Tabitha gritted her teeth, reckless heat pouring through her veins. “How dare you?” She advanced on Kairos and he wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close. “Don’t.”

Her protest was cut off by the press of his mouth against hers, hot and uncompromising, his tongue staking a claim as he took her deep, hard. She had no idea where these kinds of kisses had come from. Who this man was. This man who would spirit her away to a private island. Who kissed her like he was a dying man and her lips held his salvation.

It stood out in such sharp contrast to that kiss on their wedding night. The first time they had been alone in a bedroom like this. His kiss had been gentle then. Cool. She had waited for this moment. For heat to explode between them. Because she felt it. It had been there from the moment she first walked into his office, no matter how hard she might try to deny it.

Princes of Petras

Wed by royal command!

In November… Playboy Prince Andres of Petras is bound by royal duty and must finally pay the price for his past sins. He has to marry the lost Princess of Tirimia—Zara! From fiery passion to sinfully seductive kisses, is this one Christmas gift the Prince will be keeping … for ever?

In January 2016… King Kairos proves that underneath his calm and collected mask is a proud, passionate and powerful ruler who won’t let anything get in the way of his responsibility. Even the wife who so clearly loathes him! But, on the brink of breaking, Tabitha has some shocking news. Now the King must claim his Queen once again … and his new heir!

Don’t miss this sensational new duet from Maisey Yates—available only from Mills & Boon Modern Romance!

The Queen’s New Year Secret

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAISEY YATES is a USA TODAY bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking, and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website: maiseyyates.com.

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To my husband.

This has been the best ten years of my life, and I know the next ten will be even better.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Princes of Petras

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

KAIROS LOOKED ACROSS the bar at the redheaded woman sitting there, her delicate fingertips stroking the stem of her glass, her eyes fixed on him. Her crimson lips were turned up into a smile, the invitation, silent but clear, ringing in the space between them.

She was beautiful. All lush curves and heat. She exuded desire, sexuality. It shimmered over her skin. There was nothing subtle or refined about her. Nothing coy or demure.

He could have her if he wanted. This was the most exclusive and private New Year’s Eve party in Petras, and all of the guests would have been vetted carefully. There was no press in attendance. No secret gold diggers looking for a payout. He could have her, with no consequences.

She wouldn’t care about the wedding ring on his finger.

He wasn’t entirely certain why he cared about it anymore. He had no real relationship with his wife. She hadn’t even touched him in weeks. Had barely spoken to him in months. Since Christmas she had been particularly cold. It was partly his fault, as she had overheard him saying unflattering things about the state of their union to his younger brother. But it hadn’t been anything that wasn’t true. Hadn’t been anything she didn’t already know.

Life would be simpler if he could have the redhead for a night, and just forget about reality. But he didn’t want her. The simple, stark truth was as clear as it was inconvenient.

His body wanted nothing to do with voluptuous redheads sitting in bars. It wanted nothing but the cool, blond beauty of his wife, Tabitha. She was the only thing that stoked his fantasies, the one who ignited his imagination.

Too bad the feeling wasn’t mutual.

The redhead stood, abandoning her drink, crossing the room and sauntering over to where he sat. The corner of her mouth quirked upward. “You’re alone tonight, King Kairos?”

Every night. “The queen wasn’t in the mood to go out.”

Those lips pursed into a pout. “Is that right?”

“Yes.” A lie. He hadn’t told Tabitha where he was going tonight. In part, he supposed, to needle her. There was a time when they would have been sure to put in a public appearance during every holiday. When they would have put on a show for the press, and possibly for each other.

Tonight, he hadn’t bothered to pretend.

The redhead leaned in, the cloud of perfume breaking through his thoughts and drawing him back to the moment, her lips brushing against his ear, his shirt collar. “I happen to know that our host has a room reserved for guests who would like a bit more...privacy.”

There was no ambiguity in that statement.

“You are very bold,” he said. “You know I’m married.”

“True. But there are rumors about that. As I’m sure you know.”

Her words stuck deep into his gut. If the cracks were evident to the public now...

“I have better things to do than read tabloid reports about my life.” He lived his tragic marriage. He didn’t want to read about it.

She laughed, a husky sound. “I don’t. If you want a break from reality, I’m available for a few hours. We can bring in the New Year right.”

A break from reality. He was tempted. Not physically. But in a strange, dark way that made his stomach twist, made him feel sick. It was down deep in the part of him that wanted to shake Tabitha’s foundation. To make her see him differently. Not as a fixture in her life she could ignore if she wished. But as a man. A man who did not always behave. Who did not always keep his promises. Who would, perhaps, not always be there.

To see if she would react at all. If she cared.

Or if their relationship had well and truly died.

But he did nothing. Nothing but stand, moving away from the woman, and the temptation she represented. “Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

She lifted her shoulder. “It could’ve been fun.”

Fun. He wasn’t sure he had any idea what that was. There was certainly nothing fun about his line of thinking. “I don’t have fun. I have duty.”

It wasn’t even midnight, and he was ready to leave. Normally, his brother, Andres, would be here, more than willing to swoop in and collect the dejected woman, or any other women who might be hanging around eagerly searching for a royally good time.

But now, Andres was married. More than that, Andres was in love. Something Kairos had never thought he’d see. His younger brother completely and totally bound to one woman.

Kairos’s stomach burned as though there was acid resting in it. He walked out of the club, down the stairs and onto the street where his car was waiting. He got inside and ordered the driver to take him back to the palace. The car wound through the narrow streets, heading out of the city and back toward his home.

Another year come and gone. Another year with no heir. That was why he had commanded Andres to get married in the first place. He was facing the very real possibility that he and Tabitha would not be the ones producing the successor to the throne of Petras.

The duty might well fall to Andres and his wife, Zara.

Five years and he still had no child. Five years and all he had was a wife who might as well be standing on the other side of a chasm, even when they were in the same room.

