Page 59 of Back to Claim His Crown
‘I’m not what she needs—’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Niko growled. ‘Because she looked mighty alive to me that night too. Less so now.’
Lucian tensed. ‘You said she was settling in well.’
Niko paused. ‘You can’t deny you care about her.’
‘That isn’t the point.’
‘Isn’t it? Because I think you know she cares about you. And I think that scares you so much you’ve sent her away.’
Damn Niko. Lucian needed him to back off.
‘If the stuff holding you back is heavy, then get help to sort it,’ Niko said more gently. ‘You can’t let the past stop you from being happy—not now you have this chance in front of you. Don’t stall out. Don’t waste any moretime, Lucian. It’s too precious. I never understood that before...’
Lucian knew Niko was thinking of his wife and his unborn child. He knew how his friend had fought to have them.
‘Trust in this,’ Niko continued after a beat. ‘Let that old stuff go andtrust. I promise you it’ll be worth it.’
Lucian’s thoughts inexorably turned back to Zara. To those moments when he’d held her and she’d held him. To that night when he’d slept more peacefully than ever. He’d been safe in her arms and she’d tried to tell him he always would be.
‘What’s she doing now?’ he asked quietly.
‘No, I’m not going to be your spy. If you want to know how she is then come and see her for yourself.’
Niko rang off. Lucian gritted his teeth, that old anger flaring. But it wasn’t anger. Zara been right about that too. She’d called anger an expression of hurt—of betrayed trust, bruised love, burning regret. So many feelings that he’d hated but couldn’t stop. They surged in him now and so many others tumbled in too. He couldn’t stand it. Niko was right. He needed help to sort it. Because he couldn’t stay as he was—not even stalled but submerged in an emotional mess that he couldn’t process.
But he needed to. Wanted to. Now.
Lucian stood at the window and looked out at his city. One time at dinner Zara had described it as ‘snow-globe-perfect’. But a snow globe needed a good shake to bring its vibrant beauty forth. Apparently, Lucian needed more than one good shake. He’d needed to hear the plain truth from both Zara and Niko.
The palace was as lifeless as a tomb—mirroring how he felt inside. He hated the emptiness. Hated how he ached inside and out as he acknowledged the truth. He’d been more awfully selfish than ever—asking everything of her and not offering the real truth about himself. He’d given her his body, sure. A place in his palace. But he’d not trusted her to tell her she had his battered heart.
And it was way past time that he did.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ZARACHECKEDTHATshe was fully in the shade and then stretched out. She was acclimatising slowly to the temperature and at peak heat she needed to just relax with a book. Only she kept reading the same line over and over.
‘Zara?’
Aviator sunglasses. Stubbled jaw. Massive muscles. He had that slightly on-edge aura about him. That element of danger.
Zara sat bolt upright. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have left Monrayne. It’s too soon for you to be away for long.’
‘No one knows I’m away and the jet is being refuelled as we speak.’
‘You’re going straight back?’ Her heart lurched. ‘How long are you planning to be on the ground?’
‘As long as it takes to tell you some things face to face.’
He wanted to talk? Her wariness escalated.
‘I guess you’re lucky I’m here.’ She stood. ‘I could’ve been on a boat. Maia’s been taking me around the islands but she was too tired today...’
She trailed off as she saw the glimmer of guilt on Lucian’s face. Ofknowledge. Had Maia known he was coming? She had phoned Zara’s suite this morning and insisted on making up for it by arranging for Zara to have a full spa treatment. She’d been so full of apologies Zara hadn’t been able to refuse.
As a result, Zara had been pampered all day. That was why she was standing here now feeling like some glamorous nineteen-fifties movie starlet with her hair sleek, skin buffed, toenails painted and clad in a pretty silk dress that just brushed her mid-thigh. No one would ever guess she’d been crying her heart out upon waking every morning this last week.
