“You speak of the crown as though it’s a poisoned cup,” Layna said, her words muted.

“It is in many ways. But it is mine. And I have spent too many years trying to pass it off to others.”

Yes, as far as anyone knew the crown was Xander’s. It was the expectation. What he had trained for until he was twenty-one.

The truth was another matter. But it didn’t change the reality.

It didn’t change what had to be done.

“A conscience, Xander?” she asked, using his first name.

The sound sent a shiver through him. A ripple of memory.

“I’m not so certain I’d go that far. Maybe a bit of forgotten honor bred into me. Thanks to all that royal blood,” he said, his tone dripping sarcasm. “Imagine my disappointment when I realized I hadn’t replaced it all with alcohol.”

“A disappointment for many,” she said.

She sounded more like her old self now. He’d officially destroyed her serenity. Perhaps a lightning bolt would be in the offing after all.

“I’m sure. But I had thought there might be a way of softening the blow.”

“And that is?”

“You,” he said. “I’m going to need you, Layna.”

THE CALL OF DUTY

When legacy commands they must obey!

Don’t miss any of the books in this powerful trilogy by Maisey Yates!

A ROYAL WORLD APART Desperate to escape her duty, Princess Evangelina has tried every trick in her little black book. But where everyone else has failed will her new bodyguard bend her to his will? Pity the Princess who draws such a devastating gaze!

AT HIS MAJESTY’S REQUEST

Prince Stavros Drakos has ruled his country like his business: with a will of iron! And when duty demands an heir this resolute bachelor will turn his sole focus to the task …

But will he have finally have met his match?

PRETENDER TO THE THRONE

Newly returned Prince Xander Drakos was raised to sit on the throne … But was the crown ever really his to wear? One thing is certain—this prince is determined to right the wrongs of the past and do his duty for his family and his country.

But first he’ ll need the woman he left behind at his side.

Pretender to the Throne

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAISEY YATES was an avid Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance reader before she began to write them. She still can’t quite believe she’s lucky enough to get to create her very own sexy alpha heroes and feisty heroines. Seeing her name on one of those lovely covers is a dream come true.

Maisey lives with her handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children across the street from her extremely supportive parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of Southern Oregon, USA. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch and then heading into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic urban locales.

Recent titles by the same author:

FORGED IN THE DESERT HEAT

HIS RING IS NOT ENOUGH

THE COUPLE WHO FOOLED THE WORLD

HEIR TO A DARK INHERITANCE

(Secret Heirs of Powerful Men)

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my readers.

This book exists because you asked for it.

And I’m so very glad you did!

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

“EITHER DIE OR abdicate. I’m not particular about which one you choose, but you’d better make a decision, and quickly.”

Alexander Drakos, heir to the throne of Kyonos, dissolute rake and frequent gambler, took a drag on his cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray and dropping his cards onto the velvet-covered table.

“I’m a little busy right now, Stavros,” he said into his phone.

“Doing what? Throwing away your fortune and drinking yourself into a stupor?”

“Don’t be an idiot. I don’t drink when I gamble. I don’t lose, either.” He eyed the men sitting around the table and pushed a pile of chips into the pot.

“A shame. If you did, then maybe you would have had to come home a long time ago.”

“Yeah, well, you haven’t seemed to need me.”

It was time for the cards to go down, and those who hadn’t folded earlier on in the round put their hands face up.

Xander laughed and revealed his royal flush before leaning in and sweeping the chips into his stack. “I’m cashing out,” he said, standing and putting his chips into a velvet bag. “Enjoy your evening.” He took his black suit jacket off the back of the chair and slung it over his shoulder.

He passed a casino employee and dropped the bag into the man’s hands. “I know how much is in there. Cash me out. Five percent for you, no more.”

He stopped at the bar. “Scotch. Neat.”

“I thought you didn’t drink while you gambled,” his brother said.

“I’m not gambling anymore.” The bartender pushed the glass his way and Xander knocked it back before continuing out of the building and onto one of Monaco’s crowded streets.

Strange. The alcohol barely burned anymore. It didn’t make him feel good, either. Stupid alcohol.

“Where are you?”

“Monaco. Yesterday I was in France. I think that was yesterday. It all sort of blurs together, you know?”

“You make me feel old, Xander, and I am your younger brother.”

“You sound old, Stavros.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t have the luxury of running out on my responsibilities. That was your course of action and that meant someone had to stay behind and be a grown-up.”

He remembered well what had happened the day he’d taken that luxury. Running out on his responsibilities, as Stavros called it.

You killed her. This is your fault. You’ve stolen something from this country, from me. You can never replace it. I will never forgive you.

Damn.

Now that that memory had surfaced another shot or four would be required.

“I’m sure the people will build a statue in your honor someday and it will all be worth it,” Xander said.

“I didn’t call to engage in small talk with you. I would rather strangle myself with my own necktie.”

Xander stopped walking, ignoring the woman who ran into him thanks to his sudden action. “What did you call about then?”

“Dad had a stroke. It’s very likely he’s dying. And you are the next in line for the throne. Unless you abdicate, and I mean really, finally, abdicate. Or you know, chain a concrete ball to your neck and hurl yourself into the sea, I won’t mourn you.”

“I would think you’d be happy for me to abdicate,” Xander said, ignoring the tightness in his chest. He hated death. Hated its suddenness. Its lack of discrimination.

If death had any courtesy at all, it would have come for him a long time ago. Hell, he’d been baiting it for years.

Instead, it went after the lovely and needed. The ones who actually made a difference to the world rather than those who left nothing but brimstone and scorch marks in their wake.

“I have no desire to be king, but make no mistake, I will. The issue, of course, lies in the production of heirs. As happy as Jessica and I are with our children, they are not eligible to take the throne. Adoption is good enough for us, but not sufficient per the laws of Kyonos.”

“That leaves...Eva.”

“Yes,” Stavros said. “It does. And if you hadn’t heard, she is pregnant.”

“And how does she feel? About her child being the heir?”

“She hates it. She and Mak don’t even live in Kyonos and they’d have to uproot their lives so their child could be raised in the palace, so he or she could learn their duty. It would change everything. It was never meant to be this way for her and you know it.”

Xander closed his eyes and pictured his wild, dark-haired sister. Yes, she would hate it. Because she’d always hated royal protocol. As he had.

He’d taken her mother from her. Could he rob her of the rest of her dreams, too?

“Whatever you decide, Xander, decide quickly. I would ask that you do so in two days’ time,” Stavros continued, “but if you want my opinion...”

“I don’t.” He hung the phone up and stuffed it into his pocket.

Then he walked toward the dock. And he wondered where he might find a concrete ball.

* * *

Layna Xenakos dismounted and patted her horse on the neck. Layna was sweaty and sticky, and the simple, long-sleeved shift she was wearing didn’t do very much to diffuse the heat.

But she was smiling. Riding always did that for her. Up here, the view of the sea was intoxicating, the sharp, salty ocean breeze tangling with the fresh mountain air, a stark and bright combination she’d never experienced anywhere else.

It was one of the many things she liked about living at the convent. It was secluded. Separate. And here, at least, lack of vanity was a virtue. A virtue Layna didn’t have to strive for. Vanity, in her case, would be laughable.