The car pulled through the massive gates that stood before the palace, then slowly toward the main entrance. Kairos got out without waiting for the driver to assist him, storming inside and up the stairs. He could go to Tabitha’s room. Could tell her it was time they tried again for a child. But he wasn’t certain he could take her icy reception one more time.

When he was inside her body, pressed against her, skin to skin, it still felt as if she was a thousand miles away from him.

No, he had no desire to engage in that farce, even if it would end in an orgasm. For him.

He didn’t want to go to bed yet either.

He made his way up the curved staircase and headed down the hall toward his office. He would have a drink. Alone.

He pushed open the door and paused. The lights were off, and there was a fire going, casting an orange glow on the surroundings. Sitting in the wingback chair opposite his desk was his wife, her long, slender legs bared by her rather demure dress, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Her expression was neutral, unchanging even as he walked deeper into the room. She didn’t smile. She gave almost no indication that she noticed his presence at all. Nothing beyond a slight flicker in her blue eyes, the vague arch of her brow.

The feeling that had been missing when the other woman had approached him tonight licked along his veins like a flame in the hearth. As though it had escaped, wrapping fiery tendrils around him.

He gritted his teeth against the sensation. Against the desire that burned out of his control.

“Were you out?” she asked, her tone as brittle as glass. Cold. Chilling the ardor that had momentarily overtaken him.

He moved toward the bar that was on the far wall. “Was I here, Tabitha?”

“I hardly scoured the castle for you. You may well have been holed up in one of the many stony nooks.”

“If I was not here, or in my room, then it is safe to say that I was out.” He picked up the bottle of scotch—already used this evening by his lovely intruder, clearly—and tipped it to the side, measuring a generous amount of liquid into his glass.

“Is that dry tone really necessary? If you were out, just say that you were out, Kairos.” She paused then, her keen eyes landing at his neck. “What exactly were you doing?” Her tone had morphed from glass to iron in a matter of syllables.

“I was at a party. It is New Year’s Eve. That is what people customarily do on the holiday.”

“Since when do you go to parties?”

“All too frequently, and you typically accompany me.”

“I meant, when do you go to parties for recreational reasons?” She looked down, her jaw clenched tight. “You didn’t invite me.”

“This wasn’t official palace business.”

“That is apparent,” she said, standing suddenly, reaching out toward his desk and taking hold of the stack of papers that had been resting there, unnoticed by him until that moment.

“Are you angry because you wanted to come?” He had well and truly given up trying to figure his wife out.

“No,” she said, “but I am slightly perturbed by the red smudge on your collar.”

Were it not for years of practice controlling his responses to things, he might have cursed. He had not thought about the crimson lipstick being left behind after that brief contact. Instead, he stood, keeping his expression blank. “It’s nothing.”

“I’m sure it is,” she said, her words steady, even. “Even if it isn’t nothing it makes no difference to me.”

He was surprised by the impact of that statement. By how hard it hit. He had known she felt that way, he had. It was evident in her every interaction with him. In the way she turned away when he tried to kiss her. In the way she shrank back when he approached her. She was indifferent to him at best, disgusted by him at worst. Of course she wouldn’t care if he found solace in the arms of another woman. So long as he wasn’t finding it with her. He imagined the only reason she had put up with his touch for so long was out of the hope for children. A hope that faded with each and every day.

She must have given up completely now. A fact he should have realized when she hadn’t come to his bed at all in months.

He decided against defending himself. If she didn’t care, there was no point discussing it.

“What exactly are you doing here?” he asked. “Drinking my scotch?”

“I have had a bit,” she said, wobbling slightly. A break in her composure. Witnessing such a thing was a rarity. Tabitha was a study in control. She always had been. Even back all those years ago when she’d been nothing more than his PA.

“All you have to do is ask the servants and you can have alcohol sent to your own room.”

“My own room.” She laughed, an unsteady sound. “Sure. Next time I’ll do that. But I was actually waiting for you.”

“You could have called me.”

“Would you have answered the phone?”

The only honest answer to that question wasn’t a good one. The truth was, he often ignored phone calls from her when he was busy. They didn’t have personal conversations. She never called just to hear his voice, or anything like that. As a result, ignoring her didn’t seem all that personal. “I don’t know.”

She forced a small smile. “You probably wouldn’t have.”

“Well, I’m here now. What was so important that we had to deal with it near midnight?”

She thrust the papers out, in his direction. For the first time in months, he saw emotion burning from his wife’s eyes. “Legal documents.”

He looked down at the stack of papers she was holding out, then back at her, unable to process why the hell she would be handing him paper at midnight on New Year’s Eve. “Why?”

“Because. I want a divorce.”

CHAPTER TWO

TABITHA FELT AS if she was speaking to Kairos from somewhere deep underwater. She imagined the alcohol had helped dull the sensation of the entire evening. From the moment she’d first walked into his empty office with papers in hand, everything had felt slightly surreal. After an hour of waiting for her husband to appear, she had opened a bottle of his favorite scotch and decided to help herself. That had continued as the hours passed.

Then, he had finally shown up, near midnight, an obvious lipstick stain on his collar.

In that moment, the alcohol had been necessary. Without it the impact of that particular blow might have been fatal. She wasn’t a fool. She was, after all, in her husband’s office, demanding a divorce. She knew their marriage was broken. Irrevocably. He had wanted one thing from her, one thing only, and she had failed to accomplish that task.

The farce was over. There was no point in continuing on.

But she had not expected this. Evidence that her ice block of a husband—dutiful, solicitous and never passionate—had been with someone else. Recreationally. For pleasure.

Do you honestly think he waits around when you refuse to admit him into your bed?

Her running inner monologue had teeth tonight. It was also right. She had thought that. She had imagined that he was as cold to everyone as he was to her. She had thought that he was—at the very least—a man of honor. She had been prepared to liberate him from her, to liberate them both. She hadn’t truly believed that he was off playing the part of a single man while still bonded to her by matrimony.

As if your marriage is anything like a real one. As if those vows apply.

“You want a divorce?” The sharpness in his tone penetrated the softness surrounding her and brought her sharply into the moment.

