CHAPTER NINE

T HE SHOCK ON Zia’s face was enough to make Cristhian smile. Genuinely. It was important she think love was an option if he was going to force that eventuality. It was imperative she thought him open to such things.

“Cristhian,” she finally managed to say. “You... You can’t be serious.” But she sounded more...frightened than censuring. Interesting.

“The way I see it, we entered into this as strangers who shared an uncommon amount of chemistry. Hence the children.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yes, hence.”

“Perhaps you did not go about it the way you should have, but we can set this aside.”

“Oh. Can we?”

Again, his smile was genuine. She was entertaining at times, he’d give her that. “It is my understanding that the way people go about falling in love is to get to know each other. We should do this. See if we can’t...open ourselves up to something.”

She blinked once, as if she was trying to rid herself of the look of horror on her face. It didn’t work.

He managed, just barely, not to laugh. “My parents loved each other very much. My father’s parents are the same.”

“My guess is they did not meet in a bar and have a one-night stand that ended with twins.”

“Perhaps not, but my parents met at a party and, by all accounts, were inseparable from that moment. My father’s parents were far more scandalous. She was dating his best friend when they met at a church function, and she ditched one man for another.” He shook his head.

She tried not to smile. He watched her fight it. But slowly the edges of her mouth curved.

“You love them very much.”

He did not care for her having that insight, but it was only the truth. “They are good people. They never cared about titles or money. Their lives are simple—they complain when I try to make it simpler. Because they love their family, not what a person in it might offer them.”

She sighed and settled deeper into her chair, studying a piece of fruit before setting it aside. “I love my sister. I’ve put her in an impossible situation with this, and...” She shook her head and spoke no more on it. Clearly it bothered her deeply.

But clearly she had still put herself over her sister’s needs. A pattern for the princess.

He couldn’t let his disdain for that show. Disdain did not grow love. Nor did suspicion, and she was clearly still suspicious of him. How did he combat that? It frustrated him that it would take time. Trust did not blossom overnight even in the easiest of situations.

“You say your parents loved each other,” she said, picking at the hem on the sweater she wore. “But you were so young when they died.” She chewed on her generous bottom lip for a moment before raising her gaze to meet his. “So how do you know they did?”

There was something vulnerable in the question, in her eyes, and it twisted something inside him, a strange need to protect that flash of something soft underneath all her strength and determination.

All her selfishness , he reminded himself. Because that was the issue with her, and he would not let her beauty, or even the odd flash of vulnerability, distract him from that.

He focused on her question and whether he would offer an answer. He did not often speak of his parents with anyone outside of his grandparents. It had been a topic he refused to engage with when it came to his mother’s family, when it came to the odd reporter who still thought his life might make a story, or the random person he encountered who had known his parents.

Zia fit into none of those categories. He could make up a few lies, but trust was not built on outright lies, and worse, he never could quite bring himself to lie about his parents. It felt like betrayal.

“It was told to me, of course, how much they loved each other, as I grew up. Both as a positive from my father’s parents, and a negative from my mother’s family. But...children pick up more than adults think, I believe. Perhaps I did not have the maturity for the words yet, but there were things I witnessed that, looking back, could only have been love.”

“Like what?” She looked truly intrigued, and he supposed there was no harm in this. It led her exactly where he wanted her, didn’t it? Thinking about love, believing it could happen. And if he shared his definition of love, and tried to embody it, she would at least think him in love with her.

“I recall my father turning down roles that did not fit into her royal schedule. He would always laugh it off when the movies he turned down did well. He never made it seem...like a bad thing. It was always clear his family was the most important. Being with her was his goal. Movie stardom was almost more like...a hobby.”

Cristhian frowned at his own words, and the feelings they dredged up. He had not thought of that in some time. The simple and easy ways his father had made Cristhian and his mother feel like the center of his world. He hadn’t fully understood it as a child. But now, a man with a career and adult responsibilities, and the prospect of two children greeting him in a short period of time... It felt all that much more important.

Rare.

He dared not look at Zia with these strange feelings rioting around inside him. That would no doubt confuse things when his goals were clear. Even if the methods were murky.

“To my mother, he and I were the center of her world. Everything else a distraction. She struggled more with the lines there, what with the royal responsibilities her family wanted from her and how much her family disliked my father. But she made it clear time with my father was her goal as well.”