She pulled her head scarf out of her bag and wound her hair up, putting everything back in place. The only thing she could possibly feel any vanity about—her hair— safely covered again.

“Come on, Phineas,” she said to the horse, leading the animal up to the stables and taking care of his tack and hooves before putting him in his stall and walking back out into the sunlight.

Technically, that had probably been a poor use of meditation time, but then, she rarely felt more connected to God, or to nature, than when she was riding. So, she imagined that had to count for something.

She walked toward the main building of the convent. Dinner would be served soon and she was hungry, since her afternoon’s contemplation had been conducted on horseback.

She paused and looked over the garden wall, noticing tomatoes that were ready to be picked, and diverted herself, continuing on into the garden, humming something tunelessly as she went.

“Excuse me.”

She froze when a man’s voice pierced the relative silence. They interacted with men in the village often enough, but it was unusual for a man to come to the convent.

For a second, right before she turned, she experienced a brief moment of anxiety. Would he look at her like she was a monster? Would his face contort with horror? But before she turned fully, the fear had abated. God didn’t care about her lack of outer beauty, and neither did she.

And moments like this were only a reminder that she did have to worry about vanity having a foothold. That it was an impediment to the service of others.

That, in a nutshell, was why she was a novice and not a sister, even after ten years at the convent.

“Can I help you?” The sun was shining on her face, and she knew he could see her fully. All of her scars. The rough, damaged skin that had stolen her beauty. Beauty that had once been her most prized feature.

The sun also kept her from seeing him in detail. Which spared her from whatever his expression might be, whatever reaction he might be having to her wounds. He was tall, and he was wearing a suit. An expensive suit. Not a man from the village. A man who looked like he’d stepped out of the life she’d once lived.

A man who reminded her of string quartets, glittering ballrooms and a prince who would have been her husband. If only things had been different.

If only life hadn’t crumbled around her feet.

“Possibly, Sister. Although, I’m doubting I’m in the right place.”

“There isn’t another convent on Kyonos, so it’s unlikely.”

“I find it strange I’m at a convent at all.” He looked up, the sun backlighting him, obscuring his features. “At least, I find it strange I haven’t been hit by a lightning bolt.”

“That isn’t really how God works.”

He shrugged. “I’ll have to take your word for it. God and I haven’t spoken in years.”

“It’s never too late,” she said. Because it seemed like the right thing to say. Something the abbess would say.

“Well, as it happens, I’m not looking for God. I’m looking for a woman.”

“Nothing but Sisters here, I’m afraid,” she said.

“Well, I’m led to believe that she is that, too. I’m looking for Layna Xenakos.”

She froze, her heart seizing. “She doesn’t go by that name anymore.” And that was true, the sisters called her Magdalena. A reminder that she was changed, and that she lived for others now and not herself.

And then he started walking toward her, a vision from a dream, or a nightmare. The epitome of everything she’d spent the past fifteen years running from.

Xander Drakos. Heir to the throne of Kyonos. Legendary playboy. And the man she’d been promised to marry.

Quite literally the last man on earth she wanted to see.

“Why not?” he asked.

He didn’t recognize her. And why would he? She’d been a girl last time they’d seen each other. She’d been eighteen. And she’d been beautiful.

“Maybe because she doesn’t want people to find her,” she said, bending down to pick tomatoes off the vine, trying to ignore him, trying to ignore her heart, which was pounding so hard she was certain he could hear it.

“She’s not hard to find. Simple inquiries led me here.”

“What do you want?” she asked. “What do you want with her?”

Xander looked at the petite woman, standing in the middle of the garden. She had mud on the hem of her long, simple dress, mud on the cuffs of her sleeves, too. Her hair was covered by a scarf, the color given away only by her eyebrows, which were finely arched and dark.

One side of her face showed smooth, golden skin, high cheekbones and a full mouth that turned up slightly at the corners. But that was only one half of her face. That was where her beauty ended. Because the other side, from her neck, across her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose, was marred. Rough and twisted, her lips nearly frozen on that side, too encumbered by scar tissue to form a smile. Not that she was smiling at him. Even if she were, though, he imagined that grimace was permanent, at least on that part of her face.

This was the sort of woman he expected to find up here. Not a giggling, glittery socialite like Layna. She’d practically been a girl when they’d been engaged—only eighteen, on her way to womanhood. And beautiful beyond belief. Golden eyes and skin, and honey-colored hair that had likely been lightened via a bottle. But whether or not it was natural hadn’t mattered. It had been beautiful—shining waves of spun gold mingled with deep chocolate browns.

He’d known even then that she would make a perfect queen. What was more important was that she’d been loved by the people. And she came with wonderful connections, since her father had been one of the wealthiest government officials in Kyonos, much of his success derived from manufacturing companies based out of the country.

As far as he could tell since his return two days ago, the Xenakos family was no longer on the island. Except for Layna. And he needed to find her.

He needed her. She was the anchor to his past. His surest ally. For the press, for the people. They had loved her, they would love her again.

They would not, he feared, feel the same way about him.

“We have some old business to discuss.”

“The women who live here don’t want to discuss old business,” she said, her voice trembling. “Women come here for a new start. And old...old anything is not welcome.” She turned away from him, and started to walk into the main building. She was going to walk away from him without answering his questions.

No one walked away from him.

He started toward the garden, and blocked her path. She raised her face to him, her expression defiant, and his heart dropped into his stomach.

He hadn’t realized. Of course he hadn’t. But now that he could see her eyes, those unusual eyes, fringed with dark lashes, he knew exactly who she was.

She was Layna Xenakos, but without her beauty. Without the laughing eyes. Without the dimple in her right cheek. No, now there were only scars.

Not very much shocked him. He’d seen too much. Done too much. He and the ugly side of life were well-acquainted. And he knew well that life’s little surprises were always waiting to come and knock you in the teeth. But even with that, this wasn’t anything he’d expected. Nothing he could have anticipated.

From the time he’d left Kyonos, he’d very purposefully avoided news regarding his home country. Only recently, when his sister had married her bodyguard and when Stavros had married his matchmaker, had he read articles concerning his homeland, or the royal family.

Because he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Not then. But every time he opened the window on that part of his past, it was like scrubbing an open wound.

And it took a lot to wipe his mind and emotions free of it all again. A lot of drinking. A lot of women. Things that made him feel like a different man than the one he’d once thought he was, than the one he was trained to be. Things that created happiness. Before they created a gigantic headache.

One thing he’d never thought to look for had been the fate of the woman he’d left behind. But obviously, something had happened.

“Layna,” he said.

“No one calls me that,” she said, her tone hard, her expression flat.

“I did.”

“You do not now, your highness. You don’t have that right. Do you even have the right to a title?”

That burned. Deeper than he’d imagined it could. Because she was edging close to a pain he’d rather forget.

“I do,” he growled. “And I will continue to.” His decision was made. Whether or not it made sense to anyone, including himself, his decision was made. He had come back, and he would stay. Though, no one knew it yet.

He’d felt compelled to come and see the state of things first. And then...and then he’d felt compelled to find Layna. Because if there was one thing he knew, it was that he had grown unsuitable to the task of ruling. And if he knew anything else, it was that no one was more suited to be queen than Layna.

