shouldn’t be feeling. “Anyone interesting coming out to play?”

      “General Houlis and his two key lieutenants. You will stay away from them.”

      “Why?”

      “Because they are dangerous men. You may think you are a dragon slayer, Stella, and no doubt you are, but this side of things you will not involve yourself in. Devote yourself to getting to know the people I’ve highlighted. They are key social, business and political figures who will be valuable to you.”

      She nodded. She would do that and get to know General Houlis, Kostas’s biggest foe, because he would be her enemy, too.

      Kostas headed for the door. Halfway there, he turned. “What are you wearing, by the way?”

      “That will be a surprise.”

      His mouth tipped up at one corner. “I’m quite sure there will be enough of those tonight, but have it your way.”

      He left. Page returned to finish her hair. Stella immersed herself in the guest list, going over each key name and title, committing them to memory. Thank goodness hers was photographic.

      When she’d made it to the L’s, her eyes widened. Cassandra Liatos is attending? The guest of Captain Mena, one of General Houlis’s disciples, according to the list.

      The woman Athamos had lost his life over. The woman her fiancé had most likely bedded.

      Her pulse picked up into a steady thrum, blood pounding in her ears. An unimportant detail Kostas had forgotten to mention?

CHAPTER FOUR

      “WE ARE LATE, Your Highness.”

      Kostas was well aware of that fact as he waited for Stella in the foyer of the castle, the arrival of their first guests imminent. The crowds, he had been told, were in the tens of thousands in the courtyard, all of them waiting for a glimpse of their king and future queen.

      The global media was also impatiently waiting for them, three rows deep behind the red stanchions, cameras at the ready. The need to greet both the people and the media before their guests began arriving weighed heavily on his mind, along with the speech he was about to give, perhaps the most important of his career. He did not have time for a recalcitrant princess making yet another expression of protest.