Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

B EAU WOKE UP in a cold sweat. Her breath coming in pants. The world dark around her. A strange bed. A warm man. Her mind whirled with something just out of reach.

But she knew one thing.

It had been years since she'd woken up in the middle of a panic attack. And this was the worst possible moment for this to happen to her again.

She struggled to gulp down a breath, but Lyon didn't stir beside her. So there was still a chance. There was still a chance he didn't wake up and find out.

Would it be so bad?

She eased off the bed, struggling to breathe, struggling to feel her legs well enough to walk. The room was dark, but her vision felt even more off than just that.

Would it be so bad? For Lyon to wake up and see her greatest weakness? Something that was decidedly not stable or respectable?

Yes, it would be so bad.

She tried to move through the room quietly, relief fighting with everything rioting inside of her. Because Lyon didn't stir, and she managed to make her way to the bathroom without making any loud noises.

With shaking arms and increasing panic, tears already streaming down her face, she managed to close the door without slamming it.

Then she simply collapsed onto the ground. Shaking and gasping. Cursing everything that made her the way she was.

Maybe it was lucky. It had gripped her at a time when she'd been able to slip away and hide. Lyon would not have to know. If it could always be this way, then she would be fine.

She tried to let that thought calm her, but once it started there was usually no going back. The attack had to run its course. But she was lying naked on the bathroom floor and that was ridiculous.

She didn't trust herself to stand with as shaky as she was, but she could crawl across the floor to the closet. She left the lights off and tried. Her limbs shook and she didn't want to make any noise so it was slow going and more pushing herself across the floor than anything else.

Pathetic. Stupid. Crazy.

But those were her father's words, not hers. She understood that panic was simply...what it was. A misfire in her brain. She couldn't control it, and it certainly didn't make her any of the things her father called her.

But something about the night with Lyon, sleeping in his bed, made her feel more a failure than she usually did after a panic attack. Because there was no one to prove wrong. No one to spite.

There was only a man she had to hide this...defect from. And not just to protect Zia anymore, but because...she liked him. This life they were creating. It was the happiest she'd ever been. And maybe that was a low bar, but it was a low bar she was determined to keep reaching.

She made it into the closet. There were clothes of hers in here somewhere. She couldn't trust herself to stand to reach the light, so she just reached out around the walls and tried to find a shelf or drawer or something.

Stop shaking. Stop crying. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

She counted breaths. She ignored the tears. Her hand finally blindly landed on something that felt like fabric. Once she managed to get it over her head, she realized it was not hers. It was too big and baggy, but it seemed like a sweatshirt and that would work, even if it was Lyon's.

She brought her knees to her chest and sat there, as her body shook against her will. But with time, her breathing became easier. The tears stopped. The shaking wouldn't go away for some time, but it would lessen. It usually went quicker when Zia sat with her and talked to her as though it weren't happening. Or even her last one, when Cristhian had sat with her and told her the story of when he'd first met Zia.

Even now, the memory warmed her. Whether Zia knew it or not, Cristhian was desperately in love, and Beau had known in that moment that everything she had done was correct. Allowing Zia the freedom of a life with Cristhian and their children free of the palace rules meant they could build a life of joy. For themselves and each other and their impending twins.

Beau was finally able to breathe deeply for the first time. Whatever caused this panic was not from a place of reason, but she was still reasonable . And reminding herself how well her choices and gambles had turned out...helped. At least mentally.

Zia would be happy. And this... thing between Beau and Lyon... Lust. Chemistry. But also at least a surface enjoyment of each other. It was better than anything she'd had back home. Maybe she had to hide her panic attacks from Lyon and Divio for the rest of her life, but that was better than being treated like some kind of abomination.

The thought of Lyon finding out and making some proclamation about...stability. It made her want to throw up.

So she wouldn't think on that too deeply. It simply wouldn't happen.

Her shakes were better, her breathing normal. She could return to bed and Lyon would never know.

She crept back into the room. It was still dark, and she heard nothing but steady, even breathing. She let out a slow breath herself to steady her steps, and then moved as quietly as possible to the bed. She eased back in.

Lyon shifted, rolled over. "Is everything all right?" he murmured, clearly still half-asleep.

