HE DIDN’T SHARE her bed that night.
It wounded her more than a little. She had hoped that...that she tested his control a little more than that. Especially considering he had reshaped her into a person she didn’t recognize.
One who had agreed to stay here.
Who had agreed to marry a man she barely knew.
Except...
Didn’t she know him? On a soul-deep level? It was terrifying how real it all felt. She loved him. He had taken such a large piece of who she was in such a small amount of time.
And with the same certainty that she loved him, she knew he didn’t feel the same.
She wasn’t even sure he could.
It didn’t change her heart, though.
Maybe she could change his. She hoped.
First, though, she had to take care of her life.
She took a deep breath and fortified herself. Then looked down at her phone.
Violet knew that it was time to speak to her father. She had been avoiding it for weeks now.
And it wasn’t that she hadn’t received calls from her family in the time since her engagement to Javier had been announced. She had. The only calls she had been at home to were from her brother and from her sister.
Maximus had been stern, and she had waved off his concerns. Minerva had been... Well, Minerva. Thoughtful, practical and a bit overly romantic. But then, Violet herself was being a bit romantic.
And anyway, she had talked Minerva through her situation with Dante, when the two of them had been having issues, and so of course Minerva had been supportive of whatever Violet wanted.
But her parents... She had avoided them. Completely. Not today. Today she was ready to have the discussion.
Today she was ready to hear whatever the answers might be.
That was the real issue.
If she was going to ask her father for an explanation, she had to be prepared to hear the explanation.
But something had shifted in her last night. That decisiveness.
She was no longer hiding from the fact that she had chosen this. That Javier was her choice.
That being in Monte Blanco was her choice.
She took a fortifying breath, and she selected her father’s number.
“Violet,” he said, his tone rough.
“Hi,” she said, not exactly sure what to feel. A sense of relief at hearing his voice, because she had missed him even while she had been angry at him.
At least, missed the way that she had felt about him before.
“Are you all right?”
“It’s a little bit late for you to be concerned about that.”
“Why? I didn’t expect that you would be cut off from communication with me.”
“I haven’t been. I’ve been perfectly able to call and communicate with whoever I wished.”
“You haven’t come back to California. You haven’t been at work. From what I’ve heard you’ve only given minimal instruction to your team. It’s not like you.”
“Well. You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve never been kidnapped before. Neither have I been engaged to be married to two different men in the space of a few weeks. Strangers, at that.”
“I meant to speak to you about this,” he said.
“You meant to speak to me about it?”
“It was never intended to be a surprise. But I lost my nerve when it came to speaking to you after I struck the deal.”
“I can’t imagine why. Were you afraid that I would be angry that you sold me like I was a prized heifer?”
“I figured that if I could position it the right way, you would see why it was a good thing. Being a businesswoman is one thing, Violet, but a princess? A queen?”
“Well, I’m not going to be Queen now. I got knocked down to the spare, rather than the heir.”
“What happened?”
Her father sounded genuinely distressed by that. “Do you really care?”
“It would’ve been better for you to marry Matteo. He is the King.”
“No,” she said, “it wouldn’t be better for me to marry Matteo, because I don’t have any feelings for him.”
“Are you telling me you have feelings for... The other one?”
“Why do you care? You let him take me. You let me be kidnapped and held for reasons of marriage without explaining to me why. Without... Dad, I thought that I was worth more to you than just another card to be dealt from your businessman hand. You would never have done this to Maximus.”
“Well, quite apart from the fact that neither of them would have wanted to marry Maximus...”
“Why not Minerva?”
“It was clear to me from the beginning that Minerva would not have made a good princess. But you...”
“I went on to build my own business. To build my own fortune. You didn’t know that I would do that when you promised me to him at sixteen. And in the last decade you didn’t have the courage to speak to me even one time about it.”
“It won’t impact your ability to run your business. I mean, certainly you’ll have to farm out some of the day-to-day, but you’re mostly a figurehead anyway.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I brainstorm most of the new products. I’m in charge of implementation. I’m not just a figurehead.” Her stomach sank. “But that’s what you think, isn’t it? You think that I’ve only accomplished any of this because of my connection with you.”