He had thought it unlikely she would still be unmarried. He hadn’t counted on her being both unmarried and at a convent, but he supposed it wasn’t any less likely than what he’d been doing with his time for the past fifteen years.

No, he took that back. It was unlikely. Everything about this was unlikely. Layna Xenakos, the toast of Kyonosian society, renowned beauty and bubbly hostess, shut away in a convent, wearing a drab dress. With scars that made her mostly unrecognizable.

“I should like you to go,” she said, walking toward him with purpose. He could tell she meant to go right on past him.

He stepped in front of her, blocking her way. She froze, those eyes, so familiar, like a shot straight out of the past, locked with his. “I would like for you to unhand me as well, then leave.”

“So unhospitable, Sister, and to your future ruler.”

“Hospitality is one thing, allowing a man to touch me as though he owns me is another thing entirely.” She stepped away from him, her expression fierce. “You might rule the country, you might own the land, but you do not own me, or anyone else here.”

“You belong to God now then, is that it?”

“Less worrisome than belonging to you.”

“You did once.”

She shook her head. “I never did.”

“You wore my ring.”

“But we hadn’t taken vows yet. And you left.”

“I let you keep the ring,” he said, looking down at her hands and noticing they were bare.

“An engagement ring isn’t very useful when there is no fiancé attached to it. And anyway, I’ve changed. My life has changed. I suppose you thought you could come back here and pick up where we left off.”

He had. And why not? It would be the story of the decade. The heir’s return and his reunion with the woman the nation had always been so fond of. Except, for some reason, a very large part of him had assumed she’d simply been here in Kyonos, frozen in time, waiting for his return.

A large part of him had assumed that all of Kyonos had done so. But he had been mistaken.

There were casinos now. An electric strip by the beach. His brother Stavros’s doing. The old town had been renewed. No longer simply a quarter where old men sat and played chess, it was now a place for hipsters and artists to hang out and “be inspired” by the beach and the architecture.

His sister was not the same. Not a dark-haired, mischievous girl, but a woman now. Married and expecting a child. His brother had become a man, instead of a rail-thin teenage boy.

His father was old. And dying. His father...

And Layna Xenakos had joined a convent.

“I will be straight with you,” he said. “I am not the favored son of the Drakos family.”

She nodded once but remained silent, so he continued.

“But I have decided that I will rule. For the next generation even more than for this one.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Stavros’s children cannot inherit. And that would leave my sister’s child. The changes it would require...it was never her cross to bear. I have done a great many selfish things in my life, Layna, and I intend to keep doing many of them. But what I cannot do, when it comes down to it, is condemn my brother to a life he never wanted. Or give to my sister’s child a responsibility it was never meant to take on.” He had ruined things for his siblings already. Their childhoods had passed by while he was gone. Children who’d had no mother.

Especially Eva. She’d been so young then. It was unfair. He couldn’t continue to hurt her. He wouldn’t.

“You speak of the crown as though it’s a poison cup,” she said, her words muted.

“It is in many ways. But it is mine. And I have spent too many years trying to pass it off to others.” Yes, his. As far as anyone knew, it was his. It was the expectation. What he had trained for until he was twenty-one.

The truth, was another matter. But it didn’t change Stavros’s reality. It didn’t change Eva’s.

It didn’t change what had to be done.

“A conscience, Xander?” she asked, using his first name, the sound sending a shiver through him. A ripple of memory.

“I’m not so certain I’d go that far. Maybe a bit of forgotten honor bred into me. Thanks to all that royal blood,” he said, his tone dripping sarcasm. “Imagine my disappointment when I realized I hadn’t replaced it all with alcohol.”

“A disappointment for many,” she said. She sounded more like her old self now. He’d officially destroyed her serenity. Perhaps a lightning bolt would be in the offing after all.

“I’m sure. But I had thought there might be a way of softening the blow.”

“And that is?”

“You,” he said. “I’m going to need you, Layna.”

CHAPTER TWO

LAYNA FELT LIKE the world had just inverted beneath her feet, and only the wooden gate was keeping her from folding. “Excuse me?”

“I need you.”

“I can’t imagine why you think that, but trust me, you don’t.”

“The people love you. They don’t love me, Layna.”

“The people love me?” she spat, anger rising in her, anger she always thought was dealt with. Until something came up and reminded her that it wasn’t. Something small and insignificant, like catching sight of herself in the mirror. Or burning her finger when she was cooking. In this instance, it wasn’t a small something. It was the ghost of fiancés past, talking about the people. The people who had loved her.

She’d made her peace with some of the people of Kyonos. She served them, after all, but she didn’t feel the way she once had about them—confident that she had a country filled with adoring fans.

Quite the opposite.

“Yes,” he said, his voice certain still, as though he hadn’t heard the warning in her tone.

“The people,” she said, “behaved more like animals after you left. Everything fell apart, but I assume you know that.”

“I didn’t watch the news after I left. A tiny island like Kyonos is fairly easy to ignore when you aren’t on it. And when you’re drunk headlines look a little blurry.”

“So you don’t know, then? You don’t know that everything...everything went to hell? That companies pulled up stakes, stocks went down to nothing, thousands of people lost their jobs?”

“All because I left?”

“Surely you knew some of this.”

“Some of it,” he said, his voice clipped. “But there’s a lot you can avoid when you’re only sober for a couple hours a day.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“I imagine vice isn’t so much your thing.”

“No.”

“So the economy collapsed and I’m to blame? That’s the sum of it?”

She shrugged. “You. The death of the queen. The king’s depression. It was an unhappy combination, and no one was confident in the state of things. People were angry.”

She looked at him and she tried to find a place of serenity. Of strength. What happened to her wasn’t a secret. It was in newspapers, online. It was widespread news. It was just hard to say out loud.

But you aren’t going to show him that you care. You aren’t going to be weak. It doesn’t matter. Vanity. All is vanity.

“There were riots in the streets. In front of the homes of government officials, who were blamed for the economic crisis. There were different kinds of attacks made. Several attempts at...acid attacks. We were leaving our home when a man pushed up to the front and tried to throw a cup of acid onto my father. He stumbled, though, and the man missed. I was hit instead. I don’t think I need to tell you where,” she said, attempting to smile. Smiling could be difficult enough at the best of times since half of her mouth had trouble obeying that command, but when she didn’t feel like smiling it was completely impossible.

But telling the story was easier when she imagined it was another girl. When she remembered what happened without remembering the pain.

She searched his face. She seemed to have succeeded in shocking him, which was something she hadn’t imagined would be possible.

“So, I think it’s fair to say maybe the people don’t love me as much as you think they do.” She pushed past him now, determined to put an end to this. To this strange bit of torment from the past.

He grabbed hold of her, his hand on her arm sending a rush of heat through her. She breathed in sharply, his scent hitting her, like a punch in the chest.

Her head was swimming. With glittering palaces and silk dresses. Dancing in a sparkling ballroom in a man’s warm embrace. A trip to the garden where his lips almost touched hers. Her full, beautiful lips, unencumbered by scar tissue. It would have been her first kiss. And right then she wanted to weep for the loss of it because now there would never be one.

Not on those lips. They were gone forever.

Not even on the lips she had now. Because she had vowed to never know that pleasure of life. To forego it in favor of serving others, and release her hold on her own needs. Not that it should matter. No man would ever want to kiss her anyway.

