Marrying Her Royal Enemy Read Free

dementia. I had to bide my time until I took control.”
    “So you put yourself into a self-imposed exile?”
    “I went to Tibet.”
    “Tibet?” Her eyes widened. “You went to live with the monks?”
    “Something like that.”
    She stared at him as if searching for some sign he was joking. When he said nothing, she sat back in her chair, eyes bleak. “Did your sojourn afford you the forgiveness you craved? The absolution? Or perhaps it was peace you were looking for. Lord knows we’ve all been searching for that. We didn’t even have a body to bury.”
    He brought his back teeth together. “ Enough , Stella.”
    “Or what ?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I am not your subject , Kostas. You can’t fly in here, interrupt the first vacation I’ve had in years and order me around like your dictator of a father loved to do. You’re the one walking on very thin ground right about now.”
    He was. He knew it. “Tell me how I can make this right,” he growled. “You know we need to.”
    The waiter arrived to pour their wine. Dispensing the dark red Bordeaux into their glasses, he took one look at their faces and melted away. Stella took a sip, then cradled the glass between her palms, eyes on his. “What happened that night? Why did you race?”
    His heart began a slow thud in his chest. Every detail, every minute fragment of that night was imprinted on his brain. He had promised himself he wasn’t ever going there again, and yet if he didn’t, Stella would walk out on him, he knew that with certainty.
    “Athamos and I met a Carnelian woman named Cassandra Liatos. We both had feelings for her. She was torn, liked us both. We decided to settle it with a car race through the mountains—the winner got the girl.”
    Her jaw dropped. “You had a pink-slip race , except the prize was a woman?”
    His mouth flattened. “I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. One of us had to back off. Cassandra couldn’t make the call, so we did.”
    “So she was merely a pawn in the game between two future kings?” A dazed look settled over her face. She rubbed her fingertips against her temples and shook her head. “That wasn’t my brother. He didn’t treat women as objects. What was wrong with him?”
    His gaze fell away from hers. “It was not a rational night.”
    “No, it was a deadly one.” The rasp in her voice brought his eyes back up to hers. “Where is Cassandra now? Were you with her after Athamos died?”
    “No. It was...impossible to move on from there.”
    Stella looked out at the sunset darkening the horizon to a deep burnt orange. The convulsing of her throat, the slow deliberate breaths she took, told him how hard she was fighting for control. When she eventually returned her gaze to his, she was all hard-as-ice composed.
    “Are you done ? Have you said all you need to say? Because if you think I’m going to marry you after hearing that, Kostas—sign on to be another one of your pawns—you are out of your mind.”
    He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “It was a mistake . I made a mistake, one I will pay for the rest of my life. What I am proposing between us is a partnership, not a chance for me to lord it over you. An opportunity to restore peace and democracy in the Ionian Sea. To heal the wounds we have all suffered.”
    Her mouth curled. “So I should save you after everything you’ve done? Allow myself to be used as a symbol you can flaunt to the world in some PR exercise you are undertaking to restore Carnelia’s credibility?”
    The animosity emanating from her shocked him. “When did you become so cynical? So unforgiving? Where is the woman who would have done anything to fight for a better world?”
    “I am fighting for a better world. Every day I do that with my work. It’s you who seems to have lost your compass. You are not the man I once knew. That man would have stayed and fought your father tooth and nail. He would not have jumped