He walked to the edge of the railing and grabbed hold of it, his knuckles white as he gripped it hard, looking out at the sea.
“Iamsorry,” she said. “About the sea voyage. I know that this isn’t how you choose to travel, and it must be difficult.”
There. She could be nice. She didn’t need to bleed her desperation all over this situation. It would only make it worse. Complex feelings aside, and her irritation over all of the way this had played out ignored, Andrei was one of the people that she cared about most.
Bringing him with her should be a relief.
If she were normal about him, it could be.
“Nothing is difficult, Princess. I am more than able to accomplish my tasks. What happened is in the past.” And yet still, he clung to that railing. His eyes on the water, not on her.
“Where are you sleeping?”
“I have a cabin,” he said. “Your brother was overly generous in appointing lodging.”
“Let me guess. You wanted to sleep on the floor in the coldest part of the ship so as to adequately suffer for not being royalty, and my brother insisted on giving you a bed.”
He lifted a brow. “How did you guess?”
He released his hold on the railing, turned to face her, a smile curving his lips. So rare were those smiles. His long black hair fell into his face, and the wind pushed it off his forehead again. His cheekbones were hollow, his jaw sharp, his lips a source of great fascination. Full and mobile, and having the appearance of a man who should know how to smile and laugh often. They kept him from looking as severe as he was.
They had riveted her from the time she was fifteen or so. When she had truly accepted that Andrei was something different to her than a protector or a brother or a friend.
That he was, in fact, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
She felt so ashamed of it, at least then. Her palms would get sweaty, her heart beating faster, and there was simply no way for her to understand those feelings. Why for him? Why so strong? There were different points where she had come to accept what those feelings were because he was an unrelated male in proximity. The truth was, she had very little access to men unencumbered. None, in fact. Even when she had gone to university in the city, Andrei had been with her. It was always him. Always. Part of her had always loved that. Part of her had loathed it.
How was she ever supposed to be normal, have a date, have a kiss, have sex, if the man who consumed her fantasies, who was out of reach even though he was only an arm’s length away, was always there.
How?
The truth was, she hadn’t figured it out. And now the answer seemed to be: She had to arrange a marriage for herself.
So now her first time, her first kiss, her first experience of sex, was going to be with… King Lucian.
He was reclusive. There were no images of him taken in years. The rumors were that he was scarred. That half of his face was hideously scarred from battles during brutal wartimes in his country. The other half was beautiful. A fallen angel’s visage. He was older. Forty to her twenty-four.
But that really wasn’t her biggest concern. His age was simply a number when compared to his potential brutality.
Though all of these things were consistent across time. Men were brutal, and they wanted young women to help bear their heirs. She wasn’t unique or special in the grand fabric of the world, and certainly not in the history of royal unions.
She wasn’t marrying him for his temperament, nor was she marrying him for the joy of sex.
The joy of sex might have to be something confined to her fantasies.
She really didn’t need to be thinking about the joy of sex while Andrei stood there looking at her with those dark, molten eyes, and that mouth that had bewitched her for so long.
“Is there any way I can dissuade you from doing this?”
She shook her head. “No. Why do you need to?”
He walked toward her, and much to her surprise, took a seat beside her in one of the loungers. “It has been my life’s work to protect you. To keep you safe. I have followed you throughout your life. Every vacation you’ve ever been on, to university. And I will follow you here. I will guard you with my life, Princess, as I have done these past eight years. But it would be remiss of me not to ask you, to beg you, to reconsider.”
“Andrei Ardelean?Begging?This is truly a momentous moment,” she said, but her voice sounded breathless, and it was difficult for her to breathe.
He looked at her, his eyes black and hollow. “You are everything to me.”
She was almost certain he hadn’t spoken, that she had hallucinated his words, a trick on the wind.