“You heard me the first time.”

“I do not understand,” he said, his jaw clenched tight, his dark eyes blazing with the kind of emotion she had never seen before.

“You’re not a stupid man, Kairos,” she said, alcohol making her bold. “I think you know exactly what the words I want a divorce mean.”

“I do not understand what they mean coming from your lips, Tabitha,” he said, his tone uncompromising. “You are my wife. You made promises to me. We have an agreement.”

“Yes,” she said, “we do. It is not to love, honor and cherish, but rather to present a united front for the country and to produce children. I have been unable to conceive a child, as you are well aware. Why continue on? We aren’t happy.”

“Since when does happiness come into it?”

Her heart squeezed tight, as though he had grabbed it in his large palm and wrapped his fingers around it. “Some people would say happiness has quite a bit to do with life.”

“Those people are not the king and queen of a country. You have no right to leave me,” he said, his teeth locked together, his dark eyes burning.

In that moment, it was as though the flame in his eyes met the alcohol in her system. And she exploded.

She reached down, grabbed the tumbler of scotch she’d been drinking from, picked it up and threw it as hard as she could. It missed Kairos neatly, smashing against the wall behind him and leaving a splatter of alcohol and glass behind.

He moved to the side, his expression fierce. “What the hell are you doing?”

She didn’t know. She had never done anything like this in her life. She despised this kind of behavior. This emotional, passionate, ridiculous behavior. She prized control. That was one of the many reasons she had agreed to marry Kairos. To avoid things like this. She respected him, and—once upon a time—had even enjoyed his company. Their connection had been based on mutual respect, and yes, on his need to find a wife quickly. This kind of thing, shouting and throwing things, had never come into play.

But it was out of her control now. She was out of control.

“Oh,” she said, feigning surprise, “you noticed me.”

Before she could react, he closed the distance between them, wrapping his hand around her wrists and propelling them both backward until her butt connected with the edge of his desk. Rage radiated from him, his face, normally schooled into stone, telegraphing more emotion than she’d seen from him in the past five years.

“You have my attention. So, if that is the aim of this temper tantrum, consider it accomplished.”

“This is not a tantrum,” she said, her voice vibrating with anger. “This is the result of preparation, careful planning and no small amount of subterfuge. I went to a lawyer. These papers are real. These are not empty threats. This is my decision and it is made.”

He reached up, grabbing hold of her chin, holding her face steady and forcing her to meet his gaze. “I was not aware that you had the authority to make decisions concerning both of us.”

“That’s the beauty of divorce, Kairos. It is an uncoupling. That means I’m free to make independent decisions now.”

He reached behind her, gripping her hair, drawing her head back. “Forgive me, my queen, I was not aware that your position in this country superseded my own.”

He had never spoken to her this way, had never before touched her like this. She should be angry. Enraged. What she experienced was a different kind of heat altogether. In the very beginning, the promise of this kind of flame had shimmered between them, but over the years it had cooled. To the point that she had been convinced that it had died out. Whatever potential there was had been doused entirely by years of indifference and distance. She had been wrong.

“I was not aware that you had become a dictator.”

“Is it not my home? Are you not my wife?”

“Am I? In any meaningful way?” She reached up, grabbing hold of his shirt collar, her thumb resting against the red smudge that marred the white fabric. “This says differently.” She pulled hard, the action popping the top button on the shirt, loosening the knot on his gray tie.

His lip curled, his hold on her tightening. “Is that what you think of me? You think that I was with another woman?”

“The evidence suggests her lips touched your shirt. I would assume they touched other places on your body.”

“You think I am a man who would break his vows?” he asked, his voice a growl.

“How would I know? I don’t even know you.”

“You don’t know me?” His voice was soft, and all the deadlier for it. “I am your husband.”

“Are you? Forgive me. I thought you were simply my stud horse.”

He released his hold on her hair, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her tightly against his body. He was hot. Hard. Everywhere. The realization caused her heart rate to go into overdrive, her eyes flying wide as she searched his gaze. He was aroused by this. By her. Her circumspect husband who barely made a ripple in the bedspread when he made love to her was aroused by this.

“And how can that be, agape? When you have not let me near you in almost three months?”

“Was it I who didn’t let you near me, or was it you who didn’t bother to come to me?”

“A man gets tired of bedding a martyr.”

“A woman begins to feel the same,” she said, clinging to her anger, trying to ensure that it outstripped the desire that was wrapping itself around her throat, choking her, taking control of her.

He rolled his hips forward, pressing his hardened length against her hip. “Do I feel like a martyr to you?”

“I’ve always imagined it’s the bright future of Petras glowing in your mind’s eye that allows you to get it up when you’re with me.”

He curled the hand pressed onto her back into a fist, taking a handful of material into his grasp and tugging hard. She heard the fabric tear as cool air blew across her now bare back. “Yes,” he said, the word dripping with poison. “I am so put upon. Clearly, the sight of your naked body does nothing for me.” He pulled her dress down, baring her breasts, covered only by the thin, transparent lace of her bra. “Such a hardship.”

He leaned in, tilting his head, pressing a hot, openmouthed kiss to her neck, the contact so shocking, so unlike anything that had ever passed between them before, she couldn’t hold back the sharp cry of shock and pleasure.

She planted her hands on his shoulders, pushing him away. “Who else have you done this with tonight? The woman with the red lipstick? Did you have her like this too? Am I benefiting from the education that she gave you?” He said nothing, he only looked at her, his dark eyes glittering. Her stomach twisted, pain, anger overtaking her. She grabbed hold of the knot on his tie, pulling hard until it came free. She tossed the scrap of silk onto the ground before grabbing hold of his shirt, wrenching it open, buttons scattering over the marble floor.

She stopped, looking at him, her breath coming in short, hard bursts. He was beautiful. He always had been. She’d been struck by his sheer masculine perfection from the moment she’d first seen him. So young, so foolish. Nineteen years old, away from home for the first time, and utterly taken with her new boss.