But Xander was...he was too much. He was here, right when she didn’t want him, and not fifteen years ago when she’d needed him.

Right now, she didn’t need him. She needed distance. The more Xander filled up her vision, the more faded everything else seemed to become. Xander was a look into a life that she didn’t have anymore. Couldn’t have. Didn’t want.

She just needed him gone. So that she could start to forget again.

“I suppose you should go now,” she said. “Now that you know how it is. If you’re looking for a ticket to salvation, Xander, I’m not it.”

“I’m not interested in salvation,” he said. “But I do want to do the right thing. Novel, isn’t it?”

“Well, I can’t help you. Perhaps it’s best you found your way back to the village.”

“I’m staying here tonight.”

“What?” she asked, shock lancing her.

“I spoke to the abbess, and explained the situation. I don’t want the public knowing I’m here yet, not until I’m ready. And I intend to bring you with me.”

“I see. And nothing of what I said matters?”

He shook his head, his jaw tight. “No.”

“The fact that I’m not me anymore doesn’t matter?”

He studied her face, the cold assessment saying more than any insult could. Before the attack, men...Xander...had never looked at her with ice in their eyes. There had always been heat.

“I’ll let you know in the morning.”

He turned and walked away from her, into the main building. She waited out in the yard, cursing silently and not caring that it was a sin as she stood there, hoping he was putting enough distance between them that she wouldn’t run into him again.

She would speak to the abbess tonight and in the morning, hopefully Xander would leave. And he would go back to being a memory she tried not to have.

* * *

It was early the next morning when Mother Maria-Francesca called her into her office.

“You should go with him.”

“I can’t,” Layna said, stepping back. “I don’t want to go back to that life. I want to be here.”

“He only wants you to help him get established. And as you want to serve, I think it would be good for you to serve in this way.”

“Alone. With a man.”

“If I have to concern myself with how you would behave alone with a man then perhaps this isn’t your calling.”

It wasn’t spoken in anger or in condemnation, just as a simple, quiet fact that settled in the room and made Layna feel hideously exposed. As though her motives—motives she’d often feared were less than wholly pure—were laid out before the woman she considered her spiritual superior in every way.

All that ugly fear and insecurity. Her vanity. Her anger. And old desires that never seemed to fully die. Just sitting there for anyone to see.

“It isn’t that,” Layna said. “I mean, I’m not afraid of falling into temptation.” And even less worried about Xander falling into temptation with her. “It’s just that appearances...”

“Are what men look at, my dear. But God sees the heart. So what does it matter what people might think? Of the arrangement, or of you?”

Such a simple perspective. And one of the main reasons she felt so at home here. But that didn’t mean her ease and tranquility transferred to every place she went.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” And what she wanted certainly wouldn’t come into play. She could hardly throw herself on the ground and say she didn’t want to. Of course she didn’t. True sacrifice was hard. Serving others could be hard. Neither were excuses she would accept.

“This is an opportunity to do the sort of good that most of us never get the chance to do. You have the ear of a king, in heaven and now on earth. You must use this chance.”

“I’ll...think about it. Pray...about it.” Layna blinked back tears as she walked out of the room. By the time she’d hit the hall, she was running. Out the door and to the stables.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She needed to ride.

And she did. Until the wind stung her eyes. Until she couldn’t tell if it was the burn from the air that made tears stream down her face, or the deep well of emotion that had been opened up inside of her. Threatening to pull her in and drown her.

She rode up to the top of the hill, the highest point that was easily accessible, and looked down at the waves, crashing below, against the rocks. That was how she felt. Like the waves were beating her against stone. Breaking her down.

Like life was asking too much of her. When she’d already given everything she had.

She leaned forward and buried her face in Phineas’s neck. Maria-Francesca was right. It hurt to admit it. Even in her own mind, it hurt to admit it. She’d never taken her vows. And so much of that was down to herself.

Was down to that piece of her that missed the ballrooms. That longed for a husband. For children. For the life she’d left behind.

If she stayed here, she would be safe. But she would be stuck. She would never take her vows. Because it wasn’t her calling. And she’d been too afraid to admit it for so long because she didn’t know where else to go.

You can go with him.

Not for him. For her. For closure. So that the ache she felt when she thought of Xander, and warm nights in a palace garden, would finally fade.

As it was, he’d been gone from her life with no warning. A wound that had cut swift and deep. An abandonment that had become all the more painful after her attack.

It was safe here at the convent. But it was stagnant. And she saw now, for the first time, that it shielded her, instead of healing her.

She could do this. She would do it. And when it was over...maybe something inside of her would be changed. Maybe she would find the transformation she ached for.

Maybe then...maybe then she would come back here and find more than a hiding place. Maybe then, she would be changed enough to take the final step. To take her vows.

Maybe if she finished this, she could finally find her place.

* * *

All of her belongings fit into one suitcase. When you didn’t need hair products, makeup, or anything beyond bare essentials to wear, life was pretty simple. And portable, it turned out.

She shifted, standing in the doorway, looking at Xander, who had his focus on the view of the sea. “I suppose you have an ostentatious car ready to whisk us back to civilization?”

Xander turned and smiled, his eyes assessing. She didn’t like that. Didn’t like how hard he looked at her. She preferred very much to be invisible.

“Naturally,” he said. “It’s essentially an eight-cylinder phallus.”

“Compensation for your shortcomings?”

The words escaped her lips before she even processed them. They were a stranger’s words. A stranger’s voice. One from the past.

So weird. Being with him resurrected more than just memories, it seemed to bring out old tendencies. In her life at the convent, sarcasm and smart replies were not well-received. But when she’d been one of the many socialites buzzing around Xander, wanting to catch his attention, when she’d moved in such a sparkling and sometimes cutthroat circle, it had been the best way to communicate.

They had all been like that. Pretending to be so bored by their surroundings, showing their cool with cutting remarks and brittle laughter. It struck her then that Xander had changed, too. He hadn’t joined a convent, but he lacked the air of the smug aristocrat he used to carry himself with.

He still had that lazy smile, that wicked mouth. But beneath the glitter in his eyes, she sensed something deeper now. Something dark. Something that made her stomach clench and her heart pound.

“I apologize,” she said. “That was neither gracious nor appropriate. I’m ready to go.”

He shrugged and took her suitcase from her, starting to walk across the expanse of green. She followed him, over the hill and to the lot where a red sports car was parked.

“I’m a cliché,” he said. “The playboy prince. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so much fun.”

“There’s more to life than fun.”

“But fun is a part of it,” he countered.

“Certainly.”

He deposited her suitcase in the trunk of the car. “I think you might have forgotten the fun part,” he said.

“You have that covered for the both of us, I think.” She moved her hand in a wide sweep, like she was presenting the car on a game show.

He smiled. “You have no idea.”

For some reason that smile, that statement, made her stomach tight. “I imagine I don’t.”

“Why don’t you get in the car and we can continue this while we head back down to Thysius?”

She hadn’t been to the capitol in a couple of years, and just the thought of it filled her with dread. “What exactly are we doing?”

“Get in the car.”

Fear wrapped its fingers around her throat, the desire to turn and run almost overwhelming. But she didn’t. “Not yet. Where are we staying? What are we going to do?”

“The palace,” he said. “You’re familiar with it.”