It hit her then that her father genuinely thought he had been giving her a gift on some level. That there was nothing of substance that she had accomplished on her own, and nothing that she could.
And he couldn’t even see that. It didn’t even feel like a lack of love to him. And maybe it wasn’t.
It was a deeply rooted way that he seemed to see his girls versus the way he saw his son. Perhaps the way he saw women versus the way he saw men.
“It was a good thing that you did,” she said, “when you took Dante in from the streets of Rome. You thought he was smart. You sent him to school. If he had been a woman, would you have just tried to make a marriage for him?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” her father said. “That I don’t think you’re smart. I do. I think you’re brilliant, Violet. And I think you’re wonderful with people. Women have a different sort of power in this world. I don’t see the harm in acknowledging that. I don’t see the harm in allowing you to use that in a way that is easier. You can try to compete with men in the business world, but you’ll always be at a disadvantage.”
“I want to be very clear,” Violet said. “I am choosing this. Not for you. Your views are not only antiquated, they’re morally wrong. That you see me as secondary to you, as incapable, is one of the most hurtful things I’ve ever had to face.”
“I’m protecting you. No matter what happens with commerce, you’ll always be a princess once you marry...”
“Javier. I want you to know that I’m choosing to marry him. Because I care about him. I’m not afraid of losing everything, Dad. Not the way that you are.”
“That’s because you don’t know what it’s like to have nothing,” her father said. “I do. I didn’t have anything when I started out. And I built my empire from nothing. You built yours off mine. Easy enough for you to say that you’re not afraid to lose it.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “And I’ve always felt that, you know. That I built this off something that you started. And I suppose you could say that my marriage here is built off something that you started. But I’m the one that’s choosing this. I’m the one that’s choosing to make all that I can from it.”
“Violet, I know that you’re not happy with me about this, but clearly it worked out for the best.”
She thought of last night. Of the passion that had erupted between her and Javier. Of the way that she felt for him.
It didn’t feel like the best. It felt necessary. It felt real and raw and closer to who she was than anything else ever had. But it wasn’t easy. And it wouldn’t be. Ever. Because Javier wasn’t easy. And she wouldn’t want him to be, not really.
She wished that he might love her.
The strength of their connection was so powerful she had to believe... He was wounded. She knew that. He was scarred by his past.
He would fight against his feelings.
But he had accepted the marriage. He wanted them to choose each other, own each other.
She was certain of nothing, but she trusted that commitment.
She had to hope that someday it could become more.
“It didn’t work out for the best because of you,” Violet said. “You can’t take credit for what I felt. And believe me, the relationship I have with Javier I built.”
She hung up the phone then.
She didn’t know what she was going to do about her relationship with her father going forward. Though living half a world away was certainly helpful.
The kind of distance required for her to get her head on straight. That was for sure.
And now she had to clear her mind. Because tonight there was going to be a dinner with foreign dignitaries. And Javier had told her that in light of the fact he had no people skills, she was going to have to do the heavy lifting for him.
Conviction burned in her chest.
He needed her to be his other half.
And so she would be.
She would choose to be.
Perhaps if she went first, if she forged that path with love, he would be able to find his way into loving her back.
An impromptu dinner with foreign dignitaries was not Javier’s idea of fun. But then, few things were his idea of fun. And if he had his way, he would simply walk out of the dining room and take Violet straight back to bed. But tonight was not about having his way. Unfortunately.
She looked radiant. She had sent one of the members of the palace staff to town and instructed them to return with a golden gown from a local shop. And they had delivered. She was wearing something filmy and gauzy that clung to her curves while still looking sedate.
Her hair was slick, captured in a low bun, and her makeup was similar to how it had been the first day they’d met. More elaborate than anything she had done during their time together here at the palace.
He found he liked something about that as well.
That this was her public face. And that the soft, scrubbed-fresh woman with edible pink lips and wild dark hair was his and his alone.
She was standing there, talking to a woman from Nigeria, both of their hand gestures becoming animated, and he could only guess about what.
But Violet was passionate about her charities. About businesses that centered around women, and he imagined it had something to do with that.
“She is quite something,” his brother said, moving to stand beside him.