So, in the here and now, Cristhian would make sure he made time for Zia. For the upcoming children. She would now take this as a sign of love, or potential love, and he would come out on top.

“I know my father does not love my mother,” Zia said, very, very quietly. “I highly doubt he ever did. She was a means to an end. His parents died when he was quite young, and he ascended. He needed a wife. A wife with the right pedigree to become a queen.”

“This is often the way of royalty.”

“Yes,” she agreed. She sighed heavily. “But sometimes, I think she must love him to behave the way she does. Even if he does not love her, though I cannot fathom why he doesn’t when she is everything he asks her to be.”

“What way does she behave?” Cristhian asked before he thought better of it. Before he weighed what the answer would mean for his goals of getting Zia to fall in love with him.

“Afraid, I think. Oftentimes she will express agreement with me or my sister. She will act as though she will support us in the face of opposition—my father, his advisers and aides, and then the time comes and she...doesn’t. She cowers.”

Cristhian had seen an array of royal marriages in his adolescence, but he hadn’t seen one like that. He supposed his uncle, the prince to his aunt’s queen, had a kind of...cowering air about him. But it had never struck Cristhian as fearful .

But he understood that fear better than he liked. Because his mother’s family had spent those first few years without his parents making things as scary as possible for a young boy. No stability. No support. He had been made to be afraid by people who only knew how to wield their power that way.

He felt an old anger simmer deep in his gut. There would not be fear in his children’s lives. “Are you afraid of your father?” he asked Zia, trying to keep the old anger out of his tone.

She considered this, as if it required consideration. He did not like to see that kind of behavior continued or rewarded, and it was his business, he told himself. Because how Zia’s parents dealt with her would inform how they dealt with his children, and he would not allow fear.

“I have never been afraid of him, no, because the things he cared about were not the things I cared about. But...with this pregnancy, I do have concerns about the reach of his power and what it could accomplish if I do not have full autonomy from it. He will consider these children his, in a way. Heirs.”

Heirs . How Cristhian had come to hate that term in his life.

“Either way,” Zia continued, “his family has never come above his country,” Zia said firmly, as if fear did not matter. “I suppose that is the way of a king, and I shouldn’t blame him for it.” She shook her head as if to shake the words away. “Why are we discussing all this?”

“To get to know each other.”

She studied him. “Because all of a sudden you think we could fall in love and somehow make a marriage work in a way that would support a family?”

“I realized it would be shortsighted not to be open to the idea, Zia.”

He knew he’d gotten her there because she had no quick quip of a response. She just watched him with a thoughtful look on her face. Which was a good place to end things for this morning.

He rose from his chair, crossed to her. “I have a few phone meetings I must attend to. I would like it if we could have tea together this afternoon.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t have anything better to do, I guess.”

“Such a ringing endorsement, Princesa.”

Her mouth twitched at the corner. “You’re going to have to help me out of this chair, or I’m going to be stuck here until teatime.”

He offered a hand and helped her up and out of the large chair. He did not release her, convinced this was the way toward getting what he wanted.

That was the only reason he lifted her hand to his mouth. The only possible impetus for brushing his mouth across her knuckles and watching the faint flush creep up her cheeks.

If he remembered all too well the way he’d made that flush take over her whole body months ago, there was nothing wrong with that. This was all part of his grand pursuit for her love.

That was all.

Zia had gone back to the conservatory for the next few hours. She had not been able to stop herself from dwelling on that strange morning. From his honest answers to hers. From the way her body still reacted to every last thing about him.

Was love really such a crazy idea? When her heart hammered about in her chest just from the way his gaze held hers, his lips barely touching her hand .

Love. She didn’t really have a clue what love was. She loved her sister, her children-to-be. But that felt elemental. Just immediately and easily part of her. Not something that happened, but something that was.

Nothing about Cristhian felt that simple, that certain. It felt all jumbled and confusing—had before she’d even realized she was pregnant. Because no one had ever made her feel like that, and even when she’d walked away from him that morning all those months ago, she had believed nothing and no one would ever make her feel that way again.

It had been a sort of poetic, really. That one night.

Now a million nights stretched out before them with consequences complicating things, and that confused everything.

Even the stories he told of his parents and grandparents loving each other made it sound like love was some immediate thing. She had felt attraction for Cristhian, lust, certainly, and everything she learned about him was interesting.