“Yes.” Much too familiar. There was a time when it would have been her home. When she would have been the queen. Memories that seemed like they belonged in another life were crowding in, trying to remind her of all the things she’d tried so hard to let go of.

“The press will think it’s all sensational.” He opened his door and got inside and she stood outside, looking at her warped reflection in the slightly rounded window.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She pulled the car door open and got inside, closing it behind her.

The leather interior smelled new. And an awful lot like money. Such a strange contrast to the old stone walls of the convent. When he turned the key and the engine roared to life she couldn’t help but think it was a very strange contrast. The pristine newness. The noise. So different than the ancient quiet she’d lived in for so long.

“This is the story that I need. You and me, collaborating on bringing the country into a new era.”

“Why do I feel a bit like you just told me together we will rule the galaxy as father and son....”

“Are you saying I’m asking you to join the Dark Side?”

“I feel like it.”

“Seems a strange reference for a nun.”

“I’m not a nun, actually. Not yet. I’m a novice.” And she had been for a near record amount of time. Speaking of movies, her life was becoming a bit “How do you solve a problem like Maria.”

“And I do watch movies,” she said. “There isn’t a lot that happens up here, and we aren’t all serious all the time.”

He pulled out of the parking area and onto the road. And she wasn’t “here” anymore, either. She was leaving. Heading into the world. Away from the convent, away from the village. Into the city. Toward people. And the press.

Panic clawed at her, a desperate beast trying to escape. But she held it in. Did she pray for serenity or was this part of her test? To do what she didn’t want, for it to be hard. To have to persevere.

Suddenly, she just felt angry. She hadn’t asked for any of this. Not for Xander to come back, not to have to be in the public eye again.

She hadn’t asked to be attacked. To have her life stolen from her. And hadn’t she taken it and turned it into something worthy? Why was she having to do this now?

Fear was doing its best to take her over completely. And its best was far too good for her taste. The farther she got from her home, the closer they drew to the capitol city, the more it grew.

She was shaking. A tremor that seemed to start from the inside and built outward until her teeth were chattering. She tightened her hands into fists, trying to will it to stop. But she didn’t have the strength.

They took so much. He took so much. Don’t let them have anything else.

That voice. That strong, quiet voice inside of her made the shaking stop. Because it was right. Too much of her pain belonged to Xander, to the people of Kyonos, and she wouldn’t give them one bit more.

She would help. Help restore the nation, get it all back on track, get Xander into a good position. But she wouldn’t give of herself. Her actions, her presence, yes. But nothing of her.

“It isn’t just you,” he said, his voice rough.

“What?”

“You aren’t the only one who will be judged.”

He was so in tune with her train of thought that she was almost afraid she’d voiced her fears out loud. “Maybe not. But I’m the only one of us who didn’t earn the judgment.”

It was true, even if it was unkind. So, okay, maybe she wasn’t holding back all of herself from Xander. She was letting him have some of her anger.

He laughed and the car engine roared louder, the cypress trees outside the window turning into an indistinct blur of green as he accelerated. “Very true. I did earn mine. And I had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.”

CHAPTER THREE

XANDER FELT LIKE he sometimes did after a night of heavy drinking. His head hurt. His stomach was unsettled. And memories pushed at the edges of his mind, threatening to crowd into the forefront.

Yes, it was just like the aftermath of being drunk. Or being hungover was a bit like coming home.

He paused the car at the gate. Stavros didn’t know he was coming. It had been a phone call he hadn’t been certain he could make. Stavros might bring up the option of hurling himself into the sea again and he might end up taking him up on it. Instead of returning to this.

He picked his phone up and dialed Stavros’s number.

“Are you at the palace?” Xander asked when he heard an answer on the other end.

“I am not.” Stavros’s response was measured.

“Where are you then?”

“Vacation. My wife wanted to go to Greece and my children are enjoying a slight change of pace. Palace life is quite boring to them, I fear.”

“I do remember the drudgery,” he said, looking up at the turrets, bright white against a sun-bleached sky.

And he was walking back into it. Back into the past. Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.

He wanted to run again in that moment. Because he could remember what had pushed him to it now, all too easily.

Blood. Death. Blame.

So much easier to run. To wrap himself in life’s pleasures and ignore the pain.

“I can’t imagine anything ever felt like drudgery to you. You never took it seriously enough.”

“Maybe not then. But I’m here now. Oh, yes, I’ve decided to come back and assume the throne, I don’t believe I mentioned that.”

There was a long pause. He looked across the car at Layna, who was sitting there looking straight ahead, as though she was pretending she couldn’t hear.

“I’m glad,” Stavros said, at last, and Xander believed him. “But if this is a game to you, then I suggest you take your ass back to wherever you came from. It’s been my life’s work to bring Kyonos back from the brink, and I’ll not have you destroy it.”

“Don’t worry, Stavros, I’ve only ever been interested in destroying myself.”

“And yet, somehow, you seem to destroy others in the process.”

Xander looked at Layna and felt an uncomfortable pang in his gut. “Not this time,” he said. “Now, call and have them admit me, please.”

“You’ll find your quarters just as you left them.”

He laughed. “I hope there’s still porn under the mattress.”

* * *

There was. Though it was hideously dated and nowhere near as scandalous as he’d imagined it to be when he was a young man only just starting down the path of debauchery.

The head of palace hospitality had ushered Layna to her room, and his father’s advisor had walked him to his own quarters. The man, as old as the king, was blustering, shocked and trying to get answers from Xander who was, unfortunately for him, not in the mood to answer questions.

Instead he shut the man out, shut the door and looked around. That was when he found the magazines, just as he left them. They used to thrill him. He remembered it well. Now they just left him with this vague feeling of the stale familiar.

But then, life in general didn’t thrill him much at this point. He’d seen too much. Done too much. He was less a carefree playboy than he was a jaded one. It was hard to show shock or emotion when one barely felt it anymore.

The glittering mystery had worn off life. Torn away the day his mother died. Forcing him to look at every ugly thing hidden behind the facade. And so he’d walked further into that part of life. The underbelly. Into all the things people wanted to revel in, but could never bring themselves to discard their morals—or their image—in order to do so.

But he’d done it. Morals didn’t mean a thing to him. Neither did his image.

It was too hard to go on living in a beautiful farce when you knew that was all it was. So he never bothered. He was honest about what he wanted. He took what he wanted. As did those around him. Whether it was gambling, drugs or sex, it was done with a transparency, an unapologetic middle finger at life.

He’d found a strange relief in it. In being around all that sin in the open. Because it was the secrets, the pretense of civility, he couldn’t handle.

And now he was back in the palace. Center stage for the show. Back in chains. Pretending to be someone he was never born to be.

He threw the magazines down onto the bed and looked around. He’d expected a few more ghosts. Or something. But he felt the same as he had before returning home.

Shame and regret were his second skin. They existed with him, over him. And so he’d spent his life reveling in the most shameful things imaginable. He would feel it either way. At least if he sought it out, it was his choice. Not something forced upon him by life.

Like standing beneath water that was too hot. Until you were scalded to the point where you didn’t feel it anymore.

In truth, it had worked to a degree.

But only to a degree.

He pushed his hands through his hair and turned toward where his suitcases had been put. He would need ties, he supposed. He didn’t wear ties. One of the things he’d cast off when he’d left Kyonos.

