When was the last time she’d felt she could breathe? As if the forces conspiring to turn her life upside down were not in control, but she was. As if the insanity that had driven her to this Caribbean paradise had simply been a vexing nightmare that an airplane ticket purchased under an assumed name and a lifetime of skill in eluding her bodyguards could fix.
A smile curved her lips. It had been a compelling game. Almost as fun as the ones she and Nik had used to play on the palace staff. Convincing Darius, her ex–special ops bodyguard, to let her leave the palace alone and dropping an arch hint she was headed for a secret tryst, when, in fact, a man was the last thing she wanted in her life, had summoned a blush to the hardened serviceman’s cheeks and an agreement to “overlook” her departure from the palace. Boarding a commercial flight in a Harvard T-shirt and sunglasses and making the getaway from the pink-sanded Mediterranean island paradise she called home had been even easier.
The only rain on her very slick parade had been the text from Nik. She’d sent him one to say she was fine, that she needed time to think. His blunt, admonishing reply had made her turn off her phone.
Her brother could, of course, find her if he wanted to. But she knew he wouldn’t. Once her twin royal rebel, Nik knew the price it had cost her to clip her wings. He himself had made the ultimate sacrifice in taking their brother Athamos’s place as king, giving up the life he’d loved in New York when Athamos had been killed in a tragic car accident that had rocked Akathinia. He would allow her this time to find her head, herself. If she even knew who she was anymore.
“Need a menu?” The bartender waved one at her.
“Please.” There were no paparazzi lying in wait to chase her from the bar, no Darius watching her with eagle-eyed precision from ten feet away, nor did anyone have a clue who she was in jeans, a T-shirt and sunglasses. Since Jessie wouldn’t be free until the dinner rush was over, she might as well eat and enjoy the superb sunset from one of the patio tables.
“I hear the calamari is spectacular.”
The low, textured voice came from her right, delivered by the male who slid onto the stool beside her. She froze, breath jamming in her throat. The hairs on the back of her neck rose to attention, a sense of unreality washing over her. It couldn’t be. Except that voice carrying a Carnelian accent, infused with a Western inflection, that richly flavored, deeply masculine tone, could belong to only one man.
Noooo. Every muscle in her body tensed in rejection, her heart shutting down in coordination with her breathing as the earthy, sensual scent of him slammed into her senses. Her toes curled in her shoes, ordering—begging—her to run. But she had never been, nor would she ever be, a coward, so she looked up at the king of Carnelia instead.
Tall and muscular, he dwarfed the stool he sat on, as if he went on forever, the sheer brawn of him riveting; intimidating. But what was perhaps more hazardous to a woman’s health was how all that sheer masculine power was cloaked with a civilized veneer that had always set him apart from his savage of a father. That had once made her believe he was different.
Kostas Laskos lifted a hand to capture the bartender’s attention, an unnecessary action when everyone in the bar was staring at him. The women because his hawkish, striking face, set off by his short-cropped black hair, was just that arresting. The men because anyone that dangerous was to be inspected and sized up immediately.
“The oldest Mount Gay you have,” the king requested.
Diavole. Her stomach retracted in a visceral reaction only this man had ever been able to elicit. Stunning, as he had been the last time she’d seen him, in ceremonial uniform at the Independence Day ball in Akathinia, tonight in jeans and a shirt rolled up at the elbows, he was compelling in a way the sunset staining the sky outside was—an utterly unavoidable, spectacularly beautiful product of nature.
His long, powerful fingers claimed her attention as he lowered them to his side. He had lethal hands—ones that could snap a man’s neck as easily as they had crushed her eighteen-year-old heart. Hands that purportedly seduced so skillfully that women lined up for him to do it, but she wouldn’t know because he had saved his cruelest rejection for her.
Her teeth sank into her lower lip, the effects of him reverberating through her. He had kissed her with that beautiful, sensual mouth of his, the only soft part of Kostas that existed, to comfort her after her dreams had come crashing down around her. He had stripped her of her innocent defenses, shown her what true fire could look like, then walked away, making a mockery of her teenage idolization.
She hated him.
He was watching her, analyzing her every reaction to him in that deadly way of his. She forced herself to speak past the blood pounding in her ears. “Shouldn’t you be home ruling over that band of ruffians you inherited, or did your jet run out of fuel?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “You know why I’m here.”
She set down her glass with a jerky movement, liquid sloshing precariously close to the sides. “Well, you can refuel and be on your way. I gave Nik my answer. I wouldn’t marry you if you came with a dowry of a hundred billion euros.”
“I think you have that the wrong way around.”
“I think I don’t. I’m the prize in this scenario, am I not? Or you wouldn’t have flown halfway around the world to harass me.”
“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d given me the time I’d requested.”
“I refused what was on offer.”
His whiskey-soaked gaze glittered. “How can you know what you don’t want when you don’t even know what’s on offer?”
She pressed her fingers against her mouth. “Let’s see... Hmm. A barbarian for a husband, living in the enemy’s lair, a union with a man who didn’t even have the guts to try to stop his father when he tried to take Akathinia? No, thank you.”
His jaw tightened. “Watch yourself, Stella. You don’t have all the facts.”
“It’s a year and a half too late. I no longer care.” She pushed away from the bar and slid off the stool. “Go home, Kostas.”
“Sit down.” The words left his mouth with the fine edge of a scythe. “Do me the courtesy of hearing me out. The time for tantrums is long past.”
Customers turned to stare. Jessie, who was seating a table, looked over, eyes widening as she took in the man beside her. Stella waved her off and sat down because she didn’t want to cause a scene and blow her cover. Not because of the inherent command in the king’s voice.
Kostas pinned his gaze on her. “Have dinner with me. Listen to what I have to say. I promise if you do, I will leave and accept whatever decision you make.”
Accept whatever decision she made? Had he always been this arrogant? How could she once have thought herself so blindingly in love with him she’d willingly made a complete fool of herself over him?
Heat smoked through her, singeing her skin. “Kala,” she drawled in her most agreeable voice. “You’re right. This conversation is long overdue. Why don’t you order us a good bottle of Bordeaux, find a table, and we’ll discuss it over dinner like two civilized adults?”
She slid off the stool and sashayed toward the washrooms.
* * *
Kostas knew the moment Stella turned on her heel that she wasn’t coming back. He knew her. Had known her since childhood, when the royal families of Akathinia and Carnelia had crossed paths at official celebrations, at the dozens of royal occasions that marked the season in the Mediterranean. His family had had a measure of respectability then, as his father’s tendency toward a dictatorial rule had been less pronounced.
He had watched Stella grow from an undeniably attractive teenager into a spirited, often recalcitrant young woman who spent so much of her time flaunting