Of course, she had never imagined that a young American girl who had come to Petras on a study-abroad program would have a chance with the king of the nation.

Oddly, he was almost more compelling now, in this moment, than he’d been at the first. She had slept with this man for five years. Had seen him naked countless times. The mystery should have been gone. She knew they didn’t light the sheets on fire, they never had. It was her, at least she imagined it was. He was her only lover, so she had no one else to compare it with.

Apparently, he went out and found women with red lipstick, and things were different. He was different.

Rage mingled with the sexual heat rioting through her.

She ran her hands over his chest, the heat of his muscle and skin burning her palms. She should be disgusted by him. She shouldn’t want to touch him. Instead, she was insatiable for him. If he had been with another woman, then she would wipe her from his mind. Would erase her touch from his body with her own. She would do what she had not managed to do over the course of five years of marriage. She would make him crave her. Make him desire her.

And then she would leave him.

She leaned forward, parting her lips, scraping her teeth over his chin. He growled, pressing her up against the desk again, pushing her dress the rest of the way down her hips, allowing it to pool on the floor. She didn’t recognize him in this moment, didn’t recognize herself.

“Did you have someone else?” She asked the question through clenched teeth, as she worked the buckle on his belt, then set about to opening the closure on his dress pants.

He leaned in, claiming her mouth with his, the kiss violent, hard. Bruising. He forced her lips apart, his tongue sliding against hers as he claimed her, deep and uncompromising. She let the rage of the unanswered question simmer between them, stoking the flame of her desire.

He took hold of the front of her bra, pulling it down, revealing her breasts. He bent his head, taking one tightened bud into his mouth and sucking hard. She gasped, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him tightly against her. She wanted to punish him, for tonight, for the past five years. She didn’t know what else to do but to punish him with her desire. Desire she had kept long hidden. Until tonight, they had never so much as yelled at one another. This was more passion than either of them had ever shown.

Perhaps it was the same for him. An outlet for his anger. A punishment. But it was one she would gladly allow herself to be subjected to. Because for all that she knew she would walk away from this damaged, destroyed, she knew that he would not walk away from it unscathed either.

He shifted, blazing a path between her breasts with the flat of his tongue, his teeth grazing her neck, her jaw, before he finally claimed her mouth again. He reached between them, freeing his erection, so hot and hard against her skin.

She planted her hands on his shoulders, pushing them beneath the fabric of his shirt, scraping her fingernails along his flesh, relishing the harsh sound that he made in response. He tightened his hold on her, setting her up on the surface of his desk, moving to stand between her spread thighs. He pressed his arousal against her slick, sensitive skin, still covered by her flimsy panties, rolling his hips, sending a shock wave of pleasure through her body.

“Answer me,” she said, digging her fingernails more deeply into his shoulders.

He shifted, sliding his hands down beneath the fabric of her underwear, his fingertips grazing the sensitized bundle of nerves there. “You want to know if I did this to another woman?” His words were rough, jagged. He hooked his finger around the edge of her panties, drawing them to the side, pressing the head of his shaft to the entrance of her body. “You want to know if I did this with another woman?”

“Just answer the question,” she hissed.

“I think you would have me either way.”

Her face heated, humiliation pouring through her. He was right. In this moment, she would be hard-pressed to deny him or her body anything. “Is that why you won’t tell me? For fear I’ll turn you away?”

“I’m used to you turning me away, Tabitha. Why should I waste a moment of regret over it now?”

She slid her hands down his well-muscled back, cupping his ass. “You would regret this.” She rolled her hips forward, taking him deeper inside her body, just another inch. “You would regret not finishing this.”

“No,” he said, and for a moment, her heart sank. For a moment, she thought he meant he would not regret losing out on this moment between them. For a moment, she thought that yet again, she was alone in what she was experiencing. “I was not with anyone else. I did not touch another woman. She propositioned me. She whispered in my ear. I said no.”

Then he kissed her before driving deep into her body. She gasped, and he took advantage, tasting her deeply as he flexed his hips again, withdrawing slightly before seating himself fully inside her again.

A rough groan escaped her lips, white-hot pleasure streaking through her. She clung more tightly to him, wrapping her legs around his back, urging him on. Urging him to take it harder, faster. She had no patience. Had no more desire in her to cultivate an effort to take things slow, to practice restraint. There was nothing but him, nothing but this. Nothing but years of anger, frustration, being uncovered as their inhibitions were stripped away layer by layer, with each thrust of his body into hers.

A shudder wracked his large frame, pleasure stealing his control. She relished that. Took pride in it. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to give him pleasure, she absolutely did. Wanted him to think of this later, to regret all of the years when they didn’t have this. To look back on this one moment and ache forever. For the rest of his days, no matter whom he married down the road. Whoever came after her, whether she bore children for him or not, Tabitha wanted him to always think of her.

But pleasure wasn’t enough. She wanted to punish him too. She dug her fingernails deep into his skin and he growled, angling his head and biting her neck, the action not gentle at all, painful. He flexed his hips, his body making contact with that sensitive bundle of nerves, and she knew that he was trying to do the same to her that she was doing to him. As if she deserved his wrath. As if she deserved his belated, angry gift of pleasure. He was the one who had done this to them. This was his fault.

She tightened her grip on him, met his every thrust with a push from her own body, met his each and every growl with one of her own. She had been passive for too long. The perfect wife who could never be perfect enough. So why bother? Why not just break it all?

She closed her eyes tightly, fusing her lips to his, kissing him with all of the rage, desire and regret that she had inside of her, the action pushing them both over the edge. It had been so long. So very long. Not just since she had been with him, but since she had found pleasure in his arms. So many months of coming together when she was at the optimum place in her cycle, perfunctory couplings that meant nothing and felt like less than nothing.

This was different than anything that had come before it. He’d given her orgasms before, but nothing like this. Nothing this all-consuming. Nothing this altering. This devastating. This was like a completely different experience. She was falling in the dark with no way of knowing when she would hit the bottom. All she knew was that she would. And when she did, it would be painful beyond anything she had ever known before. But for now, she was simply falling, with him.

