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“And have you managed to catch them?” she asked, her voice tight.
“Yeah,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the doorjamb, “I have. But let me tell you, the highs might be high...the comedowns are a bitch.”
“I wouldn’t know. I strive for a more simple and useful existence.”
“Do you want to dress for dinner?”
She looked down at the simple, shapeless dress she was wearing. It was blue and flowered, the sweater she had over it navy and button-down, hanging open and concealing her curves entirely, whatever those curves might look like. “What’s wrong with this?”
“Really?”
“I’m not exactly given to materialism these days, and unless you were dead set on looking at my figure,” she said dryly, as though it were the most ridiculous thing on the planet, “I fail to see why you should be disappointed. I’m clean, my clothing is serviceable. I don’t know what more you could possibly need from me. If I am to be an accessory in your attempt at being seen by your people as palatable, then I’m sure my more conservative style could be to your advantage.”
“I don’t think that was what people liked about you.”
“Perhaps not, but it can’t be helped,” she said, her voice tart.
She bowed her head, brown hair falling forward. “You used to sparkle,” he said, not sure where the words came from, or why he’d voiced them.
She looked up at him, fire burning in her golden eyes. “And I used to be beautiful. Things change.”
He pushed away from the door, and images from the past fifteen years—the casinos, the women—rolled through his mind. “Yes, they do. I’ll see you at dinner.”
He turned and walked out of the room, back down the corridor. And he got lost again on the way back to his room.
This damned palace was never going to feel like home. But he’d been a lot of places in the past fifteen years and none of them felt like home, either.
He was starting to believe it was a place that simply didn’t exist for him.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE’D MADE HER feel self-conscious about her dress. More than that, his words had sliced through her like a knife, hitting her square in a heart she’d assumed would be invulnerable to such things.
I used to be beautiful. Things change.
Yes, they certainly did.
She was realistic about the situation with her face. Fifteen years of living with it, and there was no other option. It had been hard. She’d been a woman defined by her looks, by her position in the public eye, and in one moment, it had all changed.
She was still a woman defined by her looks. But people didn’t like what they saw.
The press called her disfigured. The former beauty. The walking dead.
Going out into the town had meant a chance she’d get her photo taken, and that meant a chance she’d appear in the news the next day.
It had driven her deeper into her own darkness. Into isolation. It had been hell. And she’d had to escape.
Finding a way to a new life had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Her family hadn’t known what to do with her, they hadn’t known how to help her. Their existence had been shaken, too. Their promised position as in-laws to the royal family vanished.
In the end, they’d all moved to Greece. Her mother, father and sisters. But Layna had stayed. And what she’d weathered should have made her immune to things like Xander’s comments.
She was thirty-three. She wasn’t a child. She knew now that life wasn’t defined by dresses, balls and beauty. She did know it. So curse Xander for making her feel insecure. For making her feel like she should make an effort to look pretty when she met him for dinner.
Those things, they didn’t matter. She had changed, and at the end of the day, she liked herself better now. At least now she didn’t think the only way to live was by shopping the day away before going to a ball and pretending to be bored by all of it.
In some ways, she had more freedom now. If something made her feel joy, she had no problem showing it. Her face made it impossible for her to blend in, impossible for people to do anything but judge her. So why worry about trying to seem cool and unaffected? There was no reason at all.
“I’m glad you could make it.”
Layna paused at the entrance to the grand dining room. Another unholy mash-up between her life then and now. The expansive banquet table held no one but Xander. In the past, there would have been fifty dignitaries in attendance. And Layna would have worn her best dress. Xander would have worn a tie. They would have sat beside each other.
He was wearing a black suit jacket and a crisp white shirt open at the collar, revealing a wedge of golden skin and a dark dusting of hair.
She tried to remember if he’d had chest hair during their engagement. He certainly hadn’t been as broad or muscular. He’d been lean. Soft-faced and handsome.
His face was more angular now, his jaw more pronounced thanks to the black stubble there. And his eyes, those eyes were so much sharper.
He was a man now.
“I’m not late,” she said, walking slowly into the room. She wasn’t sure if she should walk up to where he was, at the head of the table, and sit near him or not.
“No, but I was still wondering if you would bother to join me.”
“I said I would. So I did.”
“You aren’t a soft girl, are you, Layna?”
“Have I ever been, Xander?”
A half smile curved his lips and it sent a strange, tightening sensation through her stomach. “No. Now that you mention it, you never were. Though you used to look like you might be.”
“All that blond hair dye and the pink gowns. I suspect it was deceiving.”
“Maybe to some. I remember, though, standing out on the balcony with you while you looked at the other guests.”
So did she. Making snide observations about how Lady So-and-so had worn that gown to a previous event, and how Madame Blah-blah-blah’s hair looked like a bird had chosen to nest in it.
Yes, she’d had opinions on everyone’s looks. Specifically their shortcomings. The irony of that still burned.
“Yes, well, I was young. I had a lot of growing up to do. And I’ve had a lot of years to do it.”
“And have you?” He leaned back in his chair, an arm rested on the table, an insolent expression on his face.
“Of course.”
“See, I thought you might be playing hide-and-seek.”
She stiffened and walked toward his end of the table and sat down, leaving an empty place between them. “What about you?”
“That’s certainly what I’m doing. But I’ve been found, and I am now ‘it,’ as they say. Means I have to face all this.”
“You sound about as thrilled as a man facing the gallows.”
