His Majesty's Forbidden Temptat - Maisey Yates Page 0,6

there had been other women.

And yes, she’d been disappointed there had still been other women, even when she was old enough that he might have turned his attentions to her.

But he was gone. And there was no real reason to hate him for being with another woman when he died. He’d never been with her anyway. He’d never made any promises.

She chose to remember the things she’d loved about him.

She wouldn’t have been suited to being a princess, though. And she wasn’t really suited to marriage at all, she didn’t think. Her path had been determined for her from a young age, and because of that there were some things she’d never really thought about it.

Really, she had never thought of what it meant to be a princess. Only what it would be like to walk down the vast Cathedral aisle in a white dress toward the man her heart had longed for ever since she had understood why men and women were different.

The reality of it... Well, it fairly horrified her.

She had discovered that she liked to work behind the scenes. Doing hair and makeup just frustrated her. It reminded her of how frustrated she made her mother. Whenever she and her father had been back in residence in the family home, or when her mother had come for stints at the palace, her mother had picked at her.

Reminded her of all of her shortcomings.

She’d told her King Darius and her father might have been accepting of her in the role of Princess, but the press would have been vicious. She would have been subjected to millions of people scrutinizing her as her mother did and the idea of that was...intolerable.

Apart from the reasons she didn’t like the idea of being looked at, she had also discovered that she liked quiet evenings at home. That she was good at particular things, just not socialite and royalty things. She had an artistic flair that she didn’t discover until she went to University, and she expressed that through her baking, and with her knitting.

Losing Dionysus had been a tragedy. But from that, she had discovered some deep and important parts of herself. And somehow coming back here... It made it feel like that new creation she’d knit herself into was all beginning to unravel.

She was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt.

She hadn’t been expecting Alexius to come to her house today. But Alexius didn’t announce himself. He didn’t ask permission, and he didn’t make plans. He simply was.

It had been like that when she’d been at University. He’d come to see her three times, with no warning each time.

And good luck explaining why a man who radiated regal bearing and who was so handsome he made women swoon in the dorm halls, had come to see her.

Well, she’d had to just explain.

She was the ward of the King of her home country. As simple and complicated as that.

Just like the current situation.

She had seen the paperwork, and there was no use arguing.

She needed the money. Not for herself, but to fund the charity. Well, she did need to live, as well. Have money to feed her animals...

But the idea of a husband...

She was well used to the idea of an arranged marriage. It was just that the first one that had been arranged had suited her so much.

“I have a few requests.”

Alex turned and looked at her, and there was something about that stark, rock carved expression that made her stomach feel hollow.

He was such a large man. Having him in her cottage had been strange and disorienting. He was so firmly associated with a life that she had left behind. With the forbidding palace walls.

That was why he made her feel so strange.

He always had. So grim and dark and brooding. A long shadow cast over her sunny days at the castle. He had never thought she was good enough for his brother. Her mother was angry with her for failing to be good enough to be Queen.

Alexius had never even thought her good enough to be Princess.

She doubted he thought she was good enough to scrub the floors.

“Requests?”

He was looking at her as if she’d grown a second head. One he didn’t like any more than the first.

“If you’re going to help me find a husband...”

“It isn’t going to just be any husband. He must meet the requirements that I know your father would have.”

She could say no. But he would only force her to go with him. There was