The last time. The last moment they would ever be together.

She wanted to weep. With the devastation of it. With the triumph of it. This was it for them. The final nail in the coffin of their marriage. How she desperately needed it. How she resented it. She wanted to transport herself somewhere in the future. Years from now, maybe. To a time when she’d already healed from the wounds that would be left behind after they separated. A moment in time when she would have already learned to be Just Tabitha again, and not Tabitha, Queen of Petras, wife of Kairos. But Tabitha, on her own.

At the same time, she wanted to stay in this moment. Forever. She wanted to hold on to him forever and never let go.

Which was why she needed to let go. She so badly needed to let go.

The pleasure stretched on, an onslaught of waves that never ceased and she couldn’t catch her breath. Couldn’t think beyond what he made her feel. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. Why was this happening now? She had always believed this was there between them, that it could be unlocked, somehow, but they had never found it. Not until this moment. This very last moment.

Finally the storm subsided, leaving her spent, exhausted. Smashed against the rock. She was wrung out. She had nothing left in her to give. No more rage. No more desire. Nothing but an endless sadness for what her life had become. She looked at the man still holding her tightly. The man still inside her body. The man she had made vows to.

A man who was a stranger, half a decade after she’d first made love to him.

“I hate you,” she said, the words a hoarse whisper that shocked even herself. A tear slid down her cheek and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. “For every one of the past five years you have wasted, I hate you. For being my husband but never really being my husband. I hate you for that too. For not giving me a baby. For making me want you even when I hate you.”

He pushed away from her, his gaze dark. “Let me guess, you hate me for that too.”

“I do. But the good thing is, that after today, we won’t have to see each other.”

“Oh, I think not, agape. I think we will have to see each other a great many times after today. A royal divorce is going to be complicated. There will be press. There will be many days in court—”

“We signed a prenuptial agreement. I remember the terms well. I don’t get anything. That’s fine. I’ve had quite enough from you.”

He made no move to dress, made no move to collect her clothes. And he didn’t look away as she bent to gather them, pulling them on as quickly as possible, internally shrinking away from his gaze. Finally, she was dressed. It was done. It was over.

She made her way toward the door on unsteady legs, everything inside her unsteady, rolling like the sea.

“Tabitha,” he said, his voice rough, “I want you to know that I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?” She turned to face him, her eyes meeting with his unreadable face. As immovable as stone.

He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. “No. I feel...” He paused for a moment. “I feel nothing.”

She felt as though he had stabbed her directly in the heart. Anguish replaced any of the pleasure, any of the satisfaction that had been there before. He felt nothing. Even in this moment he felt nothing.

The rage was back then, spurring her on, keeping her from falling over. “You just screwed me on your desk,” she said, “I would have thought that might have made you feel something.”

She was all false bravado. It was either that or burst into tears.

His expression remained bland. “You’re hardly the first woman I’ve had on a desk.”

She swallowed hard, blinking back more tears. She had made the right choice. She knew she had. Had he yelled at her, had he screamed, had he said that he hated her too, she might have wondered. But those black, flat, soulless eyes didn’t lie. He felt nothing. He was indifferent, even in this moment.

Tabitha had heard it said that hate was like murder. But she knew differently. It was indifference that killed. And with his, Kairos had left her mortally wounded.

“I wish you luck in your search for a more suitable wife, Your Highness,” she said.

Then she walked out of the door, out of his life.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHERE IS YOUR WIFE, Kairos?”

Prince Andres, Kairos’s younger reformed rake of a brother, walked into Kairos’s office. There was still glass on the floor from where Tabitha had shattered it two days ago. Still a dark stain where the scotch had splashed itself over the wallpaper.

All of it shouted the story of what had happened the night Tabitha had left. At least, it shouted at Kairos. Every time he walked in.

It was nearly as loud as his damned conscience.

I feel nothing.

A lie. Of course it was a lie. She had stripped him down. Reduced him to nothing more than need, desperate, clawing need.

Another woman walking away from him. Threatening to leave him there alone. Empty. While his pride bled out of him, leaving him with nothing.

He couldn’t allow that, not again. So he’d said he felt nothing. And now she was gone.

“Why? What have you heard?” Kairos asked, not bothering to explain the glass, even when Andres’s eyes connected with the mess.

“Nothing much. Zara tells me Tabitha called to see if I could find out if you were using your penthouse anytime soon. I wondered why on earth my brother’s wife would be stooping to subterfuge to find out the actions of her own husband.”

Kairos ground his teeth together, his eyes on the shards of glass.

I feel nothing for you.

If only that were true. He was...he didn’t even know what to call the emotions rioting through him. Emotions were...weak and soft in his estimation, and that was not what he felt.

He was beyond rage. Beyond betrayal. She was his wife. He had brought her up from the lowest of positions, made her a queen, and she had the audacity to betray him.

“No explanation, Kairos?”

Kairos looked up at his brother. “She probably wants to go shopping without fear of retribution.”

“Right. Are the coffers of Petras so empty she has to worry about your wrath? Or is her shoe closet merely so full.”

Kairos had no idea what her closet looked like. He never looked farther than her bed when he was in her room. “She left me,” he said, his tone hard, the words like acid on his tongue.

Andres had the decency to look shocked. Surprising, because Andres was rarely shocked and he was never decent. “Tabitha left you?”

“Yes,” he ground out.

“Tabitha, who barely frowns in public for fear it might ignite a scandal?”

Kairos dragged his hand over his face. “That is the only Tabitha I know of.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Neither do I,” Kairos said, his voice a growl.

He paced across the office, to the place where the remains of that glass of scotch rested. It reminded him of the remnants left behind after an accident on the highway. One of the many similarities the past few days bore to a car crash.

I hate you.

He closed his eyes against the pain that lashed at him. What had he done to make his wife hate him? Had he not given her everything?

A baby. She wanted a baby.

