Royal Recruit - Susan Grant Page 0,71
“Hey, Frix. Where were you today when someone booby-trapped my rover? It could have killed me. Worse, it could have killed your queen.” Everyone within earshot sucked in a breath. “She’s been interested in learning to drive. What if I had coaxed her into the driver’s seat? She would have been impaled, not me. That’s the risk an assassin takes every time they come after me. He or she may kill me or your queen, or both of us. You don’t know.”
“It seems I do not know even my own husband!”
Jared ripped his attention away from Tibor. Keira stood outside the circle, regarding him with hurt, disbelieving eyes. Rissallen stood at her side, his expression smug.
His stomach clenched. You waited too long.
“Everyone knows who you really are, apparently.” Keira’s chest rose and fell, her gown glittering with each breath, her hands in white-knuckled fists. “Everyone but me.” She gave him a look of utter pain, grabbed her skirts and rushed from the room.
Rissallen’s gaze was calm, almost pitying, as Jared took off after her.
Chapter Nineteen
Keira felt sick to her stomach. Heartsick too. Her face ablaze, she couldn’t take full breaths. It was making her lightheaded.
“Keira—wait.” Jared caught her before she reached the exit.
She tried to yank her arm from his grasp. “Unhand me, you beast.”
“From barbarian to beast in six-point-two seconds,” he muttered. “Don’t I get a chance to explain?”
“What is there to explain? You’ve humiliated me. Jared, how could you? Everyone knew but me. You of all people know how much I hate being made to look a fool.”
Jared snatched her hand and dragged her into one of the smaller, private parliamentary rooms off the main hall. She folded her arms over her chest and put on her most petulant expression. If her façade faltered, she’d weep. She didn’t want to reveal her weakness, how hard she’d fallen for this man.
“Okay, so I’m not a prince. But I come from a family of famous politicians. I’ve lived my life in the public eye, much more so than you. Only I’m not a leader. I use my persuasion skills in a different way. I arrange the sale of large tracts of land for commercial projects—you probably don’t even understand what that means—and I’m also a military officer, a fighter pilot. I hold the rank of major in the national guard. I fly in defense of Earth. In fact, that’s how we met, me and you, Keira. I was in a spaceship your last suitor’s would-be assassin crashed. I powered it up, the comm screen came on, and there you were.”
Keira realized belatedly that she’d stopped breathing. She blinked, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response. It didn’t matter because he kept going.
“‘Prince’ is a nickname I used in the cockpit of my fighter. I said I was the prince—I didn’t mean I was the prince. It was a lie that dug me deeper and deeper—the longer I played the game, the less I liked it. The closer we got, the more I hated knowing I hadn’t been honest with you. But now with lies all around you, I didn’t want to be another one. I wanted you to know before you went in those chambers and lobbied for my life at the risk of yours. But I didn’t want to upset you before you had to make the speech of your life. I planned to tell you as soon as you were done, but that bastard Rissallen beat me to it.”
He turned his hands palms up, his expression frank, his eyes intense as he searched her face. “We on Earth did what we had to do to survive, Keira, just like the Coalition does what it has to do. I won’t apologize for that. Don’t forget, your people called mine and demanded the treaty. I tried to get them to pick someone else. I didn’t want any part of this marriage.”
Neither did she. But hearing Jared say so stung. She drove her gaze downward, and his tone gentled. “Lying wasn’t the best way to begin a marriage, sweetheart, but neither was your people’s trick the day of the betrothal ceremony where I somehow ended up married when I thought an engagement was the only thing I had to worry about. What I think we should do is say we’re even.”
“But, Jared…”
“Look, I’m not sorry for what I did—I made a sacrifice to save my world—but I am sorry you think you fell in love with the