His Majesty's Forbidden Temptat - Maisey Yates Page 0,1
the estate and money is tied up in his wishes. Find her a husband. Ensure she never wants for anything.
Alex had spoken nothing of Dionysus’s flaws, for what would the point be? The King had had a blind spot when it came to his youngest son. He saw only the son, and none of the ways his selfish actions might have harmed Tinley.
But he’d asked Alex to ensure she wanted for nothing, and she hadn’t.
Not a thing. In fact, he had made sure that she was able to attend a very prestigious University, where she had gotten a degree in social work. She currently held a position working for a charity, and he knew that while money meant very little to her on a personal level, she appreciated what she might accomplish with it in the broader world.
There was a clock ticking down. Tinley had to be married in her twenty-third year. If she was not, her father’s money would be given to her next male relative.
It was funny to him, that his father thought Tinley suited Dionysus. Alex hadn’t thought so. Tinley, though, had idolized Alex’s brother. Had loved him. In the way a puppy loved its master, he’d often thought.
She’d had no idea he was dallying with other women, and happily, while Tinley was trailing after him, a flurry of ginger hair and pure devotion.
Watching it had made Alex’s stomach sour.
“Yes,” he said, his voice firm. “I was happy to allow you to live your life, but you have not come any closer to securing a marriage in the last four years than you were as a girl of eighteen.”
“I was engaged at eighteen,” she said softly.
“Younger,” he said.
He looked around the cottage, which was something like a mishap out in the middle of the forest that had collected itself into four walls and a roof. There were baskets stacked in every corner, filled with yarn and what looked to be unspun wool.
The kitchen itself, which occupied the same space as the living area, was in a tip. There was a pie sitting on the counter, and there were baskets of blueberries, and flour sprinkled everywhere.
The woman herself had a bit of flour on her face.
As if the picture of spinster had not been painted well enough, a very large, fat ginger cat chose that moment to saunter into the room.
“To my point,” he said. “You are no closer to finding a husband than you were four years ago. And I fear that you must. I wanted to keep my intervention to a minimum. But that is no longer practical.”
She narrowed her eyes. “To what point?”
He let his gaze travel to the cat. “Nothing.”
She frowned deeply and stood from the chair, making her way over to the beast. “Algernon is a rescue.”
“I would’ve expected nothing less.”
The cat walked by her, making a beeline straight for Alexius. The beast wove itself through his legs leaving behind a smattering of orange hair on his black pants.
“Retrieve your creature.”
She huffed and crossed the space inelegantly, her softness amplified by her movements, her red hair a wild curl as she bent in a huff to pick up the massive mammal. “Leave the mean man alone, Algie. He hates cats. And sunshine. And rainbows. And everything good and proper in the world.”
The problem with Tinley, the problem that had existed with Tinley since she’d begun to blossom into a woman, was that she was improbably beautiful. To him, at least. Her figure lush and soft, her hair untamed. She was unpredictable and unquenchable. She had freckles on her face and a gleam in her eyes that always seemed to hold a secret bit of humor. Her lips were full and quick with a smile, a wide smile that creased her cheeks and eyes and would make lines there when she was older.
She didn’t seem concerned by it.
She rarely seemed concerned by anything.
And there was a part of him that had been drawn to that for years.
It was untenable. She was nothing like what he needed or wanted.
His body, though, had other thoughts about her, ridiculous though she was. A perversity in his nature.
“Need I remind you, Tinley. I am King. I am your King.”
Tinley whirled in a circle, still holding her cat. “And I was going to be a princess.”
“Not anymore.”
Her mouth snapped shut, and her skin went waxen. “No.”
“I’m not trying to be cruel, Tinley.”
“Of course not. You don’t have to try.”
The moment stretched between them and he allowed it. She could