"Of course. I just got cold." And even though she'd gotten dressed, she still felt iced straight through. But her voice sounded calm, so there was that. "I suppose sleeping naked isn't for alpine chalets."

Then he did something that made tears spring to her eyes. He reached over, pulled her into the heat of his body, tucking the blankets around them. Warmth encased her.

Was this what love felt like?

Don't be an idiot, Beaugonia.

Love—real love, not whatever had twisted inside of her mother to make her bow and scrape to Father—was built on trust. And as much as she liked Lyon, liked the way he made her feel inside and outside of the bedroom, she would always be keeping a part of herself hidden, because she couldn't trust him with it.

That could never be love.

Which felt like a very heavy, depressing weight in her chest. And while she rarely had panic attacks back to back, she didn't like the way this made her feel. The way tension was creeping back into her. Her thoughts whirling in a loop.

No, she didn't want that. And the only thing she could think of that would stop it was him .

"Lyon?"

"Mm?" He was drifting off into sleep, but she needed...something. And never in her life had she had the opportunity to reach out and take it. She turned in the circle of his warm, strong arms and pressed herself against him.

"Touch me."

She felt the shift from half-asleep to immediately alert, and it soothed something inside of her. This effect they had on each other. The way this want felt wild and free and all-encompassing so nothing else mattered.

She fitted her mouth to his. Relief sliding through her along with the post–panic attack exhaustion when he kissed her back. Everything would be okay. Everything would still be better than she'd had.

He pulled her closer, his hand sliding over her back, the curve of her hip. Till he found bare leg, because she only wore his sweatshirt.

Desire slowly sparkled to life as his fingers brushed her leg, up and under the shirt, until his hand rested at her hip, his mouth taking a sweet tour of hers.

But she couldn't do sweet. Not now when she was so vulnerable.

"Don't be gentle," she said against his mouth. She wanted that wild storm of what they'd had earlier.

His grip tightened, then released. She knew he resisted it, though she didn't understand why he thought this had anything to do with how he led Divio. But she couldn't concern herself with his resistance.

"Please. What we had in the kitchen, that is what I need." Beyond thought. Beyond reason. Beyond his precious control.

"This cannot be who we are, Beaugonia."

"Just tonight then. Just tonight. Please, Lyon."

And he gave her just that. She knew it didn't solve anything, didn't change anything. This couldn't be who they were, and he could never fully know who she was. Divio was his guiding star and always would be.

But for tonight, she got everything she wanted.

The next morning, Lyon woke up later than he could ever remember waking. But he did not allow himself to think of last night and why that might be. That was over. A new day had dawned, and it was now time to make all the right decisions.

Beau still slept, the covers heaped around her. She looked peaceful if more unkempt than he might have expected. But he could not allow himself to think of the reasons her hair was tousled, her shoulders bare.

A new day. A new page.

They would eat their breakfast, go on their hike. Maybe spend a late afternoon cozied up to the fire with their books before making, eating and cleaning up dinner together. Then, and only then, would they retire to the bedroom. New desires clearly under his control, and then satiated. So there was every possibility a pregnancy came sooner rather than later.

Which he wouldn't think about now.

He went into the kitchen and decided to put together a breakfast and some snacks for the hike. It was rare he got the opportunity to just be in his kitchen. Any kitchen. He liked the process of it. Putting things together, having something come out on the other side that even if it didn't look perfect, might taste well enough, and would certainly do the job of nourishing either way.

When he was nearly done with all his preparations, he heard her approach. He steeled himself for a day where he was in control of himself. He turned, pleasant smile pasted on his face.

She was dressed in a good base layer for a hike. She had brushed her hair, but she still looked oddly sleepy. He had slept like a rock, except when she'd woken him.

But he wasn't thinking of that. "Good morning."

"Morning," she offered around a yawn. "Is that breakfast? I'm starving."

"Yes. Have a seat."

She approached the table then sat down as he put a plate in front of her. "I will bring a pack for our hike. Water, snacks, but a good protein-rich breakfast is the best way to keep your strength up if we are to make it the full distance."

"Of course," she replied pleasantly. She did not look at him. She did not bring up last night. She wolfed down her breakfast.

