Page 168 of Modern Romance May 2026 Books 1-4
I refuse.
We arrive at my room shortly, and I push the door open. Lucian is inside, as if it is his room, and not mine. He has absolutely no respect for boundaries. But then, I suppose everything in the palace is his. Everything in the country is his. I wonder if he feels like anything is forbidden to him, or if he feels like all of this is his due. If he feels like everything and everyone is simply renting a piece of this place that belongs to him, and he is the rightful owner of it all.
Simply because he was born to the throne.
He has been the king for as long as I’ve been alive.
The gap in our ages feels so vast at the moment. Along with the gap in our power, wealth and authority.
He has lived a whole life additional to mine. And also, wields so much more control than I ever will.
He turns to face me, and something ignites in his ice-blue eyes. The response that he has to my makeover is different than the response the aide had. It’s nothing like simple recognition. I am immobilized by the expression on his face. There is something so intense there, so dark. Like he is exercising an intense amount of control to continue to just keep standing there. To not move on me. Devour me.
He looks hungry. He looks like a predator. I cannot tell whether I want to run away from him, or whether I want to stand and see what he’ll do. Whether I’m frightened or fascinated.
It’s the same feeling that I had last night, only amplified. When he touched my chin I felt things in my body that I have never felt before.
And the truth of the situation simply didn’t matter.
Not that he might be a murderer. Not that I’m being forced into all of this. Not that I should be outraged, and never, ever attracted to him.
There is so much to fear. The fact that he now has total and complete dominion over my life. The fact that I am to be a royal broodmare. The fact that when I marry him he is going to have husbandly rights to my body, and as the king…
Does he feel he owns me as well?
“I see that you have been with the royal stylist today.”
“Yes,” I say. I watch him closely, because as small and undone as I feel in this moment, I recognize that he also feels something. His feelings might be the key to my power.
If I can learn to wield them. If I can learn to find real meaning in them.
The sound he makes, a deep growl in the back of his throat, speaks of approval, though I can’t say how I know that. Only that I feel it. In the way that he looks at me. In the way that my body feels as his eyes skim over me.
“You look…” He moves nearer to me, and then he begins to circle me, slowly. My heart starts to beat faster. I can’t breathe. It’s so difficult for me to think. I always think. My mind is the one thing that I can count on. It’s the thing I’ve been counting on for a very long time, to get me out of trouble, to change my life. And I can’t use it right now. There is nothing except for the insistent throbbing of my heart, and the trembling in my body. “Expensive,” he says finally. “You look expensive.”
I don’t know what to make of that comment. I’m not sure if I should be insulted by it or complimented. I’m not sure if I should ever be complimented by him.
I did choose this. But just because I’m a willing prisoner doesn’t mean I’m less of a prisoner. My options are limited.
“Thank you,” I say. “But if I look expensive it’s only because it was purchased with your money.”
“A better use of it I could not think of.” He looks around my bedroom, and for the first time, I realize why he’s called me up here. I was blinded by his presence. But now I see…bookshelves. Floor to ceiling, and entirely full. “Except for this.”
“What is this?” I ask, feeling breathless.
“It is for you,” he says. “Your own private library. Obviously, there is room for it to expand, I didn’t want to make all of the choices for you, but I wanted it to be robust when you saw it at first. Every title in here is on a scientific subject. Except the shelf,” he says, gesturing to one next to the bed. “Those are novels, ones that I think you should read. In spite of the fact that you claim to dislike fiction.”
“You think that you can change my mind?”
“I’m quite certain that if you don’t like fiction it’s because you haven’t read the right books.”
There is something in the confidence of that statement that makes my stomach go tight. There is something in that certainty that I know will apply to other things. And I might not fully understand all of these things, the way that things are between men and women. The way that things will be between the two of us. And yet, I feel this as an echo of that.
And yet, he’s also given me shelves and shelves full of the books I do want.
He cares about what I want.
The realization shocks me.