“Yes,” Javier agreed. “She is.”
Not for the first time he thought that she would be better suited to the position of Queen than being married to him.
“Come,” Matteo said. “Let us speak for a moment.”
“Are you going to have me arrested and executed?” Javier asked as they walked out of the dining room and onto the balcony that overlooked the back garden.
“No,” Matteo said. “Had I done that, I would have made a much larger spectacle.”
“Good to know.”
“I wanted to thank you for following through with the marriage.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I can tell that you have feelings for her.”
Javier gritted his teeth. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” Matteo agreed. “She is. But many women are beautiful.”
Not like Violet. “Certainly.”
“Without you, I never could have done this,” Matteo said. “All the years of it. Making sure that the damage that our father was intent on inflicting on the country was not as severe as it might have been. You have been loyal to me. Even in this.”
Loyalty? Was that what he called this? He had been a fox curled around a hen. Waiting, just waiting for her to be left alone. Vulnerable and beautiful and his to devour.
It had taken nothing for him to abandon his promise. His honor.
To prove that he was morally corrupt in his soul. Incapable of doing right if he led with his heart.
“You consider it loyalty?” Javier chuckled. “I slept with your fiancée.”
“It does not matter which of us marries her. Only that it’s done. I told you that. And I meant it.”
“I didn’t know it at the time.”
“I brought you out here to say that you must not think our bond is damaged by this. And it must not become damaged by this. I don’t want your woman.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“I would ensure that you do not labor under the impression that I might. Which I feel could drive a wedge between us. As I can see that you are... Distracted by her.”
“Now we come down to the real truth of it,” Javier said. “Do you have concerns about what you consider to be my state of distraction?”
“Not too many. But you must remember that we have a mission here. A goal.”
“I am very conscious of it. In service of that goal, she might have been a better queen than anyone else you could choose.”
“She will do well in her position as your wife. As for me... I will keep looking.”
“You will never be him,” Javier said, looking at his brother’s profile. “Don’t ever doubt that.”
“I doubt it often,” Matteo said. “But isn’t that what we must do? Question ourselves at every turn. I often wonder how I can ever be truly confident in anything I believe in. Because once I believed in him wholeheartedly. Once I thought that he had the nation’s best interests at heart. Once I thought our father was the hero. And it turned out that he was only the villain.”
Matteo gave voice to every demon that had ever lurked inside of Javier. When you had believed so wrongly, how could you ever trust that what you believed now was correct?
“We have to remember. An allegiance to honor before all else. Because if you can memorize a code, then you can know with your head what is right. Hearts lie.”
Javier nodded slowly. “Yes. You know I believe that as well as you do.”
“Good.”
He turned around and looked through the window, saw Violet now standing in the center of a group talking and laughing.
“It’s made easier by the fact that I have no feelings.” He shot his brother a forced grin.
“Good.”
Matteo turned and walked back into the party, leaving Javier standing there looking inside. Whether he had meant to or not, his brother had reminded him of what truly mattered. Not the heat that existed between himself and Violet. But progressing their country. Righting the wrongs of their father.
Javier had his own debt to pay his country. He had, under the orders of his father, used the military against its people. Had arrested innocent men who had spent time in prison, away from their families.
Who he knew his father had tortured.
He had been a weapon in the hands of the wrong man, with the wrong view on the world.
He was dangerous, and he couldn’t afford to forget it.
Nor could he afford to do any more than atone for all that he’d been.
Nothing, nothing at all, must distract him from that mission.
Not even his fiancée.
“Someone else can go with me.”
Violet was becoming irritated by the stormy countenance of her fiancé. He was driving the car carrying them down to town, wearing a white shirt and dark pants, the sleeves pushed up past his forearms. His black hair was disheveled. Possibly because earlier today they had begun kissing in his office, and she had ended up on his lap, riding the ridge of his arousal, gasping with pleasure until she realized that she was going to be late for her appointment at the bridal store in town.
“No,” he said.
“You’re not allowed to see the wedding dress that I choose anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter. I will wait outside.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “If you’re going to go wedding dress shopping with me, you have to at least look a little bit like you don’t want to die.”