Were those ingredients to love?

And if they were, was that even something she wanted to consider? It seemed a dangerous element to add between them when they had to put their children first and foremost. Not each other. How could she take care of her children if she was worried about taking care of him?

She ruminated over that for the next few hours. She’d been brought lunch up in the conservatory. She’d enjoyed the plants, read a little, dozed. She’d even risked a text to Beau. Still just to assure her sister things were fine, not to ask for help...yet.

They were stuck in this castle for a few days. Perhaps she should simply...hear Cristhian out. Get to know him. She didn’t know how to believe in something like love as some magical answer to this complicated problem, but maybe understanding could lead to...

She blew out a breath, frustrated with her mind turning in the same circles. Because it always came back to the fact that everything she understood about relationships was that one person inevitably came out the victor.

Even with Beau, whom she loved with her whole heart, everything ended up a contest with a winner and a loser. And she always tried to protect Beau from being the loser. A protection born out of necessity—the heir, the...very much not heir.

And now you’ve left Beau with all that baggage. So who’s the victor?

“Ugh,” she said aloud, to try to force herself out of the loop. She couldn’t fix what was going on at home, whatever Beau was dealing with, though Beau insisted she was fine.

But Zia could find a way to deal with her current situation. Cristhian. These babies. She had to. That was her responsibility now.

She spent a considerable amount of time having to maneuver herself out of the chair and onto her feet. Sometimes, she had the fleeting thought that she would be quite glad when she wasn’t pregnant any longer.

Then she thought about the fact that two babies had to come out of her, and she walked that back pretty fast. And did something to forget about the very looming realities creeping up on her.

She went in search of Cristhian since it was nearing their agreed-upon teatime. She hoped there were more pastries. She hadn’t been exaggerating about his cook. He was a miracle worker with sugar and butter.

Lucky for her.

She didn’t make it all the way downstairs before she ran into Cristhian. He was standing on a landing on the grand staircase, looking out one of the tall, narrow windows. Outside, there were no longer rolls of white. It was just...all white. She couldn’t discern anything beyond snow.

More snow. A blizzard.

He glanced at her. “I was on my way to fetch you.” He nodded toward the window. “We may be stuck a few more days yet.”

She rubbed at her stomach, trying not to worry. “I have an appointment with my doctor in three days.”

“My doctor is on his way. This might set her back another day or two, but it should not be impossible to get her here in that time frame.” He turned to face her fully now, standing a few stairs above him. He studied her. “Do you have concerns we need taken care of?”

Zia shook her head. “No. So far everything has been right on track. Twins offer more risk, but I have not displayed any risk factors.”

“I have not asked. When are they due?”

“My doctor was hoping I would make it to thirty-six weeks without needing any interventions to extend the pregnancy. I will be at thirty-four weeks at my next appointment. So far, so good. A full term would be another six weeks, but that’s unlikely. Next month, probably.”

Cristhian nodded at this information. Then he offered his arm. “Tea is set up in the dining room.”

She hesitated. No matter how she felt about him on an intellectual level, even something as platonic as linking her arm with his was dangerous. He was too... something . Even when she wanted to hate him, every touch was charged with electricity. Like he was a current she would always react to.

But something too close to smug appeared on the lines of his face, like he understood her reluctance, so she straightened her shoulders and took the last few stairs to link arms with his.

And it was electric, no matter how stiffly she held herself against it. The heat of him, that spicy scent that had haunted her dreams these past few months. No doubt some cologne he wore, but also just him .

“Tell me more about your sister,” he offered conversationally as they walked down the rest of the staircase.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I am curious. I have no siblings, and we are to have twins. What is that like?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain, since I don’t know what it’s not like. In some ways, it was a great gift to always have Beaugonia by my side.”

“And in others?”

“When you are a twin, it is a constant comparison. Who is developing faster? Who has a higher intellect? Which one’s prettier? Which one’s more rebellious?”

“And yet you speak of her as if you are not in competition.”

Zia shook her head as he led her into the dining room. Another cornucopia of delightful-looking food—small sandwiches, more pastries, desserts. He certainly knew how to feed a woman if nothing else. “Those were outside forces. Our parents, royal staff, media. I never felt in competition to Beau.”

