“Right,” she bites out. “Again, I’m very sorry for breaking the bust. It was an accident. Surely you’ve made one or two of those in your life.”
I gawk at her. The fucking audacity.
“I do know that visitors are not allowed here, and I completely understand,” she rushes on. “I was not intending to break any rules and I assure you, my father wasn’t either. I hope they informed you by now that he has dementia and was very confused about where he was. I’m not sure if there is a protocol for such things, but I’d very much like to take him home now. As for the broken bust, is there a way I can?—”
“Pay for or replace the priceless sculpture of my great-grandfather, who is dead, done by Vincenzo Alrimi, who is also dead?” I cruelly cut her off.
“That was a Vincenzo Alrimi?” Her hand covers her mouth, and she sucks in a breath through her fingers. She looks stricken, and though I’m loathsome to admit it, something about her despair over an old bust surprises me. “I don’t know what to say. Your Majesty…I truly am deeply sorry. Please, tell me what I can do.”
Yet another image of her dropping to her knees and taking my cock between her full, pouty lips fills my head, and what the fuck? Beautiful or not, I cannot lust over her. I take a step back, anxious to go and leave this woman behind. I certainly don’t need to continue whatever this…feelingshe’s evoking in me is.
But damn, those eyes. Those big, round, electric-blue eyes. They hold me. Beg me. And…soften me. Nothing short of a miracle, only my children have managed that. I breathe out a sigh, my hands on my hips, and I force myself to even my temper. A noise leaves me, a heavy breath mixed with an incredulous laugh. I don’t know what to do with myself.
For as well-bred and trained as I am, it’s as if, since themoment Nora died and I sequestered us to this palace, I’ve forgotten how to be around people. Around women. I try to remember why she’s here. WhyI’mhere. I dig around, searching for a sliver of my inner humanity, and what I come up with isn’t all that great.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs again at my long silence, her expression contrite.
I don’t know what to say to her or how to respond. Too many emotions and thoughts war within me. A strange need to comfort her. To take her against me and demolish all her worries with the touch of my hand slithers through me like the first sip of bourbon at the end of a long day.
On the flip side, I long to command her, own her, punish her.
It’s just that you haven’t left the palace in three years. That you haven’t been laid in even longer.Yes. That’s it. It has to be. There is no other reasonable explanation for my reaction.
She sighs at my odd and prolonged silence and scours about the room as if she’ll find something here to help her, only to sling back up to me and hold. Cling. Discover. Her head tilts and recognition lights her eyes.
Out of nowhere, her hand is on my face, tickling the skin beneath my eyes. “I used not to sleep either,” she tells me. “Guided meditation helped me. I used to listen to online recordings for it.”
“What?” I grip her wrist and force her hand from my face, only I don’t release her, and I don’t know why. Her skin, perhaps. Soft and warm and smooth like silk. Christ.
“Sleep,” she explains without apologizing, though she knows she clearly overstepped. “You don’t get much of it. Do you?”
I blink at her, stunned. “It’s none of your business.”
She jerks her arm free from my grip. “Perhaps not. All I’m saying is I know what it’s like, and if you’re interested, I can giveyou some techniques that worked for me. A king and father of three probably needs more sleep than most.”
“You’re out of line. You know nothing of me.”
A sly smirk. “Am I wrong?”
No. She’s not wrong. I haven’t slept through the night in years. Perceptive woman, no one is aware of this. I go for runs, and I read tomes that bore me to tears and nothing,nothinghas helped. I manage a few hours a night at most. Part of my curse, no doubt.
Is she truly this creature? Sensitive and intuitive and caring? Even for a man who has done nothing but yell and bark at her?
Now it’s my turn to scrutinize her. To truly take a deeper delve beyond what my body reacts to. The girls want her. Emily wants her. Fuck, I want her, too, but for all the wrong reasons.
Focus, Sebastian!Discover her truth and set yourself free from her.
“You’re a schoolteacher here in Messalina?” I don’t know why I’m asking. Validity, perhaps. I want to see if she’s a liar, skilled or not. I want to test if this is all a ruse, a ploy, a way to gain access to me and my children and ruin us for good. I can’t have this woman here, and I certainly can’t have her here working for me.
She’s part of the curse. I know it. A siren meant to torment me until I jump to my death. But all I hear are the words of my daughters and Emily suddenly filling my head.
“Yes.” That’s it. No elaboration.
“You didn’t finish school?”
She absently plays with a piece of her hair, twirling it around and around her finger, more than a little uncomfortable with my questions. She’s likely curious what my questions have to do with the sculpture or her father.
“No. I had to drop out to afford the care facility my father is now in.”
