Maisey Yates - A Royal World Apart

Because he was the likeliest candidate. The one who would bring the most strength, the most power, financial and military resources to Kyonos.

How she felt—love, attraction—didn’t come into it as far as her father was concerned. And Bastian was nice. He was even rather handsome. But there was no spark. He touched her and she felt nothing. He wasn’t the one.

But it was looking as though she would never have the chance to find that man.

“You want love, do you?” he asked, maneuvering the car through the narrow streets, café tables pressed in so close to the roadway that if she rolled the window down she could reach out and steal a cappuccino. Unless of course the windows were locked. Likely, under the circumstances.

“Of course I do. Don’t we all?”

“No,” he said. No explanation, just no. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. Except she was. And then it made her angry. Because he could have love if he wanted it. He could marry whomever he wanted to, and he didn’t have anyone trying to make the decision for him.

But he just … said no, he didn’t want love. Probably because he was more interested in cleavage, anonymous cleavage, than he was in a real woman. That was what she’d noticed with the other men who guarded her. That was how she’d shaken them.

Makhail was no different, though he was more focused when he needed to be, clearly, since he hadn’t even noticed the busty cocktail waitresses at the entrance of the casino.

But still, he had all the freedom in the world and he wanted to waste it on shallow, frivolous things. Not that her night in the casino had been anything more than shallow and frivolous. But it had been fun, and she’d had a shortage of fun in her life.

“Well. I do,” she said, looking out the window again, her stomach tightening as they neared the palace.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why ?” She turned to his profile again. “Everyone—well, not you, we established not you—most everyone wants love. Love is …”

“A lot of work.”

She looked down at his hands, his grip tight on the steering wheel. There was a platinum band there, thick and prominent, on his left ring finger. “Are you married?”

“Not anymore,” he said. There was no emotion in his voice. No hint of how he felt about the subject. Yet he still wore his ring.

“Why?”

He flicked her a glance for the first time. “I did not realize we had to become friends in order for me to protect you.”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” she said, annoyance coursing through her. “You aren’t protecting me. Not really. You’re keeping me out of trouble. Or perceived trouble. I’m an adult woman. I’m twenty, you know. Almost twenty-one.”

“Ancient,” he said, his tone dry.

“Anyway, no, we don’t have to be friends. I suppose us being friends would be impossible, actually, seeing as we’re working with opposing agendas.”

“And what is your agenda, Princess?”

They pulled up to a wrought-iron gate, guards stationed out along the perimeter of the pale stucco wall that stretched around the palace, backed by the Aegean Sea.

“If I told you, Mr. Nabatov, it would be much too easy for you to gain the upper hand.”

“IT was online, on every trashy news website you could think of, before you ever left the casino, Eva.” Her father paced in front of her, his hands locked behind his back, his expression fierce. “Rolling dice, men on your arm. You looked like a common college student.”

An insult from her father’s lips. There was no mistaking that. Anything common, as far as Stephanos Drakos was concerned, was beneath the hallowed royal family of Kyonos.

“Father …”

“Your Highness,” Makhail stepped in, his voice smooth, confident. “Eva was meant to be under the supervision of one of my men, who has been dismissed now for his carelessness. I have decided I will take on the task of guarding the princess myself.”

Bloody gallant of him. So gallant she’d like to smack that smug expression right off his face. Instead, she cleared her throat and addressed her father. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered that I don’t need twenty-four-hour … nannying?”

“Not for a moment,” King Stephanos replied.

Makhail turned to her, his gray eyes glinting. “I am not a nanny, Princess.”

“You do carry a bigger gun than most nannies,” she said.

He arched one brow. “Among other things.”

“Charming,” she said tightly.

“How do I know I can trust you, Mr. Nabatov, when you seem incapable of keeping an agent in my daughter’s presence?”

Makhail turned his focus to the king, his expression hard. Fierce. Almost frightening. “They were fools. I am not. And your options are limited, Your Highness. Typically, when we protect someone, they have the good sense to want that protection. Princess Evangelina does not.”

“That’s because I’m being protected from myself,” she said. “It’s insulting.”

“You behave like a child, and you shall be treated like one,” Stephanos said. “I am in the process of arranging a union for you that will benefit Kyonos, benefit your people. You disdain it.”

“I … I just want to have a bit of my own life … a bit of …”

“You are royal, Eva. It is not that simple,” the king said.

Eva bit back her response. Because, as much as she hated it, he was right. Every privilege, every ball, had a price. Every ounce of gold dust came with a twenty-pound iron weight attached to it. It didn’t matter whether she accepted it, it simply was.

Still, the outright refusal burned in her throat. Desperate to escape. Words she knew she could never speak.

“Am I dismissed?” she asked.

“You may go,” her father said, nodding his head.

She turned on her heel and walked out into the hall, covering her face with hands, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to keep tears from falling. She wasn’t weak. She didn’t have time for weakness. Even more importantly, she couldn’t afford to show it.

Not to her father, certainly not to the press. Least of all to Makhail, her brand-new jailer. The only person who understood her, even a little bit, was Stavros, her brother. And at the moment, he had his own problems.

She stalked down the long, empty corridor of the palace, making each step count, her high heels clicking loudly on the marble floor. If she had any idea what she wanted, things would be so much easier.

Making scandal, derailing her father’s plans to find her a suitable husband, that had kept her busy for the past few months, but she had no end plan with it.

What else could she do?

She knew what she wanted. She also knew she would probably never have it. A man who loved her, just her. A man she loved just as madly in return. A marriage that had nothing to do with politics or trade.

It was nothing more than a fantasy. Some little girls dreamed of being princesses. She’d just dreamed of being. Of living on her own terms, making her own goals, goals she could aspire to. It wasn’t possible, but she’d clung to the hope. For too long.

And any freedom she had had a timer ticking on it. The marriage was being arranged. And when she was married … it would all be gone, any hope squashed beneath the weight of it. She would go from being beneath her father’s control to being beneath her husband’s.

It was bleak.

“Princess.”

The deep, rich voice, flavored by a Russian accent, could only belong to one man. She turned and saw Makhail standing there, looking every inch the secret agent in his black suit.

“Yes?”

“I have finalized arrangements with your father.”