LITMIR.BIZ

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‘all costs’ include freedom of speech and a few human rights here and there, right?”

      She tsked again. “You make it sound like a dictatorship instead of a peaceful kingdom.”

      “Where everyone lives happily ever after? Are you sure you’re not talking about a kingdom from one of the bedtime stories you read to your five-and seven-year-old nieces?”

      She vaguely wondered that he knew their ages. “Oh, I’m sure, since I read Alba and Gemma stories about girls who save the day and ride into the sunset in search of the next quest.”

      “No knight in shining armor or Prince Charming?”

      He pretended shock so well she had to snicker. “Not even if he was Knight of Burning Ardor or Prince Overwhelming.”

      The expansion of his pupils, the flare of his nostrils hit her before she realized what she’d said. She struggled up, reached for a plate and started piling it haphazardly with food as she felt him move, felt each pull of muscle, each flicker of desire to take her back into that cocoon of intimacy. Then he exhaled.

      “Tell me what the king and the Council really want with me.”

      She put the plate down before she spilled it into her lap. “Don’t tell me you refused an offer you didn’t fully hear!”

      “Oh, I heard it, all right. Go back, receive a full pardon and reinstatement of my titles and add a couple more while we’re at it—crown prince and regent were thrown into the package. Future king was dangled, too, provided I live longer than King B.”

      “King B…!” A laugh burst out of her. “Oh, God…King B. I wonder what he’d do if you called him that to his face.”

      His grin widened. “I’ll make sure you’re around when I do, and you can have a front-row seat to his reaction.”

      She resisted the urge to explore those dimples with everything she had. “You’ve really loosened up, haven’t you?”

      He gave a pout of such mock hurt that she started hurting in earnest. “You mean I was a tight-assed bore before, don’t you?”

      She remembered the view she’d gotten last night of that certain part of his anatomy, and the comment that he was even more tight-assed now almost escaped.

      When she opened her mouth, what came out was, “I don’t know. I was too much of an awestruck idiot to notice.”

      Not much better. Judging by the heated look on his face, not better at all.

      Before she could beg him to just…do anything, he seemed to make a decision to leave her hanging. “So—they’re still not offering an apology, but a ‘pardon,’ right?” She nodded, not liking where this was going. “They can’t bring themselves to admit even partial responsibility, want us all to pretend I’m the supplicant here. Ajab…incredible. And in return for their clemency what are they offering? Beside something I don’t want anymore?”

      “Wanting it or not isn’t an issue here. You are needed.”

      “Am I? And am I needed beyond what my massive wealth and power can provide? Are my views—which got me exiled in the first place—suddenly necessary? Or should I leave those behind?”

      “I am sure we can achieve a satisfying middle ground.”

      “If that’s all they authorized you to offer me, let me tell you what ‘middle ground’ translates to with them: ‘Our way, or the highway.’ They keep saying ‘make a commitment and we’ll work it out.’ But what they really want is for me to uphold the very policies I disagreed with so strongly that I paid the highest price for the chance of changing them. I thought ceasing to be a Castaldinian would be worth it if my punishment started a movement to support my views, instigated a climate to incubate change. But they made sure my side of the matter was never heard. And they want me to be king of this stuck-in-time land? Who do they think they’re kidding?”

      She exhaled. “I really think the time for kidding is past.”

      “No kidding, pun oh so intended. Say—I gather King B didn’t tell you that his need of me isn’t as desperate as he makes it out to be. He forgot to mention that tiny matter of two more men who are equally capable of taking on the role as I am, didn’t he?”

      The way he said King B…! Her lips twitched. “In fact, he did mention them.”

      His eyebrows rose, genuine surprise tingeing his expression. “He told you about Durante and Ferruccio?”

      “He didn’t mention names. Just that there have always been three candidates for the crown, with you topping the list.”

      His face settled back into that knowing expression. “Did he tell you why I topped the list?”

      “Just that you, as impossible as it sounds, are less problematic, that you hate him and Castaldini less.”

      He shook his head in a mixture of irony and something that looked like grudging admiration, even fondness. “That old fox. Always telling enough truth to make his logic irrefutable, hiding enough to make himself too noble to be denied. So he kept his accounts in the present, didn’t say why only I was considered worthy. Until I blew it big time, that is.”

      She sat up. “My conspiracy theory centers are all ears.”

      He laughed, lay back on the couch. She didn’t follow, somehow. “It’s not a conspiracy, it’s worse. It’s something far more petty. And far more damaging. You know it well. It goes by many names. Tradition, conservatism, ancestry, bloodlines. All I have on those two men is an accident of birth that made me eligible and eliminated them from the running.”

      Suddenly something clicked. “Durante? As in Durante D’Agostino, King Benedetto’s estranged eldest son?”

      He nodded.

      “Whoa. The current king’s son. The cardinal no-no.”

      He gave a vicious snort. “And even in their hour of need, the old farts can’t bring themselves to overlook the letter of a law that should have expired when the need for it did.”

      “In their defense, that law has made Castaldini one of the most stable kingdoms in the world.”

      “And the most stagnant.”

      “And you took advantage of that law yourself,” she retorted. “Seems you always thought Durante—your best friend—as good a candidate as you, yet you didn’t make a peep about changing the law to give him an equal playing field.”

      He sat up again, his eyes spitting emerald fire. “And I’m ashamed that I didn’t. I’m even more ashamed that I saw the error of my ways only when I had no choice anymore. But now that I have the choice again, I’m making up for being a party to such a backward practice. I’m daring them to really let the best man win.”

      “I do believe that’s who they believe you are.”

      “I’m only the best man because I’ll be more acceptable to the masses, who’ve been indoctrinated to accept only the old laws.”

      “Isn’t that a huge factor to consider? Don’t you factor in popularity and acceptability when assigning your CEOs?”

      “If I ever take the crown, it would be to move Castaldini to the point where laws that no longer suit the times are phased out. I would start by seeing to it that the people come to decide who’s best for Castaldini without ticking off a list of criteria topped by an outdated, demeaning and just plain prejudiced birth requirement.”

      She gaped at him as everything he’d said slotted in place.And she exclaimed, “You’re a social reformer and a modernizer!”

      “You say this with the same revulsion you’d say ‘a womanizer.’”

      “It’s not revulsion. It’s realization. I’m shocked. I was led to believe you were

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