Yes, he had failed her there. But dammit all, he’d given her a palace. Some women couldn’t be pleased.

“What the hell did you do?”

“I was perhaps too generous,” Kairos said, his tone hard. “I gave her too much freedom. Perhaps the weight of her diamond-encrusted crown was a bit heavy.”

“You don’t know,” Andres said, his tone incredulous.

“Of course I bloody don’t. I had no idea she was unhappy.” The lie was heavy on his chest.

You knew. You didn’t know how to fix it.

“I know I haven’t been married very long...”

“A week, Andres. If you begin handing out marital advice before the ink is dry on your license, I will reopen the dungeons just for you.”

“Perhaps if you’d opened the dungeons for Tabitha she wouldn’t have left you.”

“I am not going to keep my own wife prisoner.” But dear God, it was tempting.

Andres arched a brow. “That isn’t what I meant.”

Heat streaked along Kairos’s veins, and he thought again of that last night here in his office. Of the way she’d felt in his arms. His cool ice queen suddenly transformed into a living flame...

I hate you.

“We do not have that sort of relationship,” Kairos said, his voice stiff.

Andres chuckled, the sound grating against Kairos’s nerves. “Maybe that’s your problem.”

“Everything is not about sex.”

Andres shrugged. “It absolutely is. But you may cling to your illusions if you must.”

“What do you want, Andres?”

“To see if you’re okay.”

He spread his arms wide. “Am I dead and buried?”

His brother arched a brow. “No. But your wife is gone.”

Kairos gritted his teeth. “And?”

“Do you intend to get a new one?”

He would have to. There was no other alternative. Though the prospect filled him with nothing but dread. Still, even now, he wanted no one else. No one but Tabitha.

And now that he’d tasted the heat that had always shimmered between them as a tantalizing promise, never before fulfilled...

Forgetting her would not be so easy.

“I do not want a new one,” he said.

“Then you have to go and claim the old one, I suppose.”

Kairos offered his brother a glare. “Worry about your life, I’ll worry about mine.” He paused for a moment, staring again at that pile of broken glass. The only thing that remained of his marriage. “I will not hold her prisoner. If Tabitha wants a divorce, she can have her damn divorce.”

* * *

Tabitha hadn’t seen Kairos in four weeks. Four weeks of staring at blank spaces, eyes dry, unable to find any tears. She hadn’t cried. Not since that single tear had fallen in his office. Not since she’d told him how much she hated him—and meant it—with every piece of herself. She had not cried.

Why would you cry for a husband that you hated? Why would you cry for a husband who felt nothing for you?

It made no sense. And so, she hadn’t cried. Tabitha was nothing if not sensible. Even when she came to divorce, it seemed.

She was slightly less sensible when it came to other things. Which was why it had taken her a full week of being late for her to make her way to the doctor. She had no choice but to use the doctor she had always used. She didn’t want to, didn’t want to be at risk by going to a doctor who was employed by the royal family. But her only other alternative was going to one she had no relationship with. One she had no trust in at all. News of her and Kairos’s divorce had already hit the papers, and it was headline news. If she went to an ob-gyn now, everything would explode. She couldn’t risk it. So she was risking this. She swallowed hard, her hands shaking as she sat on the exam table. Her blood had already been drawn, and now she was just waiting for the results.

She had waited so long to come to the doctor because she was often late. Her period never started on time. For years upon years every time she had been late she’d held out hope. Hope that this time it wasn’t just her cycle being fickle. Hope that it might actually be a baby.

It was never a baby. Never.

But it had been a full week, and still nothing. And she couldn’t overlook the fact that she and Kairos had had unprotected sex.

Nothing unusual there, though. They always had. For five years they’d had unprotected sex, and there had been no baby. The universe was not that cruel. How could God ignore her prayers for five long years, and answer them at the worst possible moment?

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.

For the first time, when the doctor walked back into the room, her expression unreadable, Tabitha hoped for the no. She needed it. Needed to hear that the test was negative.

She knew now that she couldn’t live with Kairos. It was confirmed. She couldn’t make it work with him. He didn’t care for her. And she...she felt far too much for him. She could not live like that. She simply couldn’t.

“Queen Tabitha,” Dr. Anderson said, her words slow. “I had hoped that King Kairos might have accompanied you today.”

“If you read the paper at all, then you know that he and I are going through a divorce. I saw no reason to include him in this visit.” The doctor looked down and Tabitha’s stomach sank. A no was an easy answer to give. A no certainly didn’t require Kairos’s presence.

“Yes, I do know about the divorce,” the doctor said. “All members of royal staff had been briefed, of course.”

“Then you know why he isn’t here.”

“Forgive me for asking, my queen,” the doctor said. “But if you are in fact carrying a child, is it his?”

“If I am? You’ve seen the test results. Don’t play this game with me. Do not play games with me. I’ve had enough.”

“It’s just that...”

“This is my test. It has nothing to do with him. My entire life does not revolve around him.” Tabitha knew she was beginning to get a bit hysterical. “I left him. I left him so that he wasn’t at the center of everything I did. We don’t need to bring him into this.”

“The test is positive, my queen. I feel that under other circumstances congratulations would be in order,” Dr. Anderson said, her tone void of expression.

Before this, before the divorce proceedings, Dr. Anderson had always been friendly, warm. She was decidedly cool now.

A King Kairos loyalist, clearly. But Dr. Anderson didn’t have to live with him.

“Oh.” Tabitha felt light-headed. She felt like she was going to collapse. She was thankful for the table she was seated on. Had she been standing, she would have slipped from consciousness immediately.

“Based on the dates you have given me I would estimate that you are...”

“I know exactly how far along I am,” Tabitha said.

Flashes of that night burst into her mind’s eye. Kairos putting her up on the desk, thrusting into her hard and fast. Spilling himself inside of her as they both lost themselves to their pleasure. Yes, there was no doubt in her mind as to when she had conceived. January 1.

The beginning of the New Year. What was supposed to be the start of her new beginning.

And all she had was a chain shackling her to Kairos now that she had finally decided to walk out the door and take her freedom.

