Reza—as the other six hundred names he’d rattled off, to say nothing of the title he’d claimed, were apparently not fit for daily use—blinked in obvious affront.
“Allow me to assure you that I have not, nor will I ever, participate in a show of any kind.” He managed to bite out his words as if they offended him. As if the very taste of them in his mouth was an assault. Then he adjusted the cuffs of his coat in short jerks of indignant punctuation. “I am a king, not a circus animal.”
Maggy found that despite never having seen a king in all her life, and having entertained about as many thoughts about the behavior of monarchs as she did about that of unicorns and/or dragons, she had no trouble whatsoever believing this man of stone and consequence was one.
“I’ll make a note that you’re not a sad, dancing elephant.” Somehow, she kept from rolling her eyes in the back of her head. “Good to know.”
“I suggest you look it up,” he said, very much as if she hadn’t spoken. Maybe for him, she really hadn’t. It was entirely possible that a king simply wasn’t aware that anyone else spoke at all. He nodded toward her hip, and the phone she’d stashed in her back pocket. “Pull up an image of the king of the Constantines on your mobile. See what appears. I think you’ll find that he resembles me rather closely.”
And Maggy opted not to explore why the certainty in his voice shivered through her, kicking up a commotion in its wake.
“It doesn’t matter what comes up,” she told him, careful to keep that shivering thing out of her voice. “I don’t care if you’re the king of the world. I still need to clean this floor and lock up the shop, and that means you and all your muscly clowns need to go.” When he only stared at her in cool outrage, she might have smirked a little. Just a little. “You’re the one who mentioned a circus. I’m only adding to the visual.”
“What an extraordinary reaction.” His gray eyes were fathomless, yet still kicked up entirely too many tornadoes inside of her. And his voice did strange things to her, too. It seemed to echo around inside of her. As if he was inside of her—something she was better off not imagining, thank you. “I have told you that it is highly probable you are a member of one of Europe’s grand, historic royal families. That you are very likely a princess and will one day become a queen. My queen, no less. And your concern is the floor of a coffee shop?”
“My concern is the lunatic in the coffee shop with me, actually,” she managed to say, fighting to keep her voice even. Because she knew, somehow, that if she allowed herself to feel the reaction swelling inside of her, it might take her right back down to her knees. And not by choice this time. “I want you to go.”
He studied her for what seemed like a very long time. So long she had to rail at herself to keep from fidgeting. From showing him any weakness whatsoever—or any hint that she was taking him seriously when she wasn’t. She couldn’t. Princesses? Queens? That was nothing but little girl dreams and wishful thinking.
If there was one thing Maggy knew entirely too much about, it was reality. Cold, hard, grim, and often heartbreaking reality. There was no point whining about it, as she knew very well. It was what it was.
“Very well,” he said after what seemed like a thousand years, and was that...disappointment that washed through her? Had she wanted him to keep pushing? She couldn’t have. Of course she couldn’t have. “If you feel you must continue with these unpleasant tasks of yours, then by all means.” This time he waved a hand, and it was even more peremptory and obnoxious than his previous partially raised finger. It made her blood feel so hot and so bright in her veins that she flushed with it. With temper. And she was certain he saw it. “Don’t for one moment allow your bright future to interfere with your menial present circumstances.”
Maggy had wanted to hit quite a few people in her time. That was what happened when a girl found herself on her own and entirely alone in the world at eighteen, when the foster care system had spit her out. She’d found herself surrounded by bad people and worse situations in places where violence was the only reasonable response to pretty much anything. Still, she’d scraped by and she’d survived—because what was the alternative?
But she wanted to hit this man more. She even did the math as she eyed him there in front of her. His four goons would likely object to any manhandling of their charge, but she was closer to him than they were. She was sure she could land a satisfying punch before they flattened her. She was equally sure it would be worth the tackle.
She didn’t know how she kept her hands to herself.
“I appreciate your permission to do my job.” Maggy was not, in fact, anything remotely like appreciative. “Here’s a newsflash. Even if you are a king, you aren’t my king.”
She watched, fascinated despite herself, as a muscle worked in his granite-hewn jaw, indicating the impossible. That this man of stone and regal airs was having his own set of reactions to her.
To her.
There was absolutely no reason she should feel that as some kind of victory when she didn’t want to win this. Whatever this was.
“You will dine with me tonight,” he told her, in the manner of one who was used to issuing proclamations and, more, having them instantly obeyed.
Maggy let out a short, hard laugh. “Um, no. I won’t be doing that. Tonight or ever.”
Reza only gazed back at her, and she told herself she was imagining that little suggestion of heat in his stern gaze. That she was a crazy woman for imagining it. That he was a king, for God’s sake. That she shouldn’t care either way, because it was her own, personal law that she didn’t do complications of any kind.
And there was no pretending a man who pranced around calling himself a king in a coffee shop wasn’t one giant complication, no matter how harshly compelling that fierce face of his was.
“Then I am happy to remain where I am,” he told her after another long, tense moment.
“Until what?” She shook her head, then shoved a chunk of her hair back behind her ear. “You convince me that this insane story is true? I already know it isn’t. Princesses don’t go missing and end up in foster care no matter how many little girls wish they did. You’re wasting your time.”
“You cannot possibly know that until you take a blood test.”
“Oh, a blood test? Is that all?” Maggy bared her teeth at him. “You can expect that to happen over my dead body.”
He smiled then. And it was devastating. It...did things to his face. Made it something far closer to beautiful than any man so hard and uncompromising should ever look. It should have been impossible. It was certainly unfair. Maggy’s mouth went dry. Parts of her body she’d stopped paying any attention to outside of their sheer biological functions prickled to uncomfortable awareness.
Oh, no, she thought.
“Let me tell you how this will go,” Reza said softly, as if he knew exactly what was happening to her. As if he was pleased it was. “You will give me a blood sample. You will sit and eat a decent dinner with me tonight not only because I wish to get to know you, but because you look as if you haven’t eaten well in some time. If ever. The blood test will confirm what I already know, which is that you are Her Royal Highness Magdalena of Santa Domini. At which point, you will leave this menial existence that is beneath you in more ways than it is possible to number and is an insult to the blood in your veins. And then, among other things, you will assume your rightful position in your brother’s court and in the line of ascension to his throne.”
She’d opened her mouth to protest his snide reference to her menial life, not to mention his idea that she was some wayward waif who’d never eaten a meal, but got caught on that last bit.
Maggy’s heart