“How did it go, Your Majesty? Is she as beautiful as they say?”

Zale felt a strange tightness in his chest. “Yes.”

“Tinny can’t wait to meet her. It’s all he talked about today.”

“He shall meet her as soon as possible.”

“Tomorrow?”

Zale pictured Emmeline and then his brother, and knew that innocent, idealistic Tinny would immediately place her on a pedestal. He’d adore her, worship her and give her the power to break his heart. “Not tomorrow, but soon, I promise.”

“He’ll be disappointed it’s not tomorrow.”

“I know, but there are a few wrinkles to still iron out.”

“I understand and Prince Constantine will meet your bride when the time is right.” Mrs. Sivka smiled. “I’m proud of you. Your parents would be proud, too. You deserve every good thing coming, you do.”

“But you have to say that, Mrs. Sivka,” he said, teasing her gently, forever grateful she’d come out of retirement to help with Tinny after his parents’ accident. “You were my nanny, too.”

“That I was. And now look at you.”

He smiled crookedly. “Good night, Mrs. Sivka.”

“Good night, Your Majesty.”

Zale left his brother’s suite of rooms and headed to his own, feeling tightness and tension return to his chest.

He felt like he’d ridden a roller coaster of emotions tonight. He didn’t like it.

He rarely let his emotions get the better of him. Little ruffled Zale. Virtually nothing got under his skin. But tonight everything about Emmeline had gotten to him. She wasn’t the one he’d remembered. She was nothing like the cool ice princess of the past. And tonight she’d managed to turn him inside out.

Not good, he told himself, walking to his own suite of rooms in the next wing.

He wasn’t supposed to be emotionally involved with Emmeline. As they both knew, their union wasn’t a love match but a carefully orchestrated arrangement with significant financial incentives. Every step of their relationship had been outlined and detailed in the final draft of the seventy-page document they’d sign in the morning.

He could want her, desire her and enjoy her but he couldn’t ever forget that their relationship was first, and foremost, business.

Business, he reminded himself sternly, which meant he couldn’t allow himself to get distracted, not even by a beautiful face and lush body.

Fortunately Zale was famous for his discipline. That same discipline ensured success in school, in sport and then as Raguva’s sovereign.

Growing up the second of three sons, no one placed pressure on him. No one had particularly high expectations for him. But Zale had high expectations for himself. From a young age he was determined to find his own place in the world, would carve a niche that was uniquely his. And so while his older brother, Stephen VII, Raguva’s Crown Prince, had learned the fundamentals of ruling a monarchy, Zale had learned the fundamentals of football.

His older brother would be king one day and Zale would play professional sport.

Zale had been sixteen and attending boarding school in England when nineteen-year-old Stephen, in his second year at Trinity College, had been diagnosed with leukemia. His parents and Tinny had relocated to London to be with Stephen during the grueling chemo and radiation treatments.

For three years Stephen fought hard. For three years he endured horrific pain in hopes that the debilitating treatments would knock the leukemia into remission.

Zale had felt helpless.