A mischievous thought entered her brain, and she set her fingers on his thigh, then let them drift over to an even harder part of him. “Are you frustrated because we didn’t get to finish?”
“Obviously I would rather continue with that.”
His tone was so exasperated and dry that she couldn’t help but laugh.
“If it doesn’t impact your driving...” She brushed her fingertips over him.
“It does,” he said.
She felt even more gratified by the admission that she affected him than she could have anticipated. She let that carry her the rest of the way down the mountain and into town. It was important to her that she get a dress from a local designer. It was part of an initiative that she was working on with King Matteo’s assistant.
Livia was a lovely young woman, with large, serious eyes and a surprisingly dry sense of humor. She was extremely organized and efficient, and Violet could see that Matteo took her for granted in the extreme.
But between the two of them they had begun to figure out ways to naturally raise the profile of the country, coinciding with her marriage to Javier.
Acquiring everything from Monte Blanco that they would need for the wedding was part of that.
When Violet and Javier pulled up to the shop, he parked and got out, leaning against the car.
She made her way toward the shop and looked back at him. He was a dashing figure. And she wanted to take his picture.
“I’m putting you on the internet.”
His expression went hard, but he didn’t say anything. And she snapped the shot, him with his arms crossed over his broad chest, a sharp contrast against the sleek black car and the quaint cobbled streets and stone buildings behind him.
And he was beautiful.
“Thank you.” She smiled and then went into the shop.
Immediately she was swept into a current of movement. She was given champagne and several beautiful dresses. It would be difficult to choose. But the dress that she decided on was simple, with floating sheer cape sleeves and a skirt that floated around her legs as she walked.
She took a photo of a detail of the dress on a hanger and took all the information for the bridal store.
Because when all this was over, anyone with a big wedding coming up this year would want a gown from this shop, from this designer.
When she reappeared, Javier was still standing where she had left him. Looking like a particularly sexy statue.
“All right. Now you have to come with me for the rest of this.”
They went through the rest of the city finding items for the wedding. They created a crowd wherever they went. People were in awe to see Javier walking around with the citizens like a regular person. Not that anything about him could be called regular.
“They love you,” she said as they walked into a flower shop.
He looked improbable standing next to displays of baby’s breath, hyacinth and other similarly soft and pastel-colored things.
“They shouldn’t,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Nobody should love a person in a position of power. They should demand respect of him.”
“You have some very hard opinions,” she said, reaching out and brushing her fingertips over the baby’s breath.
“I have to have hard opinions.”
He touched the edge of one of the hyacinth blossoms and she snapped a quick picture. She enjoyed the sight of his masculine hand against that femininity. It made her think of a hot evening spent with him. It made her think of sex. Of the way he touched her between her legs.
As if he were thinking the exact same thing, he looked at her, their eyes clashing. And she felt the impact of it low in her stomach.
“I’m definitely feeling a bit of frustration over having not gotten to finish what we started earlier,” he murmured.
“Me too,” she whispered. “But we are out doing our duty. And isn’t that the entire point of this marriage?”
The question felt like it was balanced on the edge of a knife. And her right along with it.
“It is,” he said, taking his hand away from the flower.
“Right. Well. I think I found the flowers that I want.”
She spoke to the shop owner, placing her order. And then the two of them carried on.
“I think we ought to have ice cream for the wedding,” she said, standing outside the store. She was searching for something. For that connection with him that they’d had earlier. That they’d had back when it was forbidden.
“I don’t want any,” he said.
“I... Well. I mean, we can order some for the wedding.”
“I think you can handle that on your own,” he said.
Her heart faltered for a beat. It felt too close to a metaphor for all that they were right now. She could also love him alone. She was doing it. But it hurt, and she didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to close this gap between them.
“Of course,” she responded. “I... I’ll go and order it.”
She did. Then she ordered an ice-cream cone for herself and ignored the pain in her chest. She ignored it all the way through the rest of the shopping, and when they arrived back at the palace and he did not continue where they had left off in his office.
And she tried not to wonder if she had chosen wrong.
She had to cling to the story.
Because eventually the beast would be transformed by love.
The problem was that her beast seemed particularly resistant to it.
And she wasn’t entirely sure she understood why.