He sighs, his hands on his hips, his face cast toward the floor. “You’re right. I thought I was protecting them, but it seems I’m crushing their spirit instead. Her OCD has gotten worse since we started these little weekend excursions.” Another sigh, this one deeper, more mournful. “I’ll talk with her. I’ll try, but I…I’ll try.” His eyes meet mine. “Incidentally, if you are here to break the curse, I won’t complain.”
“Sure. I’ll take a shot at it.”
He practically rolls his eyes at my flippant response.
“Samil is coming tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I stare blankly at him, confused. I already knew that. Sebastian’s been in a foul mood over it all week.
“He’s going to seek you out, and I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon that he’s not part of that I can’t get out of or change.”
I slide out of bed and cross the room until I’m standing before him, staring up at him because he’s so damn tall and broad. “Okay,” I repeat.
“It’s not okay, Bellamy. I don’t want him near you. He’s not a good man.”
“I already know this. I knew it the first moment I met him.”
He shakes his head as if I’m not getting it. His hands are on my shoulders and he’s walking me back to my bed. He sits down and lifts me until I’m straddling him and his hands hold my face and he stares deeply into my eyes, his expression grave.
“He’s taken pictures of you without your knowledge,” he says with genuine regret.
I gasp. There is no way I can’t. My hand covers my mouth.
“What kind of pictures?”
His hand covers mine and pulls it away from my face, interlacing our fingers and squeezing me reassuringly. “Candid ones. You with the children or doing something in the palace. Nothing scandalous or lewd, I assure you.”
“And you didn’t freaking tell me that before?”
“I should have. I’m sorry. I was trying to protect you from him, but he hasn’t hidden the fact that he plans to make a play for you. It kept me up half the night after my conversation with him on the phone last evening.”
“Me? Why would he want me?”
“Because I want you and he’s seen right through my attempts to hide it. He was in love with Nora and I married her. She loved me and not him. He hates me for what our marriage was, and he hates me because she died and I didn’t.”
“What your marriage was? I don’t understand. You loved each other. How can he hate you for that?”
His hand holding mine comes up, the tip of his finger gliding along the slope of my nose before he presses our joined hands into his chest. His eyes flicker between mine, and something catches in his expression. “This stays between us. Always. My children must never know.”
I inwardly shudder at his intensity. “I promise.”
“I didn’t love Nora. I married her because she had the right bloodline and was beautiful and kind. I married her because she was my friend. I cared about her, and I never betrayed our marriage vows, but I wasn’t in love with her. We had three beautiful children together and I never regretted a moment of our marriage. My only regret is that I made someone so lovely and special my wife and she died because of that.”
I blink at him no fewer than ten thousand times. “Oh.” I’m not sure what else to say to that. I always assumed what brought them to this palace and then held them here was the grief I described to Phaedra. Also, well, yeah…I’m sure you can guess where my thoughts just went. He regrets making someone so special and lovely his wife. A mistake he’ll never make again. Got it.
“I never loved anyone before I met you and Samil wants to hurt me the way I hurt him.”
I cup his strong jaw in my hand. “He won’t do it through me. My heart is yours, no one else’s.” I take his hand and place it over the necklace he gave me, hidden beneath my blouse.
His forehead drops to mine, our noses playing, rubbing back and forth. “I don’t want him near you.” His tone is harsh, his jaw locked despite our position.
“It’s a big palace, Your Majesty. I’ll be sure to keep my distance from him this week.”
“He’ll find you anyway. I know he will.”
“I’m a big girl, Sebastian. I can handle myself.”
“It’s my job to protect you. I hate the thought of him coming after you. Trying to touch you.” His hand covers my breast, his mouth trailing down to my neck where he sucks and licks and bites at me. “It makes me murderous. No one can have you but me.”
