Maisey Yates - Pretender to the Throne

“Ms. Xenakos is in the east wing, in the Cream Suite.”

“Great.” He started in that direction. Because there was nothing else to do. There was no one else in the palace he wanted to talk to.

He wasn’t certain why that was. He should seek out his father’s major domo. He should go and see his father, who was in the hospital. He should call his sister.

He didn’t do any of those things. He just walked through the expansive corridors, past openmouthed palace staff, and toward the Cream Suite. He got lost. Twice. It was an embarrassment, but he just kept going until he got his bearings again.

Then he pushed open the heavy wooden doors without knocking, and saw Layna, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her face snapped up, and again, he was shocked by her appearance.

It hit him like a slug to the gut. She had been so beautiful. So many beautiful things had been destroyed in that time. Either by his actions, or his very birth. The fault was bred into him, in many ways.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m here to speak to you. And to...escort you to dinner.”

It had been a long time since he’d escorted a woman to dinner. Usually he had sex with them, then they ordered room service and ate it naked. Although, on a good night, he kicked the woman out quickly, then ate room service by himself.

She blinked. “Escort me to dinner? Where?”

“Here will do. The staff has been alerted to my presence, and I have no doubt they’re eager to welcome me back with my favorite food,” he said, his tone dry. “Or at the very least they won’t let me starve.”

“I don’t suppose the heir is of much use to anyone if he’s starved to death. I also don’t suppose he’s much use to anyone if he’s absent and drunk.”

“No, it doesn’t seem that I’ve done any good during my time away,” he said, his voice tight. “But I’m not sure what I could have done here, either. I was not the king then. I am not now. I’m simply in line.”

“But you left us,” she said, a note in her voice, so sad, so fierce, he felt it in his bones.

“I left you,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did I break your heart, Layna?”

She shook her head slowly. “Not in the way you mean. I didn’t love you, Xander. I was infatuated, surely, but we didn’t truly know each other. You were very handsome, and I can’t deny being drawn to you. I’m a bit of a magpie for shiny things, you know.”

“I was shiny?”

“Yes. The shiniest prize out there.”

“Not sure how I feel about that.”

“You’ll live.” She looked down. “I loved the idea of being queen. I was raised for it, after all.”

“Yes, you were.” He didn’t have to say that he hadn’t been in love with her. That much had been obvious by his actions. When he’d left Kyonos he’d hardly spared a thought for what it would mean to Layna. He hadn’t been able to spare a thought for anything but his own pain.

“But I thought I would find someone else. Maybe Stavros.”

“You wanted to marry Stavros?”

She shrugged. “I would have. But then... Then the attack happened and I didn’t especially want to see anyone much less marry anyone.”

“So you joined a convent? Seems extreme.”

“No. I spent years struggling with depression, actually, but thank you for your rather blithe commentary on my pain.”

That shocked him into silence, which was a rare and difficult thing. He didn’t shock easily. Or, as a rule, at all.

“When did you join?”

“Ten years ago. I was tired of muddling through. And I saw a chance to make myself useful. I couldn’t fit back into the life I had been in, so it was time to make a new one.”

“And you’ve been happy?”

“Content.”

“Not happy?”

“Happiness is a temporary thing, Xander. Fleeting. An emotion like any other. I would rather exist in contentment.”

He laughed. “Funny. I don’t think I’ve been happy. Not content, either. I like to chase intense bursts of euphoria.”

“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.