Page 135

But quiet.

And that was when Saviero knew.

That was when he understood, at last.

That was when everything changed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CESCA WATCHED AS something moved over his face and then seemed to reverberate through the two of them. She could feel it as it swept her under and carried her with it, so that every part of her seemed to be perched on a precipice, waiting to see what would happen next.

It was like some kind of shift in the air, like an electric storm hovering, waiting for the crack of a thunderclap to set it off.

Those impossibly blue eyes of his seemed to break through her until they could see deep inside her, as if there were no mysteries between them now. As if he could see straight into her soul.

She thought it was vastly unfair that he could when all she could seem to do was feel her heart like glass in her chest, threatening to crack at any moment.

Saviero reached over and, with great deliberation, ran his hand over the braids coiled around the crown of her head in the style she’d adopted this week that made it look as if she was always wearing some kind of crown. Then he brushed the backs of his fingers down the length of her cheek.

Cesca could not seem to help it, but her breath came tumbling out of her, no doubt giving her away.

No doubt giving him more ammunition to use against her in this fight she hadn’t realized they were fighting until it was too late.

Until she was already too far gone.

She tried to stay still. She waited. She expected him to do something.

Something starkly sexual, the way he usually did. Though even as she thought that, she knew that wasn’t quite true. He also claimed ownership of their time together in other ways. Like all the times he’d carried her to the bath and out again. The nights he’d brushed out her hair, as if he truly enjoyed every stroke.

This time, he kept looking at her until she felt herself quivering.

And wishing, as ever, that she hadn’t agreed to this. That she could shout at him or say horribly scathing things that might make her feel better or simply tell him to stop because she knew he would.

But that was the real problem, she’d realized as she’d sat on this bench, wishing her mother was here with her in more than just her memories, was that she didn’t want this to stop. She didn’t want to have to lecture herself on being realistic about this man.

Cesca had never been in love in her whole life.

What she really wanted was for him to love her back, for it to have nothing to do with their jobs, and for them to stay blissed out like they had been all week…forever.

Not that she dared say such a thing, and not only because they were alone here and he was in charge, and had told her to stay quiet.

Maybe she should have been a little more grateful for that.

“I love this kingdom,” Saviero told her, that rumbling voice of his dancing over her skin like a caress. “And I have been lucky enough to spend my life in service to the crown. Not because I am a palace dog, but because I believe in what the crown represents.” He studied her face, as if he was reading her again, inside and out. “Not, as I know some have claimed, because I am blindly loyal to the kingdom, but because I have always so deeply believed in the monarch. First Vesuvius and now you. It was my honor to serve your brother, and an even greater honor when he suggested that I might be the perfect consort for you both during this difficult transition and after it.”

Cesca wanted to jump on that immediately. She opened her mouth to say something, but then remembered—again—the bargain they’d made. And it occurred to her that by honoring their agreement, even now, she was proving how much she thought of him.

No matter how she tried to pretend that she’d moved past that.

As ever, she suspected he knew it.

He blew out a breath, as if her silence—her adherence to the rules they’d made—emboldened him, too. “But it is also true that I decided long ago that it was far safer to serve a kingdom, a crown, a monarch who always had an heir in waiting, than to allow myself the relationships other people have.” His gaze was like a fire on hers. “I never got over losing my parents. I thought losing my grandfather would kill me. Thinking I’d lost Vesuvius, who has long felt like a brother to me, nearly killed me.” He took another breath. “Tonight I have faced an even more unpleasant truth, Francesca. I’m not sure I could lose you. I’m not sure what losing you would do to me or who I might become if I survive it.”

When she still didn’t speak up, despite the questions crowding her throat like tears, his blue eyes gleamed. With that bright hit of approval that she liked entirely too much.

And worse, craved.

He nodded, as if he knew that, too. “Aside from that, I’m not sure why it has yet to occur to you that most marriages that are set up like ours do not combust like that on the very first night,” he said, that approving sheen still right there, so deep and blue she could feel it deep in her belly. Like heat. “Duty is all well and good, Francesca. It turns out that both of us are prepared to step up when duty calls. But chemistry is something else.”