“Did she you?”

He helped her into her seat as she considered the question. “I don’t think so. Beau is...unique. She has always been more...interior than I am. The outside world doesn’t often factor into her decision-making. She has never expressed to me any real competition, but that is the thing about twins. It doesn’t matter what the two of you do, the outside world will judge you against each other all the same.”

“And so you were chosen as heir. Because, in comparison, you came out on top?”

“Because I could be told what to do,” she corrected. It had taken her until just a few years ago to realize this. That it wasn’t just luck of the draw that people saw her as more suitable. Maturity had made her realize it was her ability to be manipulated that led her into the life of heir.

But she didn’t want him to think that was still the case. As much as she didn’t want to let him into every facet of her life, he needed to understand that obedience and ability to be manipulated had been bred into her.

She didn’t fall for it anymore. Only when she needed to protect Beau. “I think I was only twelve or thirteen when they informed me of the trajectory of my life. Marry a royal my father would choose. Produce many a child with said royal so that, since I would be acting queen of whatever husband’s country, one of my children could be heir to my father’s throne and this other throne. And so, last year, the crown prince was chosen, and I was told I would marry him. Our countries would be linked in a positive way for both. A familiar pressure was pushed upon me to agree, and I caved to it.”

“You speak of an obedience I have yet to see considering both times we have met, you have been running away.”

She shook her head. “When I first met you, it wasn’t to run away. I had given myself a week to...escape. Briefly. I had a time limit. I just wanted to see what it would be like to make my own decisions, have my own life. I thought it would help. Obviously, I was a bit naive there, and then compounded that naivete with a mistake with you. But at the end of the day, my father had made it very clear to me if I did not do my duty, that Beau’s life would suffer. So I was going to do my duty.”

She poured the tea while he filled both their plates. Small domestic movements that felt strangely...comforting. She supposed because they were stuck here, in this unreal world, where they could get along and nothing outside the walls of the castle had to matter.

But this was very temporary, and she needed to remember that.

“It seems to me your sister is a grown woman who can handle herself if she is as you describe. Why are you so protective?”

“In some ways she is that.” She would not let Cristhian or anyone else in on Beau’s issues. Not because she felt as her parents did that Beau’s panic attacks were embarrassing and a bad mark on the crown. If anything, she felt the opposite. Beau’s issues meant she deserved protecting from anyone .

Silence fell after that, as if he expected her to fill it. She didn’t. She busied herself with baked goods and tea. When he finally spoke again, it seemed he’d realized she wouldn’t speak any more about her sister.

“And what did you do on this week of freedom you took? Besides me, of course.”

She laughed in spite of herself. Perhaps she was giving him too much information, too much ammunition. But maybe...maybe she could allow him to fall in love with her, if she believed such things possible. As long as she didn’t fall in love, didn’t have to serve him in that way, that meant she had control of the situation.

Didn’t it?

“I shopped alone,” she said, thinking back to that glorious week. So glorious she’d let everything go wrong, and even now, couldn’t regret it. “I went to a concert and lost myself in the music I chose to like. I walked in cities at night, in broad daylight, all on my own. I even found an athletic club and joined a little pickup football game one day. No one treated me any different than anyone else. It was like breathing for the first time.”

He didn’t say anything right away. He was staring at her intently, an odd expression on his face she couldn’t quite parse. Intense, yes, but as if he was trying to puzzle her out, like she was some sort of brain teaser.

“Were you expecting something else?” she asked.

He shook his head, looked down at his plate. “I do not know what I expected.”

But he got that look about him. She was beginning to recognize it was usually when he brought up something about royalty. And his mother was a princess. Like her.

“Did your mother ever try to step out of royal life?”

His expression shuttered. “I should like to meet your sister, I think. Perhaps we can get her here for the wedding.”

She did not know if he meant to be provoking, or if he was simply so used to always telling people how it would be that he did not consider her feelings on the wedding she hadn’t agreed to at all.

“I haven’t agreed to marry you, Cristhian,” she stated very firmly.

He looked over at her and smiled then, and she should not react to that. It shouldn’t flutter through her like some heady liquor. He was smiling because he thought what she wanted didn’t matter.

And still she throbbed with too many memories of that night to name.

“My mistake, Princesa,” he said, his voice a low, sultry menace. “More tea?”