Claiming The Royal Innocent. Jennifer Hayward
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as she herself had proven.
Armed with the full scope of Stella’s perspective, not that it cleared her confusion much, she and her sister joined her family for a predinner drink. Nik and Sofía were already enjoying a cocktail, minus two-month-old Theo, their infant son, who was with his nanny. Queen Amara walked into the salon just as the butler handed Alex a glass of wine. All eyes focused on the elder queen as she made her way toward Alex. Breath stalling in her throat, she dropped into a quick curtsy, entirely forgetting Stella’s instruction that it wasn’t necessary.
The elder queen waved it off with a flick of her hand. “You are a member of this family now.”
Am I? I haven’t made that decision yet. Her brain rifled through safe things to say. “It’s an honor to meet you, Your Majesty.”
The queen inclined her head. “Amara will be fine.”
The cocktail hour seemed stilted and forced compared with the previous night. When they sat down to dinner, Alex was thrilled to have a knife and fork to devote her attention to.
“When will you be announced as princess?” Queen Amara directed her cool green gaze at Alex. “I would expect soon, given the throngs of media driving us all mad.”
“I—” Alex put down her fork and knife. “I haven’t actually decided yet what I’m going to do.”
Queen Amara lifted a brow. “What do you mean, decide? You are third in line to the throne.”
“I have a life.” Alex lifted her chin. “My mother and I run a hotel together.”
“You are a royal. There is no decision to be made. Duty says you take your place as an heir to this country.”
Her mouth tightened. “My duty,” she said, “is to my mother and the business we have built together.”
Silence fell over the table. “This is all a great deal for Aleksandra to take in,” Nik interjected smoothly. “Of course we hope she stays. She is family.”
Her stomach tightened at the warmth in her brother’s gaze. It was as if he’d been withholding emotion until it was safe to express it. It unraveled something inside her, an almost unbearably bittersweet swell consuming her chest. She picked up her water glass and drank, giving in to the impossibility of eating.
By the time the meal mercifully came to an end, she felt raw in her skin.
Nik headed off to a meeting in his palace office, Sofía upstairs to bathe Theo, Stella out for a drink with a friend. After a call home, an emotional conversation in which her infinitely wise mother told her she needed to do what was right for her, her voice breaking as she did, Alex curled up in the library to think. Process.
But when even that peaceful setting felt too stifling to think, she headed for the magnificent palace gardens instead. If she was going to find a clear head, it would be there.
* * *
Aristos emerged from his second visit to the palace in under a week with a strong sense of foreboding that Akathinia had yet to see its most trying times. The king had requested the unusual after-dinner meeting to inform him he’d called all his troops up for active duty after Carnelia had summoned its own reservists, signaling a possible imminent aggression by Akathinia’s sister island.
Nikandros had requested he release the rest of the financial commitment he had made to the armed forces to enable the country to protect itself, to which he had agreed.
His head mired in what this would mean for his casino, a potentially devastating delay in breaking ground next month looming, he headed for the front doors of the palace. He was almost there when he saw an undeniably eye-catching female in a white dress headed across the foyer in the opposite direction. Aleksandra. He would have recognized that sweet derriere anywhere.
He couldn’t deny he’d been wondering how she was. The apprehension in her eyes when he’d walked out of the library the night of the ball had been playing on his mind. Why that was, why he felt in any way protective toward her, was a mystery to him. Out of sight, out of mind wasn’t a cliché in his world; it was how he lived his life.
If you didn’t invest in people, it was impossible for them to disappoint you. For you to disappoint them.
His step faltered on the gleaming marble floor. Don’t do it, Aristos. You already crossed the line with her once. You have far too much on your plate already. If the $2.5 billion Akathinian hotel and casino didn’t get off the ground, his personal investment went down the drain with it, a loss that could threaten his company’s existence.
Why he then found himself changing direction and heading toward the back of the palace was anyone’s guess. Aleksandra had been headed toward the gardens. He chose the path toward the spectacular fountains and pool at the center of the sprawling botanical extravaganza and found her perched on the wide lip of the fountain, looking like something out of an Impressionist painting.
Wearing a simple white summer dress that left her tanned legs bare, her silky dark hair caught up in a high ponytail, her full mouth pursed as she contemplated what appeared to be a significant issue, she looked good enough to eat. Undeniably edible to his far-too-jaded palate. And yes, this, he decided, had been a big mistake.
Too late, however, as she looked up at him, blue eyes widening. “Aristos.”
“Sit,” he said as she scrambled to her feet, brushing off the back of her dress. Dumping his jacket on the edge of the fountain, he sat down beside her. Noted the distance she put between them as she returned to her perch with an amused pull of his mouth.
She slid him a wary look from beneath dark lashes. “Overseeing your security again?”
“Meeting with the king. I saw you on the way out. I thought I’d check to see how you’re doing.”
“You who hunted me down, seduced me to find out what I was up to, then threatened to put me in handcuffs?”
His amusement intensified. She was embarrassed about what had happened between them. About the undeniable chemistry they shared...
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he drawled. “I kissed you because you are one hundred percent my type, angel. Petite brunettes with insane curves do it for me. Seducing you would have required more privacy than we had. Although I am not against a bit of voyeurism to add some spice to a sexual encounter, a palace party would not have been the occasion I’d have chosen.”
Her mouth went slack. “You would not have had the chance, regardless.”
He raked his gaze over her pink cheeks, ramrod-straight spine, the faint dip of cleavage the neckline of her dress revealed. The flush staining her chest. The thin material did little to hide the peaks of her breasts thrusting against the material, hard delectable buttons he knew would be a rosy slice of heaven. All signs of a very obvious sexual attraction between them.
“No?” he challenged silkily. “When was the last time you let a man put his hands on you like that?”
She shut her mouth and kept it shut this time. He reached out and ran the pad of his thumb down her cheek, her silky soft skin hot to the touch. “Just for the record, I am disappointed, Princess. Your little bombshell that’s rocking the country has put you on the endangered species list. Not to be touched under any circumstance. Unfortunate, when that kiss proved just how spectacular we would be together.”
* * *
Alex hauled in a breath, her insides collapsing into a pool of molten heat. She knew she should be saying something smart back to this unholy man who appeared to say and do anything he deigned, but she was too busy imagining what it would be like to be seduced by him in the true sense of the word. Hot, forbidden, unbearably exciting.
He was insufferable, had done a job on her sister, who refused to admit it, and still, she couldn’t deny she was disappointed, too.
She pulled her gaze away from the dark vortex it was sinking into. Lifted her chin. “Stella isn’t