“Well,” he continued, “you certainly possess more charm than our friend Adam.”
Adam gritted his teeth. “Regretfully, I doubt I will be able to attend your ball.”
“That,” Felipe said, “is expected. But unacceptable. The fact of the matter is I’m going to be ascending the throne of my country soon. My father might have walled us off, made us insular, but I don’t intend to keep it that way. I want to align myself with you, Adam, with your country, and with you, Rafe, and the industry that you could bring to Santa Milagro.
“I know you have been in exile for the past few years, Adam, but with your viceroy’s tenure coming to an end, and the recent sale of those photographs of yours to the tabloids, I think it’s time you took matters into your own hands. Your visage—such as it is—is going to filter out into the public soon enough. You might as well make an appearance along with it, Adam. Prove that you are not a coward.”
“I’m not,” he said, quickly losing patience with Felipe. “However, exposing myself in the public arena holds no appeal.”
“Certainly understandable. I’m sure if Rafe could hide away, he would do so, as well.”
Rafe laughed, but the sound held no humor. “I’m not disfigured. Only blind.”
“Mostly blind,” Felipe countered. “And anyway, what better way to take back the control. I know you despise the paparazzi for what they did to you. For what they did to your family. Are you going to let them have control of the story? Publish photographs of the Beast of Olympios and whatever headlines they wish to accompany it? No, come now, Adam. The man I knew in school would not allow such a thing.”
“And the man you used to know had a soul. Not to mention a face.”
“If not for yourself, do it for Ianthe.”
Had his friend been standing in front of him, Adam would have hit him for bringing his wife’s name into this. But, at the same time, he couldn’t deny he had a point. A point he had come to for himself already, but Felipe didn’t know that.
“Take your control back,” Felipe said. “Make this unveiling of your own making. Make Olympios yours again.”
This was it, he realized. His moment. The power play.
The precise way and place to use his beautiful captive.
“When is this party?”
“In just over a month,” Felipe said. “We can only hope my father holds on until then.”
Adam could tell that Felipe didn’t particularly hope any such thing. He knew that the two men had a complicated relationship, though he didn’t know the details. The three of them talked details as little as possible.
“I’ll be there,” Rafe said. “I have no reason not to go.”
“And you’ll bring a date?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I will,” Adam said, his voice soft.
“You?” Felipe asked, not bothering to disguise the surprise in his voice at all.
“Yes. I have a recent acquisition that I look very much forward to showing off.”
“Adam,” Felipe said, “what have you done?”
“Just the kind of thing that suits a beast.”
* * *
Belle was surprised when she was shown not to a dungeon but to an elegantly appointed bedroom with a four-poster bed covered by brocade curtains and festooned with pillows.
“I thought I was a prisoner?” She turned to ask the servant.
She’d been made to surrender her phone, but otherwise, everyone was being...nice to her. Well, everyone except the Prince himself. She doubted nice was a thing he did.
“There are enough rooms in the palace to keep even a prisoner comfortable,” the man said drily.
“You don’t approve of him,” she said. “Do you?”
He lifted a shoulder. “He does not require my approval. Neither does he take any heed of my disapproval.”
“Is he...is he crazy?” The disfigured man who had sought such destructive revenge on her father, and who had accepted her in trade could hardly be sane. Still, she felt like she needed to figure out exactly what she was dealing with.
He seemed to have a plan. A way he wanted to...use her to come back into the spotlight. She could only hope that plan meant there was a finite end to her sentence.
“He is not unaffected by the accident that caused those scars,” the man said carefully. “That is about all I can tell you.”
“Okay,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself, shivering, because suddenly she felt cold. She turned to face the window, the small, narrow notch giving her a slight view of city lights reflecting on the sea. “Has my father gone already?” She turned again, to find her companion gone.
For some reason, the withdrawal of the servant made her feel isolated. Utterly alone. A chill swept over her, bone deep and intense. She had agreed to stay here, with a potential madman, for an unknown amount of time. There was no one here to protect her. Her father was likely long gone, and really, there was nothing he could do for her. He had to go and seek out his treatment; he couldn’t stay behind.
She wondered if the Prince had even told him that she had traded places with him.
That thought made her stomach tighten. The thought that it was entirely possible no one would know she was here. She hadn’t told Tony where she was going, because she’d known he would try to stop her.
No, no one would have any idea she was locked up in a medieval castle. What if nobody ever looked for her?
No. She wouldn’t think of it like that. The way he had talked...he’d made it sound like he very much intended to be seen in public with her. Which meant her being here wouldn’t be a secret. But...
What would her father think? What would he do?
What would Tony do if he knew she was being held at some strange man’s castle? She tried to imagine Tony taking on Adam. Her boyfriend’s more...refined frame would be no match for Adam’s monstrous form.
Adam was...
She thought back to that moment when he’d stepped into the light. That hard, scarred face. His incredibly muscular body. She shivered.
Thinking of him made her heart pound, made her skin tingle. It was a strange sort of fear. One that coursed through her veins like fire.
One that felt almost not like fear at all.
She heard heavy footfalls, and realized she had left the door open, had left herself exposed. She moved quickly toward the entrance, intent on closing it tightly, on giving herself some security. But, she didn’t move quick enough.
There he was.
He was...she wasn’t sure she had ever seen a man so large. Six foot six, at least, broad and muscular. His face was even more shocking in the bright light of her bedchamber.
His dark eyes were watchful, and yet again, a window into how beautiful he might have been before he had been altered like this.
“Do I frighten you?” he asked.
“Isn’t that your intention?”
“Not specifically.”
He didn’t elaborate, though. Didn’t give her any idea of what he might be doing specifically. “So, do I go before a judge and jury? Or are you basically it?”
“This is my land. And I am the law of it.”
“In