Now that he had touched her, tasted her, teased himself with fractions of his own fantasies, was he supposed to deny himself the rest?

How could he go to her when what he offered would be a lifetime of subterfuge or a lifetime of sacrifice? As his mistress he would never be able to recognize her publicly as more than a family friend. As his wife …

Alexander pressed his thumb and forefinger to his closed eyes. How could he ask marriage of her? He would always be tied to his country, his duty. So would whatever wife he chose. How could Eve, with her independence and strength, ever accept the restrictions that went with his title? He would have to ask her to give up country, privacy, career. He would have to ask her to subject herself to the fishbowl, the sometimes dangerous fishbowl, in which he had been born. How could he expect her to have the same pride, the same love for Cordina as he? How could he ask her for a lifetime at all?

But he could ask her for a night. One night.

If she would give him that, perhaps it would be enough.

Alexander stared out the window, the one that faced the same garden, the same sea, the same sky as Eve’s. He would have one night, and then, somehow, he would survive an eternity of others.

* * *

He didn’t knock. Such was his arrogance. The door opened without sound, but she sensed him before it clicked shut behind him. Such was his presence.

She didn’t jolt. Such was her pride. Eve remained on the window seat and turned her head slowly from the night to Alexander. She’d known sometime during her contemplation of the sky that he would come. What had been denied, struggled against, wished for, would be met tonight. Through her own vigil, she had made her peace with that. They stayed with the room between them, while the air hummed, then settled.

“I won’t rise and curtsy,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice.

His brow lifted, in amusement or surprise, she couldn’t be sure. “I won’t go to my knees.”

She felt a tremor dance up her spine, but her hands were steady when she folded them in her lap. “Equal ground?”

His stomach was knotted with tension, desire, but a strange and novel euphoria swam into his head. “Equal ground.”

She looked at her hands a moment, so calm and still in her lap, then lifted her gaze to his. His stance was straight, almost unbending, but his eyes were anything but distant. There was so much she knew, so much she’d yet to understand. “Once I believed you wanted me because you thought Bennett and I were lovers.”

“Once I despised myself for wanting you because I thought you and Bennett were lovers.”