For now, he just had his suits and shirts he wore open-collared, but it would have to do. Just the thought of ties made it feel hard to breathe. Or maybe it was the palace in general.

Her pulled open the door to his room and stalked down the corridor, not sure where he was going. He grabbed the passing housekeeper. “Where is Layna?”

“Oh!” She looked completely shocked. “Your Highness...”

“Xander,” he said. He had no patience for station and title. “Which room is she in?”

“Ms. Xenakos is in the east wing, in the Cream Suite.”

“Great.” He started in that direction. Because there was nothing else to do. There was no one else in the palace he wanted to talk to.

He wasn’t certain why that was. He should seek out his father’s major domo. He should go and see his father, who was in the hospital. He should call his sister.

He didn’t do any of those things. He just walked through the expansive corridors, past openmouthed palace staff, and toward the Cream Suite. He got lost. Twice. It was an embarrassment, but he just kept going until he got his bearings again.

Then he pushed open the heavy wooden doors without knocking, and saw Layna, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her face snapped up, and again, he was shocked by her appearance.

It hit him like a slug to the gut. She had been so beautiful. So many beautiful things had been destroyed in that time. Either by his actions, or his very birth. The fault was bred into him, in many ways.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m here to speak to you. And to...escort you to dinner.”

It had been a long time since he’d escorted a woman to dinner. Usually he had sex with them, then they ordered room service and ate it naked. Although, on a good night, he kicked the woman out quickly, then ate room service by himself.

She blinked. “Escort me to dinner? Where?”

“Here will do. The staff has been alerted to my presence, and I have no doubt they’re eager to welcome me back with my favorite food,” he said, his tone dry. “Or at the very least they won’t let me starve.”

“I don’t suppose the heir is of much use to anyone if he’s starved to death. I also don’t suppose he’s much use to anyone if he’s absent and drunk.”

“No, it doesn’t seem that I’ve done any good during my time away,” he said, his voice tight. “But I’m not sure what I could have done here, either. I was not the king then. I am not now. I’m simply in line.”

“But you left us,” she said, a note in her voice, so sad, so fierce, he felt it in his bones.

“I left you,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did I break your heart, Layna?”

She shook her head slowly. “Not in the way you mean. I didn’t love you, Xander. I was infatuated, surely, but we didn’t truly know each other. You were very handsome, and I can’t deny being drawn to you. I’m a bit of a magpie for shiny things, you know.”

“I was shiny?”

“Yes. The shiniest prize out there.”

“Not sure how I feel about that.”

“You’ll live.” She looked down. “I loved the idea of being queen. I was raised for it, after all.”

“Yes, you were.” He didn’t have to say that he hadn’t been in love with her. That much had been obvious by his actions. When he’d left Kyonos he’d hardly spared a thought for what it would mean to Layna. He hadn’t been able to spare a thought for anything but his own pain.

“But I thought I would find someone else. Maybe Stavros.”

“You wanted to marry Stavros?”

She shrugged. “I would have. But then... Then the attack happened and I didn’t especially want to see anyone much less marry anyone.”

“So you joined a convent? Seems extreme.”

“No. I spent years struggling with depression, actually, but thank you for your rather blithe commentary on my pain.”

That shocked him into silence, which was a rare and difficult thing. He didn’t shock easily. Or, as a rule, at all.

“When did you join?”

“Ten years ago. I was tired of muddling through. And I saw a chance to make myself useful. I couldn’t fit back into the life I had been in, so it was time to make a new one.”

“And you’ve been happy?”

“Content.”

“Not happy?”

“Happiness is a temporary thing, Xander. Fleeting. An emotion like any other. I would rather exist in contentment.”

He laughed. “Funny. I don’t think I’ve been happy. Not content, either. I like to chase intense bursts of euphoria.”

“And have you managed to catch them?” she asked, her voice tight.

“Yeah,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the doorjamb, “I have. But let me tell you, the highs might be high...the comedowns are a bitch.”

“I wouldn’t know. I strive for a more simple and useful existence.”

“Do you want to dress for dinner?”

She looked down at the simple, shapeless dress she was wearing. It was blue and flowered, the sweater she had over it navy and button-down, hanging open and concealing her curves entirely, whatever those curves might look like. “What’s wrong with this?”

“Really?”

“I’m not exactly given to materialism these days, and unless you were dead set on looking at my figure,” she said dryly, as though it were the most ridiculous thing on the planet, “I fail to see why you should be disappointed. I’m clean, my clothing is serviceable. I don’t know what more you could possibly need from me. If I am to be an accessory in your attempt at being seen by your people as palatable, then I’m sure my more conservative style could be to your advantage.”

“I don’t think that was what people liked about you.”

“Perhaps not, but it can’t be helped,” she said, her voice tart.

She bowed her head, brown hair falling forward. “You used to sparkle,” he said, not sure where the words came from, or why he’d voiced them.

She looked up at him, fire burning in her golden eyes. “And I used to be beautiful. Things change.”

He pushed away from the door, and images from the past fifteen years—the casinos, the women—rolled through his mind. “Yes, they do. I’ll see you at dinner.”

He turned and walked out of the room, back down the corridor. And he got lost again on the way back to his room.

This damned palace was never going to feel like home. But he’d been a lot of places in the past fifteen years and none of them felt like home, either.

He was starting to believe it was a place that simply didn’t exist for him.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE’D MADE HER feel self-conscious about her dress. More than that, his words had sliced through her like a knife, hitting her square in a heart she’d assumed would be invulnerable to such things.

I used to be beautiful. Things change.

Yes, they certainly did.

She was realistic about the situation with her face. Fifteen years of living with it, and there was no other option. It had been hard. She’d been a woman defined by her looks, by her position in the public eye, and in one moment, it had all changed.

She was still a woman defined by her looks. But people didn’t like what they saw.

The press called her disfigured. The former beauty. The walking dead.

Going out into the town had meant a chance she’d get her photo taken, and that meant a chance she’d appear in the news the next day.

It had driven her deeper into her own darkness. Into isolation. It had been hell. And she’d had to escape.

Finding a way to a new life had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Her family hadn’t known what to do with her, they hadn’t known how to help her. Their existence had been shaken, too. Their promised position as in-laws to the royal family vanished.

In the end, they’d all moved to Greece. Her mother, father and sisters. But Layna had stayed. And what she’d weathered should have made her immune to things like Xander’s comments.

She was thirty-three. She wasn’t a child. She knew now that life wasn’t defined by dresses, balls and beauty. She did know it. So curse Xander for making her feel insecure. For making her feel like she should make an effort to look pretty when she met him for dinner.

Those things, they didn’t matter. She had changed, and at the end of the day, she liked herself better now. At least now she didn’t think the only way to live was by shopping the day away before going to a ball and pretending to be bored by all of it.

In some ways, she had more freedom now. If something made her feel joy, she had no problem showing it. Her face made it impossible for her to blend in, impossible for people to do anything but judge her. So why worry about trying to seem cool and unaffected? There was no reason at all.

“I’m glad you could make it.”

Layna paused at the entrance to the grand dining room. Another unholy mash-up between her life then and now. The expansive banquet table held no one but Xander. In the past, there would have been fifty dignitaries in attendance. And Layna would have worn her best dress. Xander would have worn a tie. They would have sat beside each other.

