She led him through the palace and toward the rooms that she had chosen to be his. “Here you are,” she said, thankful to leave the previous subject and its accompanying heaviness in the past. “I think you will be comfortable. I have given you extra blankets.”
That earned her a very long stare. “Thank you. In your chloroform kidnap, you didn’t by chance happen to pick up a razor, did you? Because if not, I find myself inconvenienced.”
“It is there,” she said, feeling proud. “Everything you need. I anticipated that we might have difficulty. You know, I came prepared with chloroform. And I was prepared to have this room fitted out for you. With razors and anything else you might need.”
“I see. And how did you, a woman who admittedly knows nothing of men, accomplish that?”
“I told you. I have women I work with who know. I do not need to know.” She stepped into the room, pleased with the grandness of it. Surely he would be too. Shortly, he would be happy with this place. She might need his help, and she might need an investment, but with what she had she could offer much. The room was large, and though everything in it was old, it was competently outfitted. And she was quite pleased with it. “You will find suits.”
“I don’t wear suits that you buy in a store.”
“We did not buy these in a store. They are made for you.”
“And how,” he said, “did you accomplish that?”
“I was very proud of this. I called your sister.”
He frowned. “You called my sister? Which sister?”
“Minerva. I called Minerva, and I told her that I was designing you a suit, but could not get a hold of you, and that I needed information from your tailor, which she gave to me. And then I got your measurements.”
“You are a stunning little weasel—do you know that?”
“What does this mean? A weasel. I’m not a weasel.”
“Sneaky. Weasels are sneaky.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, feeling pleased with that. “I am sneaky. So. A weasel it is.”
“You know,” he said, pausing at the center of the room. “You’re the only one who knows. The only one who knows who I am. Everyone else in this world knows Maximus King, and some might know about The King, that much-whispered-about super soldier. But they don’t know both.”
“I know both. Though what I do wonder is if actually no one knows either one. Do you know?”
“What kind of question is that?”
She shrugged. She shouldn’t keep staring at him. He really was desperately handsome, and it was throwing her off-balance.
He was the kind of man who made a woman do foolish things. Those were the kinds of things she knew about from her staff. They had become her friends. And she could admit she had hired women her age so that she might have some friends.
She had missed a lot of life.
And she listened as they sighed and moaned and talked about all the ways they were fools for the men they claimed to love. Annick had found it incredibly off-putting. But she was also curious; she couldn’t deny it. She did not know men. And that was... It was a difficult realization.
She had lived around them and been kept by them, but men to her were nothing more than imposing physical presences. Every one of her captors had disgusted her. Every one. But what she felt when she looked at Maximus was not disgust. Not even close. She had a feeling it connected up to all that long-suffering sighing of the women she knew. But she also could not quite imagine what it would mean. Physical intimacy like that. She knew what it was, in the practical sense. Knew what it was physically. But she did not really understand why a person would do it.
She looked at him, and heat stole over her body.
Do you really not understand?
“An honest one,” she said. “The man you were at your house, the man when you woke up on the plane, the man you are now, they are not all the same man. So I wonder. Do you know which is real? Are any of them real?”
“Here’s a hint. I was this man once. This one. Maximus King. Charming and easy to be around. With absolutely no blood on his hands.” He paused for a moment. “Until I wasn’t.”
“I see. Something happened to you.”
“Yes. Something happened to me.”
Except, she had the sense that that wasn’t strictly true either. That he was holding something back, even saying that much.
“Get your suit,” she said. “And dress for dinner. You will join me and we will go over the timeline for my plans. I am eager to speak of such things.”
Then she turned and left him there, feeling trembly and shaky and not entirely certain what was happening inside of her.
But it didn’t matter. What mattered was that in just two weeks, she would be Queen. And Maximus King was here to protect her.
She had done it.
That was all that mattered.