She wasn't making things awkward or uncomfortable, and yet he did not fully feel like himself. His entire life had been in service of one thing—becoming the kind of man and leader who would step into his station once the knock of fate came to the door. He had never considered anything else.

And now he was considering this strange woman who was only supposed to be a business associate at best.

He forced himself to eat his breakfast even though he tasted nothing. Then, once they were both done and the meal cleaned up, they put on layers for hiking in the cold snow. Beau said nothing about last night, and seemed eager to get started, so they set out.

The day was sunny and bright and beautiful. The trail was not marked. It was one of his own making.

She followed along, and he had to slow his pace because she wanted to stop and look at everything. Every rock, every overlook. She poked at ice and made snowballs.

He was surprised to find himself not the least bit frustrated with her constant stops. It was pleasurable to watch her get such enjoyment out of the most simple things.

"Do you always inspect every little thing when you hike?" he asked when she threw one of her little snowball creations and it landed a little too close to him. He turned and gave her an arched eyebrow to get her to laugh.

She didn't. She didn't even meet his gaze. "I haven't been hiking much. My outdoor time usually consisted of finding a hidden away reading spot in the gardens at home."

Lyon frowned. He'd known she'd been hidden away after a fashion with Zia being the heir and her not, but he hadn't considered how much that might extend to everything . He'd simply thought it meant events and whatnot. Not actual...life.

"You were always kept in the castle?"

She paused, then focused very steadily on a new small sphere of snow in her palm. She took her time responding, as if considering what to say. "It was my father's belief that if I did not show myself in many places, that no one would ask about me. That as long as Zia sparkled, and it seemed as though I did not exist, no one would connect those childhood...tantrums, as he called them...with the monarchy. So, I spent most of my time in the castle." Then, she hurled her little snowball over the edge of the trail. It landed with no sound at all, everything hushed in the snow.

Something in her expression seemed disappointed, and he did not want to see that, feel it twist inside of him like his own disappointment. So he kept walking. "You seem well-equipped to deal with the world for someone kept so isolated."

"Reading opens worlds, even when you don't have any."

He supposed that was true, but he'd never had to put it into practice quite so starkly. And it made him want to...do something for her. He didn't know what. Whatever he offered her had to fit in with the mold he'd created for the perfect princess. The perfect wife of Divio.

But there were little things, he supposed. "Speaking of, I have begun to read one of your romance novels."

"Have you?"

"Yes. And while the writing is quite skilled and the characters interesting enough, it seems to me the whole thing could be solved twenty pages in if they just sat down and had a mature conversation."

"Perhaps, but how often are we as mature as we'd like to be? How often do humans go through great lengths to avoid difficult conversations? How interesting would it be if every fictional character acted perfectly reasonably and maturely—especially considering we as a species rarely do."

It felt pointed, even though when he turned to face her again she wasn't looking at him. So he kept walking on, until they reached the destination of this trail he'd made. A perfect opening to look out over the chalet below and everything they'd just climbed. The beautiful, ancient mountains all around them. And the perfect weather for everything to sparkle with seeming magic.

Her face broke out into one of those beautiful smiles, just pure, simplistic joy at a beautiful landscape. Her eyes were almost perfectly green up here in all this sky and white, her cheeks and nose flushed.

"How often do you make it up here?" She was looking at the chalet, so he assumed she meant this place in general, not the hike.

"Not often. It's hard to get away. Especially with how things are with parliament. They'll take any excuse to paint me the same as my uncles and cousins."

"That must be a difficult legacy to live down."

He frowned a little. "Duties aren't meant to be easy ." When he'd been young, and still childish enough to complain about what his grandmother expected of him, he'd always been lectured on his privilege. On the special space he held and how he owed it to the men he'd never met to reclaim their legacy. "My existence is a payment of a debt, and so I will pay it."

Beau looked at him, her forehead furrowed, her expression one of confusion. "Why should your existence be a payment of a debt ?"

"My grandmother would have been an excellent ruler, but she was not allowed. I believe my mother would have been as well, should it have been expected of her."

But the look of confusion never left her face. "So? What has that got to do with you?"

"I am finally the male heir Divio deserved. It should have been my grandmother. So I pay the debt lost."