Of course this was happening now. When she’d released hold of her control. Her inhibitions. There were reasons she’d kept herself on a short leash for so many years. She’d always suspected she couldn’t be trusted. That she would break things if she was ever allowed to act without careful thought and consideration.

She’d been right to distrust herself.

She balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her eyes.

“Are you all right?” Dr. Anderson asked.

“Does it look like I’m all right?” Tabitha asked.

“It’s only that...is it the king’s baby?”

Rage fired through Tabitha then. “It is my baby. That’s about all I can process at the moment.”

Dr. Anderson hesitated. “It’s only that I want to be certain that I didn’t overstep.”

As those words left the doctor’s mouth, the door to the exam room burst open. Tabitha looked up, her heart slamming hard against her sternum. There was Kairos. Standing in the doorway, looking like a fallen angel, rage emanating from him.

“Leave us,” he said to the doctor.

“Of course, Your Highness.”

The doctor scurried out of the room, eagerly doing Kairos’s bidding. Tabitha could only sit there, dazed. She supposed that there was no such thing as doctor-patient confidentiality when the king was involved.

She turned to face her nearly ex-husband—who was looking at her as though she were the lowest and vilest of creatures. As if he had any right. As if he had the right to judge her. After what he had said. After what he had done.

“What’s the matter, Kairos?” she asked, schooling her expression into one of absolute calm and stillness. It was her specialty. After years of hiding her true feelings behind a mask for public consumption, she went about it with as much ease as breathing.

“It seems I’m about to be a father.” He moved nearer to her, his dark eyes blazing. Any blankness, any calm he had presented the night she had left him standing in his office was gone now. He was all emotion now. He was vibrating with it.

“You’re making an awfully big assumption.”

He slammed his hands down on the counter by the exam table. “Do not toy with me, Tabitha. We both know it’s my child.”

“Except that you don’t. Because you can’t know that. You haven’t seen me in weeks. I didn’t go to your bed for months before our last time together.” Heartbreak made her cruel. She’d had no idea. She’d never been heartbroken before him.

“I am the only man you have ever been with. You and I both know that. You were a virgin when I had you the first time. I sincerely doubt you went out and found the first lover available to you just after leaving my arms.”

She swallowed hard, her hands trembling. “You say that as though you know me. We both know that you don’t. We both know that you feel nothing for me.”

“In this moment, I find I feel quite a lot.”

“I’ve only just found out. It isn’t as though I was keeping a secret from you. Where exactly do you get off coming in here, playing the part of caveman?”

“You were going to keep it from me. The doctor called me. If you knew you were coming to the doctor to get a pregnancy test, why didn’t you include me?”

“Because,” she said, looking at the wall beyond him, “that’s the beauty of divorce. I don’t have to include you in my life. I get to go on as an individual. Not as one half of the world’s most dysfunctional couple. I would have told you. I was hardly going to keep this from you. If for no other reason than that the press would never let me.”

“How very honorable of you. You would let me in on my impending fatherhood based on what the media would allow you to keep secret. Tell me, would you allow them to announce it to me via headline?”

“That sounds about right considering the level of communication we’ve always had. Honestly, I haven’t much noticed the absence of you in the past four weeks. It was pretty much standard to our entire marriage. Sex once a month with no talking in between.”

“Still your poisonous tongue for a moment, my queen. We have a serious issue to deal with here.”

“There is no issue,” she said, her hand going protectively to her stomach. “And there is no dealing with it. What’s done is done.”

“What exactly did you think I was suggesting?” His dark features contorted with horror. With anger. “You cannot seriously think I would suggest you get rid of our child. Just because you and I are experiencing difficult circumstances at the moment—”

“No. That isn’t what I thought you meant. And what do you mean difficult circumstances? We are not undergoing difficult circumstances. If anything, we’re experiencing some of the best circumstances we’ve had in years. We aren’t together anymore, Kairos. That’s what we both need.”

“Not now. There will be no discussion of it.”

She stood up, feeling dizzy. “The hell there won’t be. I am not your property. I can divorce you if I choose, discussion or not.”

“Can you? I am king of Petras.”

“And I am an American citizen.”

“In addition to being a citizen of Petras.”

“I will happily chuck my Petran passport into the river. As long as it will get you off my back.”

“We are not having this discussion here,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

“I have a car.”

“Oh, yes, my driver that you’re still using. From the house that I own that you are currently living in.”

“I will sort things out later,” she said, stinging heat lashing her cheekbones. It was humiliating to have him bring up the fact she was dependent on him to not be homeless at the moment. Particularly since she had made such a big deal out of knowing she would get nothing from him after the divorce. But still, he wasn’t using his apartment in town, nor was he using the car and driver that were headquartered there. So he could hardly deny her the use of them. Well, he could. But he wasn’t, so she was taking advantage.

“Oh, I sent your driver home. The only driver currently here is mine. You are leaving with me. Now.”

He stood there, his arms folded across his broad chest, his dark eyes glued to her.

“Don’t look at me. I have to get dressed.”

“It is nothing I haven’t seen, agape.”

She treated him to her iciest glare. “Rarely.”

The biting word hung between them and she felt some guilt over it. Truly, the state of their sex life was partly her fault. If not mostly her fault. But having him touch her out of duty... It had certainly started to wear on her.

Eventually, it was just easier to lie back and think of Petras. To close her eyes and think of other things. Hope that it would be over quickly. To not allow herself to feel a connection with him. To shut walls around her heart, and around her body. The less she felt during sex, the less pain she felt when it was over. The less disappointment each time he got up and left immediately after, each time the pregnancy test was negative. The less distress she felt over the fact that any intimacy between them was all for the purpose of producing a child. That it was completely void of any kind of emotion between the two of them.

Yes, the fast, disappointing sex in the dark was mainly her fault.

“As you wish, my queen.” He turned away from her, his broad back filling her vision. And, damn him, she felt bad. Guilty. He did not deserve her guilt.

