I give him a dark look. The king and his games …

I meander towards the desk. When I reach it, my fingers trail over the wood surface. There are several photographs resting on it. I lift one of them up. It’s a wedding photo of me and Montes. Not one of the official ones. Those I particularly relish—I’m glaring in most of them.

This is one of us outside at the reception. I’m smiling at something outside of the photo and Montes is beaming down at me. You would’ve almost thought we were happy in that moment.

I was terrified.

I set it down only to lift another. As soon as my eyes fall on the image, I drop it like it burns me. The heavy metal frame hits the carpet with a dull thud.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, my eyes locked on the photo. I don’t want to look at it, it hurts to look at it, but for the life of me I can’t tear my gaze away.

“Where do you think?”

Staring back up at me is a younger version of myself. In the picture I’m giving my father a side hug. He used to keep this photo in his office.

I can’t breathe. I’m not sure I can keep that photo here. Seeing his face makes my soul ache in terrible ways.

I miss him, but that’s not nearly a strong enough word to describe life without him. He was the sun; how do you go on living when something that huge gets extinguished?

And now to have him sit there day in and day out and watch this mockery of my life unfold. I don’t know if I can stand that.

Montes picks the frame up from the floor and returns it to my desk. He doesn’t say anything. He lost a father tragically too.

Resting next to the photographs is my mother’s necklace. I pick it up, a slight tremor running through my hands.

The gold pendant catches the light. Montes left me the few items that have any value to me. I don’t have many things to call my own, but what I do, I cherish.

“And my father’s gun?” I ask.

“I’ll give it back to you the moment I trust you not to shoot me with it,” Montes says.

“So you do think I’ll shoot you,” I say, studying the necklace dangling from my hand.

“You’re a woman that loves a good dare. I’m not gambling my life on your ability to prove me wrong.”

He takes the necklace from me and clasps it around my neck. I run my fingers over the delicate chain. My eyes drift around the room.

It dawns on me. “This office is mine.”

“It is—my queen needs a place to carry out world affairs.”

He’s given me an office before, not one that was outfitted with my personal affects. Not like this one. I don’t know what I’m feeling, but it makes me uneasy.

“Why did you do all this for me?” I ask.

“This is such a small thing.” He runs a hand over the veins of wood. His wily, conniving side disappears altogether. “You are my wife. I want to make you … happy.”

The man who always takes is now giving. And he wants me to be happy. Here. With him.

I don’t have the heart to tell him that will never happen.

CHAPTER 8

Serenity

MONTES SHRUGS OFF his suit jacket and throws it over my chair back before rolling up his sleeves. My eyes linger far too long on his tan, corded forearms. I’d forgotten that underneath all those layers of fine clothing was a fit man.

He then grabs a cardboard box sitting off to the side and heaves it onto the desk. Tossing aside the lid, he pulls out the first file and drops it in front of the chrome computer situated in the middle of my desk.

“Here are reprints of the files you were working on. Any notes you had with the originals are, unfortunately, lost,” he says, sitting on the edge of the desk.

It’s hard to focus on anything he’s saying. He might be six feet and some change of a man, but his presence fills the entire room.

An unfamiliar part of me wants to step between those powerful legs of his and trail my fingers over the backs of his hands.

I could do it—I know he would welcome it—but I fight the impulse. He still feels alien to me.

I’ll have to lay with him tonight.

An odd combination of anxiety and anticipation flares through me.

The king watches me with those penetrating eyes of his, and I swear they can see into my mind.

I try to stay as far away from him as I can when I open the folder in front of the computer.

“Ah, yes, these reports,” I say, remembering them. I’d been reading through the files when the Resistance laid siege to the king’s palace. The reports had been largely skewed for the king’s purposes. I’m too ruffled to point that out. “Thank you,” I say instead.

“‘Thank you’?” He reaches out and catches my wrist before I can step away, then reels me in.

I end up between his thighs after all.

His other hand steadies my chin. “What’s going on in my vicious little wife’s mind?”

I try to jerk away, but he holds me in place.

“Montes, let me go.”

“Not until you tell me what you were just thinking about.”

I’m so close to kneeing him in the crotch.

However, neither of us gets the chance to see our actions through.

Not before another memory hits.

All I saw was crimson blood and all I heard were Will’s screams. The outer walls must’ve been thick to silence such agonized cries. The king’s wrath was just as frightening as I’d always feared.

I squeeze Montes’s thighs as a memory rolls through me. I’m being swept up in its tide.