He was wearing a black suit jacket and a crisp white shirt open at the collar, revealing a wedge of golden skin and a dark dusting of hair.

She tried to remember if he’d had chest hair during their engagement. He certainly hadn’t been as broad or muscular. He’d been lean. Soft-faced and handsome.

His face was more angular now, his jaw more pronounced thanks to the black stubble there. And his eyes, those eyes were so much sharper.

He was a man now.

“I’m not late,” she said, walking slowly into the room. She wasn’t sure if she should walk up to where he was, at the head of the table, and sit near him or not.

“No, but I was still wondering if you would bother to join me.”

“I said I would. So I did.”

“You aren’t a soft girl, are you, Layna?”

“Have I ever been, Xander?”

A half smile curved his lips and it sent a strange, tightening sensation through her stomach. “No. Now that you mention it, you never were. Though you used to look like you might be.”

“All that blond hair dye and the pink gowns. I suspect it was deceiving.”

“Maybe to some. I remember, though, standing out on the balcony with you while you looked at the other guests.”

So did she. Making snide observations about how Lady So-and-so had worn that gown to a previous event, and how Madame Blah-blah-blah’s hair looked like a bird had chosen to nest in it.

Yes, she’d had opinions on everyone’s looks. Specifically their shortcomings. The irony of that still burned.

“Yes, well, I was young. I had a lot of growing up to do. And I’ve had a lot of years to do it.”

“And have you?” He leaned back in his chair, an arm rested on the table, an insolent expression on his face.

“Of course.”

“See, I thought you might be playing hide-and-seek.”

She stiffened and walked toward his end of the table and sat down, leaving an empty place between them. “What about you?”

“That’s certainly what I’m doing. But I’ve been found, and I am now ‘it,’ as they say. Means I have to face all this.”

“You sound about as thrilled as a man facing the gallows.”

Several servants entered with food on trays, laid out in front of them grandly, their glasses filled with wine.

“Are you permitted?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes. So long as it’s not to excess. And anyway, I haven’t taken my vows yet, remember?”

He nodded slowly. “I do. That is significant.”

“It is.” The servants uncovered the platters and began to dish portions of rice, quail and vegetables onto her plate. She was surprised by how hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten all day and she hadn’t felt it. Because she’d been too filled up with nerves to do much of anything but worry.

“Why haven’t you?”

Her face heated. “I haven’t been permitted to take them yet.”

“So it isn’t your choice?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m committed.” She hesitated to say the words because they felt false somehow. Especially after her revelation just before she left the convent. That part of her still wanted something from this life. From this palace. From Xander. She pushed her doubts away. “I was miserable before I went to the convent. I had no idea what to do with myself, no idea what I was supposed to...do with my life. Everything changed for me after.”

“After I left,” he said.

The servants cleared the room and they were left alone in the vast dining area. Layna looked out the windows, into the darkness, trying to find a point to focus on, something to anchor her to earth. Something to make her feel like the world hadn’t changed entirely in the past twelve hours.

It was night out. There were still stars. She was still breathing.

“After you left,” she said. “And then after the attack.”

“I didn’t think of you when I left,” he said.

She laughed, and she surprised herself with her own bitterness. She’d done nothing but think about him. Worry for him. Pine for him. She’d lied a bit when she’d said he hadn’t broken her heart. As much as she didn’t believe she’d truly been in love with him, she’d cared.

Her heart and her future had been bound up in him. He’d been the man she’d imagined going to bed with at night. The man she’d thought she would have children with. The man who would make her a queen.

And then he’d gone, and taken with him her dreams. Her purpose.

Followed closely by the attack that took so many other things...gaining traction again had been nearly impossible.

“I didn’t imagine you had.”

“It was easier not to. But now I want to know.”

“It was your father who told me you’d gone,” she said. “And he asked that I return the ring.”

“Did he?” Xander asked, his voice soft, deadly sounding.

“Yes. It was part of the Drakos family crown jewels, I could hardly keep it.”

“Well, I’m sure it was badly missed in that dusty cabinet they keep it all in,” he said, his tone dry.

“Are you really offended on my behalf?” she said, her throat tightening, anger pouring through her, hot and fast. “A bit hypocritical since you were the one who left.”

“My leaving had nothing to do with you.”

“No, as you said, you never thought of me again.”

“I did. I thought of you after. It’s true that when I ran, I only thought of me, and I am sorry for that. But later, I thought of you. I couldn’t have been a husband to you, not under those circumstances.”

She took a bite of the rice and the rich flavor knocked out some of her anger. She did not eat food like this at the convent. Even considering the unfortunate nature of the conversation, the food was amazing. As was the wine.

She let silence fall between them while she enjoyed her meal. She made a mistake when she looked up, and her eyes caught his. And she couldn’t look away. Everything in her went taut, her breath pausing, her heart slamming forward. All she could do was stare at him.

He was so familiar. A face she tried never to remember. That perfect golden skin, the dark brown eyes fringed with thick black lashes. Lips that promised heaven when he smiled, and made a woman imagine he could take her to a beautiful sort of hell with a kiss.

All of that was so familiar.

But the lines around his mouth were harder now. Marks by his eyes showed the ghosts of his smiles.

He had been beautiful at twenty-one. At thirty-six he was no less stunning.

Time had not been quite so kind to her. And anyway, she had absolutely no business looking at him like she was. No business memorizing the new lines on his face. It was like she’d been in a coma, and she was slowly waking up. Slowly seeing new things. Or, remembering old things. She didn’t like it. She was starting to remember why she’d worked so hard to forget.

“I wasn’t meant to be your wife,” she said, looking back at her food.

“You don’t think?”

“Clearly not. I found a new calling. The place I’m supposed to be.”

“You think you’re better off hiding in the mountains than you are as the queen of Kyonos?”

She’d always thought she would be a good queen. But with a girl’s insight. She’d loved the idea of the status and power. That everyone else was so jealous of her for having caught Xander’s eye, or, more honestly, the eye of his parents.

Now she understood it had been her father’s merit more than her own that had earned her the consideration. At the time it hadn’t mattered. She’d only thought how beautiful she would look wearing the crown.

But now, ironically, that the position was no longer on the table, she saw all the good she could do. All that needed to be done to fix her country.

Prince Stavros had done an admirable job with it, more than admirable, but there were still things to be done on a humanitarian level, and as someone who had done nothing but serve for the past ten years she was well familiar with what tasks needed to be tackled head-on.

Nice that she knew all that. Now that there was nothing she could do about it. That would be for the woman who married Xander. And that woman would not be her.

A twinge of anger hit her in the chest, burned like a pinprick and spread outward. This had been her future. And she was sitting in it now, not a part of it.

She looked back up and saw him watching her, and it hit her then. What she’d lost. They would have been married for nearly fifteen years by now. There would have been children. She wouldn’t be scarred.

It did no good to dwell on the past. It did no good to turn over what-ifs. But it was so hard when your biggest what-if was sitting across from you eating dinner, like he might have done if you’d married him way back then.

Yes, it was a whole lot harder not to what-if in that situation. Easier when cloistered in a convent, away from any part of the life she’d once lived. Impossible here and now.

“I wasn’t meant to be queen,” she said, her tone strong, a sharp contrast to what she actually felt.

