Page 102

“This is the modern world,” Saviero said mildly. So very mildly that it made her jaw clench. “There are now scientific advancements that do not require that any sleeping together occur. You may have heard of them.” That felt like a dig, which did not improve her temper, but he was still going. “We need to promise the people of this kingdom that the monarchy will continue with as little disruption to them as possible. It doesn’t matter how we go about doing that.”

This all sounded like a very deliberate message to Cesca. Sent and received, she thought.

“If you don’t want to have sex with me, Saviero,” she said, outrage mounting by the second, “you can just say that. You don’t have to dress it all up in this supposed dutiful attention to the kingdom’s needs.”

“This has already been a very emotional day,” Saviero replied, and she knew that voice he was using. That abominably soothing tone that he only ever used around her when he was managing her.

When she was being unreasonable, according to him.

She shot up to her feet and wished desperately that she was taller. So she could stare him straight in the face instead of having to tip her chin back and look up the length of him as if he was some kind of tower.

“I am the one who may or may not want to sleep with you,” she threw at him. “You are the one who’s basically won the lottery here.”

“And what lottery is that, please?” he shot back, and she didn’t recognize him in that sudden, furious tilt of his head. In that flash of his eyes that hit her without warning and then moved through her like another burst of awareness. “You seem to be under the impression that you are the only one in this room who has ever conducted a personal relationship. I cannot stress to you how wrong you are about that, Your Majesty.”

Cesca was aware that she was entirely too upset about this. She was far too wound up about a thing she hadn’t even considered a possibility a few hours ago, and probably a little sloppy with it, too. It wasn’t good. It certainly wasn’t regal.

She also couldn’t seem to stop herself.

When she laughed then, it was not in a way that encouraged him to do the same. “Of course,” she said, and rolled her eyes. “I’m sure that you and all of these fantasy lovers sit around and have a great many scintillating conversations about… I don’t even know. Other planks of wood? Exciting updates to the tax code? Or maybe you tell each other stories about the way paint dries. The excitement never stops, I am quite certain.”

He moved closer, and she felt her stomach betray her entirely by simply…disappearing. As if it simply bottomed out.

Saviero loomed over her and he leaned down close, and she had the strangest sensation then. It felt like a full-body shiver. And something in her whispered, You don’t know this man.

When she had literally known him forever.

But she didn’t know him like this. It was as if his whole face changed, as if he had changed, as if he was suddenly a complete and total stranger.

And when he reached up and slid his hand onto the side of her face, she sucked in a shocked breath.

“We don’t generally do a whole lot of talking, Francesca,” he told her.

Every word was not only delivered like a bullet, but caused its own separate fire to light up within her.

He didn’t wait for a response. Saviero merely stepped back as if nothing had happened and straightened his jacket again.

“I can see your emotions have the best of you,” he said, and her mouth dropped open, though she couldn’t tell if it was in outrage or simply because her emotions didn’t seem to have anything to do with what was happening.

She felt like he’d marked her indelibly. Like his hand had left a tattoo of itself against the soft skin of her jaw.

Saviero, meanwhile, looked as if he was in another one of his tedious meetings. Which begged a terrifying question.

Was that stranger she’d just seen always there inside him? Just lurking there?

Was it possible that Saviero Cimarosa was…not boring at all? Was it simply a role that he was playing?

All of that whirled around inside her and burned far too bright, down low in her belly.

“Your staff and Madam Durand, who I believe runs your favorite fashion house in Paris, await you in your rooms,” he said in the same stern and colorless way he always said things. Like nothing that had happened here bothered him. “I have tasked them with creating an iconic bride who will set the standard for all royal weddings for at least a generation. That will probably take some work.” He crooked a brow and aimed it toward the door behind her. “If I were you, I would get started.”

And then he simply turned, as if nothing had happened between them at all, and strode back through that archway he’d made between their rooms.

She waited for him to slam it shut, to cut them off from each other again, but he didn’t.

And that was even worse, she thought as she forced herself to walk in the other direction and open the door to the rest of her apartments, where she could immediately hear the voices of her staff.

It was worse because it was one more indication that Saviero Cimarosa wasn’t who she thought he was at all.