She arched a brow. “Very wise. So …” She touched her tongue to her top lip. “If I commanded you to make love with me again, right now—”

“I’d tell you to get your buns out of bed.” He kissed her before she could object. “Your Serene Highness.”

“Very well,” she said loftily, and rolled aside. She stood, naked, and shook back her hair. He thought then that she was no Sleeping Beauty just coming to life, but a woman who already knew and accepted her own power. “Since you cast me aside so easily, you’ll have to come to me next time.” She picked up her discarded robe, but took her time about putting it on. “That is, unless you’d like to be tossed in the dungeons. They are, I’m told, very deep, dank and dark.”

He watched her slide one arm in a sleeve. “Blackmail?”

“I’ve no conscience.” She drew on the other sleeve, then slowly crossed and tied the robe.

No, she was no Sleeping Beauty, he thought again. She was a woman who deserved more than promises. “Brie …” Reeve sat up, pulling a hand through his hair. “Alexander and I had a talk yesterday.”

Brie kept her hands on the sash, though they were no longer relaxed. “Oh? About me, I assume.”

“Yes, about you.”

“Well?”

“That royal tone doesn’t work on me, Brie. You should know that by now.”

As if it were vital, she smoothed out the satin of the sash. “What does?”

“Honesty.”

She looked back at him, then sighed. It was an answer she should have expected. “All right, then. Alex and I did our own share of talking—arguing—yesterday. I can’t say I appreciate the two of you getting together for a chat about me and my welfare.”

“He’s concerned. I’m concerned.”

“Is that an excuse for everything?”

“It’s a reason for everything.”

Her breath came out slowly. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be unfair, Reeve. I don’t, though it might appear differently, even mean to be ungrateful. It just seems as though while everyone’s so concerned, so worried, everyone continues to make demands.” She began to walk as she spoke—to the window and away, to the mirror and back again, as if she weren’t quite ready to face herself that morning. “They want me to go along with Loubet’s plan about covering up the amnesia so that there’s no panic and the investigation can go on quietly. They want you and me to go on with this deception about being engaged. I think—I’m beginning to think that bothers me most of all.”

“I see.”

She glanced up, unsmiling. “I wonder if you can,” she murmured. “On one hand I get sympathy, concern, and on the other, obligations.”

“Is there something you’d rather do? Some way you’d rather try?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No. What did Alexander conclude, then?”

“He decided to trust me. Have you?”

She looked at him in surprise, then realized how she must have appeared. “You know I trust you. I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t.”