Several servants entered with food on trays, laid out in front of them grandly, their glasses filled with wine.
“Are you permitted?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes. So long as it’s not to excess. And anyway, I haven’t taken my vows yet, remember?”
He nodded slowly. “I do. That is significant.”
“It is.” The servants uncovered the platters and began to dish portions of rice, quail and vegetables onto her plate. She was surprised by how hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten all day and she hadn’t felt it. Because she’d been too filled up with nerves to do much of anything but worry.
“Why haven’t you?”
Her face heated. “I haven’t been permitted to take them yet.”
“So it isn’t your choice?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m committed.” She hesitated to say the words because they felt false somehow. Especially after her revelation just before she left the convent. That part of her still wanted something from this life. From this palace. From Xander. She pushed her doubts away. “I was miserable before I went to the convent. I had no idea what to do with myself, no idea what I was supposed to...do with my life. Everything changed for me after.”
“After I left,” he said.
The servants cleared the room and they were left alone in the vast dining area. Layna looked out the windows, into the darkness, trying to find a point to focus on, something to anchor her to earth. Something to make her feel like the world hadn’t changed entirely in the past twelve hours.
It was night out. There were still stars. She was still breathing.
“After you left,” she said. “And then after the attack.”
“I didn’t think of you when I left,” he said.
She laughed, and she surprised herself with her own bitterness. She’d done nothing but think about him. Worry for him. Pine for him. She’d lied a bit when she’d said he hadn’t broken her heart. As much as she didn’t believe she’d truly been in love with him, she’d cared.
Her heart and her future had been bound up in him. He’d been the man she’d imagined going to bed with at night. The man she’d thought she would have children with. The man who would make her a queen.
And then he’d gone, and taken with him her dreams. Her purpose.
Followed closely by the attack that took so many other things...gaining traction again had been nearly impossible.
“I didn’t imagine you had.”
“It was easier not to. But now I want to know.”
“It was your father who told me you’d gone,” she said. “And he asked that I return the ring.”
“Did he?” Xander asked, his voice soft, deadly sounding.
“Yes. It was part of the Drakos family crown jewels, I could hardly keep it.”
“Well, I’m sure it was badly missed in that dusty cabinet they keep it all in,” he said, his tone dry.
“Are you really offended on my behalf?” she said, her throat tightening, anger pouring through her, hot and fast. “A bit hypocritical since you were the one who left.”
“My leaving had nothing to do with you.”
“No, as you said, you never thought of me again.”
“I did. I thought of you after. It’s true that when I ran, I only thought of me, and I am sorry for that. But later, I thought of you. I couldn’t have been a husband to you, not under those circumstances.”
She took a bite of the rice and the rich flavor knocked out some of her anger. She did not eat food like this at the convent. Even considering the unfortunate nature of the conversation, the food was amazing. As was the wine.
She let silence fall between them while she enjoyed her meal. She made a mistake when she looked up, and her eyes caught his. And she couldn’t look away. Everything in her went taut, her breath pausing, her heart slamming forward. All she could do was stare at him.
He was so familiar. A face she tried never to remember. That perfect golden skin, the dark brown eyes fringed with thick black lashes. Lips that promised heaven when he smiled, and made a woman imagine he could take her to a beautiful sort of hell with a kiss.
All of that was so familiar.
But the lines around his mouth were harder now. Marks by his eyes showed the ghosts of his smiles.
He had been beautiful at twenty-one. At thirty-six he was no less stunning.
Time had not been quite so kind to her. And anyway, she had absolutely no business looking at him like she was. No business memorizing the new lines on his face. It was like she’d been in a coma, and she was slowly waking up. Slowly seeing new things. Or, remembering old things. She didn’t like it. She was starting to remember why she’d worked so hard to forget.
“I wasn’t meant to be your wife,” she said, looking back at her food.
“You don’t think?”
“Clearly not. I found a new calling. The place I’m supposed to be.”
“You think you’re better off hiding in the mountains than you are as the queen of Kyonos?”
She’d always thought she would be a good queen. But with a girl’s insight. She’d loved the idea of the status and power. That everyone else was so jealous of her for having caught Xander’s eye, or, more honestly, the eye of his parents.
Now she understood it had been her father’s merit more than her own that had earned her the consideration. At the time it hadn’t mattered. She’d only thought how beautiful she would look wearing the crown.
But now, ironically, that the position was no longer on the table, she saw all the good she could do. All that needed to be done to fix her country.
Prince Stavros had done an admirable job with it, more than admirable, but there were still things to be done on a humanitarian level, and as someone who had done nothing but serve for the past ten years she was well familiar with what tasks needed to be tackled head-on.
Nice that she knew all that. Now that there was nothing she could do about it. That would be for the woman who married Xander. And that woman would not be her.
A twinge of anger hit her in the chest, burned like a pinprick and spread outward. This had been her future. And she was sitting in it now, not a part of it.
She looked back up and saw him watching her, and it hit her then. What she’d lost. They would have been married for nearly fifteen years by now. There would have been children. She wouldn’t be scarred.
It did no good to dwell on the past. It did no good to turn over what-ifs. But it was so hard when your biggest what-if was sitting across from you eating dinner, like he might have done if you’d married him way back then.
Yes, it was a whole lot harder not to what-if in that situation. Easier when cloistered in a convent, away from any part of the life she’d once lived. Impossible here and now.