She kept her eyes on him as she stripped off the hospital gown she was wearing. On the way the perfectly cut lines of his suit molded to his physique. He was a handsome man. There was no denying it. He was also a bastard.

She finished dressing, then cleared her throat.

Kairos turned, the fierceness in his expression wavering for a moment. An emotion there that she couldn’t quite put a name to.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To the palace.” He hesitated. “We have some things to discuss.”

“I don’t want to discuss this right now. I’ve only just found out I’m pregnant. I believe you had to know before I did.”

“You at least had a suspicion.”

“You think that makes it easier? Do you think that makes any of this...?” Her voice broke, her entire body shaking. “I should not be devastated in this moment. I hate you for this too. I was supposed to be happy when I finally conceived. You’ve stolen that for me.”

“Who stole it, Tabitha? I was not the one who asked for a divorce.”

“Maybe not. But you made your feelings for me perfectly clear. It’s poison now, already working its way through my system. You can’t fix it.”

He said nothing as they walked out of the exam room and continued down the long vacant hallway toward a back entrance. His car was waiting there, not one driven by a chauffeur. One of his sports cars that he got great enjoyment out of driving.

He was a low-key man, her husband. Responsible, levelheaded. Serious.

But he liked cars. And he very much enjoyed driving them. Much too fast for her taste. But he never asked her opinion.

“I’m not especially in the mood to deal with your Formula 1 fantasies,” she said, crossing her arms and tapping her foot, giving him her best withering expression.

“Funny. I’m not particularly in the mood to put up with your attitude, and yet, here we are.”

“You have earned every bit of my attitude, Your Highness.”

“So angry with me, Tabitha, when you spent so many years with so little to say.”

“What have I said, my lord?”

He made a scoffing sound in the back of his throat. “My lord. As if you are ever so deferential.”

She arched her brow. “As if you ever deserved it.” She breezed past him and got inside the car, slamming the door shut behind her and setting about to buckling her seat belt while he got in and started the engine.

“What happened, Tabitha? What happened?”

“There was nothing. Like you said. Nothing. And I can’t live that way anymore.”

“You’re having my baby. I don’t see you have an option now. Clearly the divorce is off.”

He revved the engine, pressing the gas and pulling the car away from the curb.

“The divorce is no such thing,” she said, panic clawing at her insides. “The divorce is absolutely on. You might be royalty, but you can’t pull endless weight with me. I am not simply another subject in your country. I have rights.”

“Oh, really? And with what money will you hire a lawyer to defend those rights? Everything you have is mine, Tabitha, and we both know it.”

“I will find a way.” She didn’t know if she would. He wasn’t wrong. She was nothing. Nothing from nowhere. She had climbed her way up from the bottom. From a poor household on the wrong side of the tracks with parents who would spend every night screaming at each other, throwing things. Her mother hurling heavy objects at her stepfather’s head whenever the mood struck her.

And that was before everything had gone horribly wrong.

There had been no money in her household. Not enough food. All there had been was anger. And that was an endless well. One that her parents drew from at every possible opportunity. That was her legacy. It was all she had. It was why she had vowed to find something different for herself. Something better.

What she had found was that sometimes everything that filled the quiet spaces, everything that went unsaid, was more cutting, more painful than a dinner plate being hurled at your head.

Kairos said nothing but simply kept driving. It took a while for her to realize they weren’t heading back to the palace, but when she did, a cold sense of dread filled her. She realized then that she honestly couldn’t predict what he might be doing. Because she didn’t know him. Five years she had been married to this man and she knew even less about him today than she had on the day they had married. Impossible, seemingly.

She’d spent three years as his PA prior to them getting engaged and married. Three years where she had cultivated a silly, childish crush on him. He had smiled easier then, laughed with her sometimes.

But that was before his father had died. Before the weight of the nation had fallen on his shoulders. Before his arranged engagement was destroyed by his impetuous younger brother. Before he had been forced to take on a replacement wife that he had never wanted, much less loved.

Those years spent as his PA had been like standing on the outside of a forest. She had looked on him and thought, I recognize him. He’s a forest. Being his wife was like walking through it. Discovering new dangers, discovering that it was so dark, she could barely see in front of her. Discovering she had no idea where the trees might end, and where she might find her freedom. Yes, the deeper she walked, the less she knew.

“You aren’t planning on driving your car into a river or something dramatic, are you?” she asked, only half joking.

“Don’t be silly. We spent years trying for an heir, I’m not going to compromise anything now that we have one on the way.”

“Oh, but otherwise you would be aiming for a cliff. Good to know.”

“And leave Andres to rule? Don’t be ridiculous.”

It occurred to her suddenly, exactly where they were heading. Unease stole over her, her scalp prickling. “What are you planning?”

“Me? Perhaps I’m not planning anything. Perhaps I’m being spontaneous.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You’re so convinced that I don’t know you, and yet, you think you know me, agape? How fair is that?”

She didn’t think she knew him. But she wasn’t about to admit that now. “You’re a man, Kairos. Moreover, you’re a distinctly predictable one.”

“If I cared about your opinion at all I would be tempted to feel wounded. Alas, I don’t.”

He turned onto the private airfield used by the royal family and her heart sank. Her suspicions were very much confirmed. “What is it you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’m doing anything. This is the situation, my darling bride, either you come with me now or we do this here in Petras.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Come to an agreement on exactly what we will do now that we are to be parents. And by come to an agreement, I mean what I will decide. Do not forget that I am the king. Whatever laws might govern the rest of the people do not apply to me.”

Rage filled her, flooded her. “Since when? You’ve never been the most flexible of men, but you’ve never been a dictator.”

“I’ve never been a father before either. Neither have I ever been in the position of having my wife threaten to leave me.”

“I didn’t threaten to leave you, Kairos. I left you. There is a difference.”

“Regardless. Come with me, and we will have a discussion. If you refuse, then I will ensure that I get full custody of our child, and you will never see him. I give you my word on that. And unlike you, when I make a vow, I keep it.”

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