“Perhaps I wasn’t meant to leave.” His words burned through her. Because he had left. It didn’t matter what should have happened, only what had.

“Why bother turning it over, Xander? It’s what happened. You did leave. And things have changed. We didn’t freeze in time here while you were gone like I’m sure you imagined we did. We went on. Things have happened, things that can’t be undone. I would have been...a silly and selfish princess back then anyway. And now...now it just couldn’t be.”

“It’s hard not to turn it over here, though, isn’t it?”

She put her palms flat on the table, her heart pounding, blood rushing through her ears. “Why did you come back? Really. I mean...what changed? You left, and no one ever thought you would be back, but here you are now, and you’re dragging me into it, so I want to know why.”

He shook his head, didn’t say anything. He only stared out the windows into the darkness outside.

“Answer me, Xander,” she said. “I have a right to know why you’ve crashed back into my life.”

“Because there was nothing out there,” he said. “No answers. It fixed nothing. If Stavros wanted the throne, if it didn’t throw Eva’s future into disarray, I would never have come back. But I don’t do any good by being gone. I’m not sure I’ll do much good being back. I’m not sure I’m even capable of doing good. I think that where I’m concerned, all of the bad might run too deep.” When he said it like that, she believed he might be right. “But I came back, because if I didn’t it would stay broken. And now that I’m here, it might all remain that way, but at least it’s my broken mess and not theirs.”

“You love them, don’t you?”

“I don’t love easily,” he said, his voice rough. “But I would die for them.”

“That’s something.”

“A sliver of humanity?”

“Yes,” she said, taking a deep breath. “What am I doing here, Xander? You’ve given me a reason. The press. But I have to tell you, I’m not sure I believe it.”

“It’s part of it,” he said.

“I need all of it.”

“Do you want an honest answer?”

“If you know how to give one.”

“I don’t lie, Layna, it’s the one sin I don’t indulge in. Do you know why?”

She put her fork down. “I’m on the edge of my seat.”

“Because people lie to protect themselves. To make people like them. To hide what they’ve done because they’re ashamed. I have no shame, and I don’t care if people like me. My sins are public property.”

“Then give me an honest answer.”

“I thought I might marry you,” he said, his tone conversational, light. As though he’d mentioned that it was a clear night and the food was lovely, and not that he’d been considering asking her to be his wife.

“You did?” she asked, her lips numb, her entire body numb suddenly, from fingertips on down.

A wife. Xander’s wife.

It was impossible. And she didn’t want it anyway. Her life was in the convent, it was serving people and living simply. It was shunning the frivolous things in the world. Denying passions and finding contentment in the small things. In the things that were worthy.

It was this palace. This man. They washed those old memories in brilliant colors, where for years they’d always been faded.

And now she could see again, so clearly, how lovely it had all been. She could taste the excitement of it. That secret ache bloomed, flourished, let her dream. Let her see the glitter, the sparkle and what might be for one beautiful moment.

But it only lasted for a moment. Until a root of bitter anger rose up and choked out the bloom.

“Obviously,” he continued, “that can’t happen now.”

She felt the sting of his words like a slap. “Obviously not. What would people think if you took me as a wife?”

“I only meant because you’ve chosen to forego marriage by joining a convent. Had I found you anywhere else I would have stuck to my original plan and proposed on the spot.”

She bit down hard and tried not to say what she was thinking. Tried. And failed. “I would have told you to go to hell. On the spot,” she said.

“You haven’t changed as much as I initially thought.”

She stood up. “That’s where you’re wrong. Everything’s changed. I’ve changed, my whole life has changed.”

He stood and started to walk toward her, dark eyes pinned to hers. “No, Layna, see I don’t think you’ve changed as much as you think you have. When I look at you, I can so easily see the girl you were. You were blond then.”

“Because I used to dye it.”

“I suspected. But it did suit you.”

“It’s pointless vanity,” she said, waving her hand.

“How is it pointless if you enjoy it? It can still be vanity, but it doesn’t mean it’s pointless.”

“Yes it does. But make your point and be done.”

He took another step toward her and her heart climbed up into her throat and lodged itself there. “You had fire. Beneath that airhead, mean-girl surface, you had more to you than anyone guessed. You were a little flame ready to become a wild fire.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve changed now and...”

“No. You’re still doing it. You’re still hiding who you are beneath something else. Beneath a shield. The flame is still there, you just want to hide it. Up in the mountains.”

“It’s not my fire I’m hiding. It’s my face. And if you want to pretend it doesn’t matter then I’m going to tell you right now, Xander, no matter what you said before, you are a liar.” Rage rattled through her, fueled her, spurred her on.

It hit her, as the force of it threatened to consume her, that of all the emotions she’d felt since her attack, she’d never been angry. Sad. Depressed. Lonely. She’d hit rock-bottom with those. Then she’d found a sort of steady tranquility in her existence at the convent.

But she’d never been angry.

Just now she was so furious she thought she might break apart with it. “Look at me,” she said, “really look. Can you imagine me on newspapers and magazines? The face for our country? Can you imagine me trying to go to parties as if nothing had happened? Trying to continue on as if I was the same Layna as before? That’s why I went to the convent. Because there it didn’t matter if my face was different. There it’s practically a virtue and here...here it’s just not. I’m ugly, Xander, and whether or not I accept myself there will always be people who want to point it out. I’ve never seen a reason for putting myself through it.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets, his eyes hard. “It will be commented on. I won’t lie about that. But do you think people will resent your scars or my abandonment more?”

“Don’t tell me you’re honestly still considering me as queen material.”

“I was very interested by the fact that you haven’t yet taken your vows.”

“My intent remains the same, whether or not I’ve taken final vows.”

He reached out, took a piece of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. She froze. She hadn’t been touched by a man in longer than she could remember. Male doctors were the last ones, she was certain. And then she hadn’t registered the touch in any significant way.

But Xander had never been easy to ignore. Now, with his hand on her hair, just her hair, a flood of memories assaulted her. The catalog of moments when Xander had touched her in the past opened, forcing her to remember.

His hand over hers, or low on her back. An arm around her waist. His warm palm on her cheek as his lips nearly brushed hers.

If they had married then, they would have kissed thousands of times by now. But as it was, they had never kissed once.

“But nothing is final,” he said.

He lowered his hand, releasing her hair, and sanity flooded in a wave. She stepped back, blinking, that fresh and newfound anger coming to her rescue.

“Yes, Xander, everything is final. I have made my decision, like you made yours. I’ll help you in any way I can, but don’t insult me by pretending, even for a second, that you would consider making me your wife. Don’t consider that I might allow it.”

She turned and walked out of the room and when she hit the halls she suddenly realized that she was gasping for breath. She put a hand on her chest and blinked hard, fighting tears, fighting panic.

Xander was reaching into places inside of her no one had touched in so long, she’d forgotten they were there. Longings and regrets she’d buried beneath a mountain of all that lovely contentment she’d learned to cultivate from the sisters at the convent.

Xander made her restless. This palace made her remember. It made her want things....

She shook her head. No. She wouldn’t let this happen. She wouldn’t be shaken. She would help him. If only to help her country, her people.

But she wouldn’t forget who she’d become. Who Xander’s actions had forced her to become.

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