Page 27 of A Ring to Claim Her Crown
He leaned in, every inch of his warm, wet skin pressing against hers. It wasn’t a sexual embrace, it was comfort. She closed her eyes, feeling the emotions within her peak. How could a night feel so perfect and so terrible all at once? How could one person be everything you needed and everything you could never have?
She felt the final wall she’d built to keep him out fall and crumble. This day...all the emotions he’d made her feel, all the pleasure...had torn away all the defences she’d spent so long creating to keep herself safe. Now she was raw and fourteen years’ worth of emotions had risen to the surface.
‘Why did you have to leave?’ she heard herself whisper. For a moment, she thought the noise of the water might have drowned out her needy words, but she felt his body tense, his head dropping down to her shoulder.
‘I already told you—it was the best thing I could think to do. I didn’t know what my father had done but, even so, marrying me would have ruined you.’
‘I understand why you walked away from the betrothal. But why did you leaveme?’ she said, not bothering to hide the tremor in her voice. ‘You never even thought to talk to me first. Never thought to say goodbye.’
Minerva watched him rub a hand along the back of his neck, his jaw tight as he stood up straight under the hot spray. He looked tortured, his throat working as he tried to speak, then he gave up, shaking his head. ‘I should have. I wish I had.’
‘Did you know that I always hoped to see you?’ she whispered. ‘Every city I travelled to, I looked into the crowds and wondered if I would see you. I always hoped...’
‘And if you’d found me?’ he asked softly, his voice cocooning her in the steamy air.
She turned away. Of course she understood his meaning, even if it hurt. Whatwouldshe have done? Would she have abandoned her duty and run away with him? Would they have lived out their days in the bowels of a shipping freighter? Or would he have stowed her away in some port city, returning every six months?
‘I left the way I did because I didn’t trust myself to say goodbye,’ he said, his hands sliding down to sit heavy on her waist. ‘You were just having a fling, determined to perform your duty by marrying me. But Min... I was in love with you.’
His words snapped like a whip in the silence, stealing the breath from her lungs as she let them sink in. She couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but stare out at the thin line of the approaching sunrise beginning to peek out from the inky-black horizon. She closed her eyes, feeling his deep sigh against her back.
‘Why didn’t you...?’ She bit down hard on her lip. ‘You never said.’
‘You remember how shy I was. I barely spoke for the first few summers. But I watched you from afar.’ He laid a gentle kiss on the top of her head, turning them so that the water warmed their rapidly cooling skin.
‘I think I fell in love with your confidence first—I was captivated by how determined and capable you were in everything you did. How kind you were to everyone, even the awkward, scowling prince who followed you around the palace grounds. I was always drowning in my own thoughts, my own insecurities, but when I was with you... I could breathe. So, yes, I fell in love with you long before my father revealed our betrothal. I thought that maybe your feelings for me would develop and we might make things work. But then that day...’
He didn’t need to clarify what day he meant; she knew. Every failed relationship has one—the day that changed everything. The day that sealed their fate. She had seen misery in his eyes but had thought it was his own regret at being forced to marry her.
‘I asked you why you wanted to marry me,’ Liro continued. ‘And, with your reply, I saw myself through your eyes. I saw how things would be, with you calmly taking me on as a husband of convenience while I pined for you. I was young and impulsive and angry—so angry. The idea of having you but never truly having you... In my mind, there was no other option but for me to leave.’
The light in the bathroom revealed more details hidden within the curling tattoo designs that she had inspected before. The dark ink covered his shoulders fully but in the middle of the swirls she spied a familiar shape: their lake. And on the banks stood the dark silhouette of a woman gazing up at the moon.
‘If you think I walked away and never thought of you, you’re wrong. I carried you with me, Minerva. Right here.’
She placed her hand over his heart, drawing in the warmth from his skin. From the words she’d never known she needed to hear so badly—that she’d been wanted, loved even, even if it was all in the past. He had loved her once, back then. He hadn’t just used her for her crown or played a part that he’d been forced to by his father.
She closed her eyes, wondering how different things might have been if she’d not been such a coward and kept him at arm’s length. In her mind’s eye she remembered his face, younger and so earnest as he’d asked her why she was going ahead with the wedding. As he’d gone cold at her abrupt answer. She’d believed herself to be the only one with a broken heart that night... Of course he’d run from her—she’d driven him away.
Now, here in the present moment, the idea of admitting that she had been in love with him too seemed utterly absurd. Would he believe her? Or would he see it as a pathetic attempt for her to rid herself of some of the guilt crawling up her skin, making her shiver? She closed her eyes against the force of her own regret and the desperate longing that came with it. She couldn’t look at him, not when she knew she was so close to losing control and admitting everything.
Her love for him then...and now.
Because she suddenly knew without a doubt that nothing could possibly hurt this much and not be love. And it was absolutely terrifying. Shivers covered her skin, breaking open that small, vulnerable part of her that she’d kept hidden away. The part that told her that every man who claimed to care for her would leave, that no one was truly reliable or trustworthy. It was a hard, cynical way to feel and she despised it. Had she been so affected by her parents’ relationship that she’d used it as a blueprint for all others?
She had never even attempted to bond with someone new after Liro, had never gone beyond the odd casual date if she felt like some fun. A small part of her had welcomed the royal marriage requirement as a way to appease the constant questions about when she’d find the one. She knew that, for her, true love and happy marriage would not exist, so giving herself a week to select a stranger to marry hadn’t been a big deal at all.
Now, the idea of returning to Arqaleta and choosing another man as her husband made her feel wild with the wrongness of it. But they had both known that was the way it must be; they had made their deal knowing that this was only a temporary reprieve from reality.
‘You’re breaking your own rules again, princess.’
His voice stirred her from her thoughts. She looked up at him and thought she saw a brief mirror of her own pain before he stepped closer and pressed his naked body flush with hers. ‘This time is not for talking and thinking about the past. Not when this is all we have.’
He claimed her lips in a scorching kiss that chased away all the overwhelming emotions that threatened to swallow her whole. In their place, it was only him—only Liro. He kissed her for what felt like hours, his hands in her hair. He kissed her like the drowning man he’d described, as if he was drawing in every breath of her.
CHAPTER TEN
LIROAWOKETOthe to the glorious sight of Minerva, fully nude, arranging a modest breakfast upon the table near his bed. He didn’t move immediately to speak or alert her that he had awoken; instead, he simply watched her, taking in the graceful focus she put into arranging toast upon one plate and heaping some eggs alongside it.