Still, she looked at him as though he were speaking in Italian instead of English. "None of you can control what sex you were born as. That...makes no sense. It was just... The way things happened. Like Zia being good with crowds when we were young. It's just...the way we are."

Lyon resisted the urge to rub at his chest where an odd tension banded. "I am not explaining it well then. I simply meant that I always knew this would be my responsibility, and that I would meet all challenges."

"That doesn't make the challenges less difficult, Lyon. A duty can still be...a weight. A struggle. Even if you do it with a glad heart."

No one had ever put it that way. It was strangely...satisfying for someone to acknowledge nothing he did was easy . That it was work to be everything his grandmother had wanted him to be.

She would have given him that assurance, he believed, if she'd lived long enough to see him crowned. Then he finally would have garnered her approval. He was sure of it.

"I suppose," he agreed, wanting to get away from this uncomfortable topic. The way his short breathing wasn't from hiking, but from that weight in his chest.

"Well, I quite like it up here," Beau said brightly, as if she sensed his need to move on. "Hopefully once we convince parliament of your stability, we can come up here more often."

He could not account for how much he liked the way she said we , as though they were a team. A partnership. He had not thought of it quite like that. She was an...aid to something. A tool. He had never expected to share responsibility with anyone. The responsibility was his.

You are the only hope of Divio, Lyon. All rests on you.

Him and him alone. But now he had a wife. A partner and no doubt Beau could handle her own weight, and that was...amazing, really.

"You will have to make that drive you hated more often to come up here." He even managed to smile as he teased her.

She wrinkled her nose. "That is a great shame."

"You have no fear of any of these ledges," he pointed out, as she got closer than he liked to the edge of an overlook. The view was beautiful, but the results of one wrong move catastrophic.

"I trust my own two feet. I do not trust big burly machines to navigate narrow roads."

He smiled in spite of himself, she was such a funny little thing. "Do you have any other peculiar fears?"

"I don't consider it peculiar at all," she replied, all haughty offense.

It was wrong, surely, how much that tone, that look affected him. How immediately it sent a thrill to his sex. A desire that threatened to obscure all those rules he'd set for himself this morning.

He turned on a heel. "We best head back." And he set a quick pace. Perhaps unfairly so. She kept up, but when they returned to the chalet with the afternoon sun beating down on them despite the cold air, she was huffing and puffing. Cheeks and nose red. Eyes watering.

But she didn't seem the least bit put out as he opened the door and gestured her inside.

"I know we have to leave tomorrow, but perhaps we could do a shorter hike before we do in the morning," she said, shrugging out of her first layer of coats. "What a wonderful way to start the day."

He did the same. "If we get up early enough."

"Then I suppose you shouldn't keep me up all night." She smiled at him, a glint of mischief in her eyes that lent themselves toward brown now. But there were hints of green and gold. Hints of other worlds entirely.

Especially when she moved closer, reached out and helped him with his first layer of jackets. Not that he needed her help. But he took it all the same. Particularly when she lifted on her toes and fitted her mouth to his.

Her nose was cold, her mouth was hot. She wrapped herself around him like a vine. Surely it was some kind of spell she put over him, because he did not set her back. He kissed her. Sucked under by the taste of her, the thrill of her.

She met every nip with one of her own. She arched against him. Moaned against him. Until there was only the beat of desire. Only the need for more .

But there were so many layers between them, and the attempt to start getting through them was enough of a reality check to bring him back to himself. To his control.

They would not do this here. There had to be lines . Of respectability. Of correct action.

He wrenched himself away from her. Managed to untangle her arms and put some small but necessary space of air between them. It felt like more of a triumph than he should allow himself to feel. He had still kissed her here. Maybe there was no staff, but there were windows. Maybe there was no public here, but he had to be better. Tomorrow they would be in a crowded castle, and he could perhaps excuse some inappropriate kisses with a newlywed phase, but he didn't want to give anyone a reason to look at him and think he couldn't control himself.

To look at him and know how little handle he had on his desires for his wife. Because where would that lead? Thanks to the princes that came before, everyone would wonder.

Beau stood there, panting. Looking at him with a hazy desire mixed heavily with confusion. He wanted his hands on her more than his next breath, but he would not give in. He would not be weak.

Divio was his touchstone. Not her . Not this .

Then she kneeled before him.