My blood is thrumming through my veins nearly to the point of pain as I watch her deliberate my offer. I’m desperate for her to say yes. Desperate in a way I’m not sure I’ve been where a woman is concerned.
It’s insane. I know this. It makes no sense, and I can’t make heads or tails of it. I just met her, and I don’t know anything about her. Not her last name or even which part of my country she comes from, or who she came with, since she seems so different from everyone here.
She doesn’t seem interested in me beyond tonight, and that should be a red flag, because everyone wants to fuck and marry a prince, even if they don’t give two shits about who I actually am beyond that. Months ago, when I came home to Messalina and watched Sebastian fall in love, I quickly realized fucking my way from one woman to the next had lost its appeal. Then there’s the not-so-small issue that I’m expected to be the next to marry. That’s how this works in our world. In our country. Especially now that the curse has been broken. It’s why every woman was hot on my heels all night.
So I shouldn’t be doing this.
But I fuckingwanther.
When she still hasn’t given me an answer, my hand slips up along her cheek, and I adjust her face until I have her the way I want her. Without warning or even giving a shit about who sees this and who doesn’t, I lean in and press my lips to hers. I rest them there, waiting for her to push me away. And when she doesn’t, when her large, dark eyes are bold and wide and locked on mine, I repeat myself for a third time.
“Come upstairs with me, Ella.”
3
MARCELLA
Ineed to say no to him. I’m not a friend. I’m not going to be his lover. I’m a woman sent here on a mission by some truly evil people with a connecting revenge agenda of my own. It’s a mission that involves his family, not in a kind of fluffy way. They believe the ancient curse on the royal family has been broken, but if my stepmother and her niece, Antonia, have their way, the curse is about to get a second act, and I’m the villain who will make that happen.
I’m a pawn in a bigger game of chess controlled by a ruthless hand.
So I should say no.
But I don’t want to. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t have fun. I have nothing for myself. I never have. Not since my father died when I was a girl, and I was forced to see the life I thought I knew ripped away from me. I quickly came to realize the cold, unfathomable truth about who and what I am. My father slept around, and I’m the result of one of his trysts. A daughter not even worthy of sharing his last name.
Now I’m a servant. A slave. A snake hiding in the grass, waiting to strike with fangs and deadly venom. That’s not onlywho I had to become to survive, but also what I’ve been trained to be.
But that night is not tonight.
The wedding was a bust in terms of recon, and there’s something about the prince that’s annoyingly irresistible. He gives me ridiculous girlish butterflies. The kind I’ve read about but never experienced. One night with him won’t change anything. I’ll still do whatever I have to do. Sex is sex, or so I’ve been told, and that’s all this will be.
What my stepmother and Antonia don’t know won’t hurt them, so it won’t hurt me.
I push Rowan back until his lips are no longer touching mine and stare up into his oh-so-blue eyes, ringed in thick, soft, dark lashes. His expression is intense and earnest. Hopeful. It almost makes me smile. It certainly makes my heart beat faster.
My fingers pad along the lines of his straight nose and smooth, sharp, square jawline and full lips that I bet can kiss me into next week. He leans into my touch as if he’s anxious for more of it, and I wonder if one day I’ll ever have a moment to be free like this again.
I doubt it.
Regardless, he’s so good-looking it hurts. “All right, Rowan. Take me upstairs.”
His eyes shift around my face, his hand on my cheek going near my hair, and I freeze. Shit. My wig. Then there’s my back to consider too.
He misinterprets my freezing and whispers, “Don’t worry, it’s just us left in here.”
With that, his lips meet mine, only now they’re not resting, they’re taking. Claiming. His lips split my own, and his tongue slides inside. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, so I do my best to follow his lead. He tilts his head and groans when our tongues touch and he gets a better taste of me.
“Fuck, that’s good,” he mumbles against me, stealinganother kiss, then pulls back, his lips a little wet, and his eyes smoky and dark.
He takes my hand and walks us through the empty space. The sound of dinner in the neighboring ballroom filters in, and a hiccup of unease hits me. I was supposed to leave by now. I had no place at dinner, and I knew it. The cocktail hour was my time, and I feel as though I failed, even if I was able to break in and bypass royal security. I learned nothing except useless gossip and baseless jealousies. Other than one strong sticking point.
The king and his bride actually seem to be in love.
Which means we won’t be able to use Queen Bellamy as a weapon. If anything, she could be leveraged against him, but the former prime minister already tried that and failed. It wasn’t a stretch to believe the king fell for the beautiful younger nanny. But the reverse, that the younger, beautiful American nanny actually fell in love with the king, was. Now it seems we may need to figure out another angle.
Rowan takes me onto the elevator, and the moment the doors close, he pushes me up against the wall and buries his face in my neck. My head falls back against the wall, and my eyes close as my hands find the soft strands of his hair. He kisses and nips and licks at my skin, and my head spins.
He’s good at this. At seduction. He’s not mindlessly groping and ripping at clothes to shove himself inside me the way I imagined men did. At least that’s what the men who have tried with me in the past did, only they didn’t make it all that far before I either killed them or ruined them.
