Numb, Hannah watched Celine build the fire in her sitting room’s hearth with the pink marble surround. She listened to the pop and crackle as the dry kindling caught, and fed the bigger logs until flames danced and licked making the fire bright. But even with the fire’s warmth next to her, Hannah remained chilled.
What if this was her last day here? What if Zale sent her away?
What if he was making plans this very moment to put her on a plane?
Her stomach heaved and acid rose up in her throat. She couldn’t leave, not like this. She had to see him. Had to make him understand. Hannah left the sofa even as the thought hit her—
What was she to do to make him understand?
That she’d tricked him, yes, but she’d had good intentions …?
Or that she’d deliberately deceived him because she’d fallen in love with him at first sight?
Hannah sank back down on the sofa cushion knowing she could never confess any of that.
Knowing she could never make any of this okay.
Some things were too bad, too horrible to forgive.
When seven o’clock rolled around and Zale still hadn’t put in an appearance or sent word about dinner, Hannah ate the meal Celine brought for her on one of the silver trolley tables they sent up from the kitchen.
At nine o’clock Celine asked Hannah if she’d like help changing into her gown and robe for bed.
Hannah shook her head. “Not yet,” she answered huskily. “But there’s no need for you to stay. I can change later when I’m ready. I know where everything is.”
“You’re certain, Your Highness?”
Hannah winced at the Highness part, feeling anything but royal. “Very certain. Good night, Celine. Sleep well.”
At ten Hannah had had enough of sitting, waiting, worrying. She had to do something. Take action of some sort. Move.
Walk. Find Zale.
Find Zale. Yes, that’s what she needed to do. Immediately.
Ignoring the uniformed guards posted outside her room and throughout the palace, she went downstairs to the wing that contained his suite of offices—his library and office space, as well as adjoining rooms for secretaries and various assistants. But he wasn’t there. The rooms were dark, the doors locked.
Where else would Zale be at ten o’clock at night?
With his brother maybe?
Hannah returned to the family wing but on reaching Tinny’s suite, she discovered it dark and Mrs. Daum in her nightgown and robe as it was Mrs. Sivka’s night off.
Hannah stood on the grand staircase, confused. A footman approached her. “Is there something you’re looking for, Your Highness?” he asked.
She struggled to hold her smile. “Yes, His Majesty. I seem to have misplaced him.”
The footman appeared truly apologetic. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I have not seen him, but I can certainly ask and see if someone knows His Majesty’s whereabouts.”
“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
“And will you be in your rooms, Your Highness?”
“Yes.”
Fifteen minutes later Krek knocked on her door, arriving with the message that His Majesty hadn’t gone out, nor was he with his brother, or in his private gym, but most definitely somewhere in the palace. Just where, no one knew.
It wasn’t until Krek left that Hannah thought she knew where Zale would be. The parapet. Where they’d had lunch today. Hadn’t he said he liked to walk there when he had things on his mind or wanted to be alone?
Hannah took a soft velvet blue cloak from the dressing room and left her room to head downstairs, walking quickly through the now deserted grand rooms and corridors of the palace for the old castle keep.
The lights were dim in this part of the palace and her footsteps echoed eerily loud in the medieval hall as she searched for the right hallway that would lead to the tower stairs. But finally she found the stone arch and the circular staircase that wound to the top of the tower.
A guard was at the top of the stairs in front of the door, but he bowed and immediately opened it for her.
Hannah sucked in a quick breath at the chill in the air as she stepped into the night. It was a clear night and the lights of the city below played off the bright stars overhead.
She drew her dark blue velvet cloak closer and set off, walking along the high thick wall in search of Zale, imagining all the people who must have walked the same path in the eight hundred years since the castle was built.
She imagined the worries people must have had, the hopes and dreams, as well as the pain. In eight hundred years, politics, fashion and technology had changed, but the human heart hadn’t.
“What are you doing?”
It was Zale’s voice, coming from the dark and she jumped and turned, peering uneasily into the night. “Where are you?”
He moved away from the shadowed wall and into the open. Moonlight silhouetted his tall frame and lit his profile. “Here.”
She couldn’t read his expression but his voice was hard, his tone impatient. For a moment her courage wavered and then she gathered her strength and pushed on. “I am so sorry you had to hear any of that earlier, but it isn’t what you think. It wasn’t Alejandro. I haven’t spoken to him since Palm Beach and even then, there was nothing.” The words tumbled from her, one after the other, hoping somehow to get through to him.
He wasn’t listening, though. “I don’t care,” he said brusquely.
“But I do, which is why I had to find you.” She took a deep breath, nervously crushing the soft velvet fabric between her fingers. “I know I haven’t been easy. I know I’m not the woman you wanted. And I wish I had been. I wish I could be the right woman, the one that could make everything perfect for you—”
“I don’t need perfect,” he interrupted roughly. “But I also won’t tolerate dishonesty or deceit.”
“I’m sorry. I am. But you must know that since I arrived I’ve only wanted one thing, and that is you.”
He made a sound of disgust.
She moved toward him. “I mean it, Zale. There is no one else for me. I need you to believe me.” “Emmeline,” he said warningly.
She ignored the threat in his voice. “I hate it that you’re angry. Please forgive me—” “Em—”
She cut off his protest by rising on tiptoe to kiss him. His lips were cold, rigid beneath hers but she couldn’t give up, couldn’t not try. And so she kissed him slowly, sweetly, reaching up to clasp his face between her hands. She could feel the rasp of his beard against her palms and the gradual warming of his mouth beneath hers.
And then he was kissing her back, hard, almost aggressively. She welcomed the punishing pressure of his mouth on hers, and in an instant the kiss exploded into something hot and hungry and fierce. Zale dragged a hand into her hair and knotted the silken strands around his fingers, drawing her head back to give him better access to her mouth. He parted her lips, his tongue plundering the soft recesses of her mouth.
He kissed her until her head spun and little stars danced before her eyes, kissing her senseless, kissing her until he was all and everything.
He pushed her back, pressing her against the cold stone wall, as his hands took hers, trapping them above her head, holding her immobile. “This isn’t