Her thoughts slid most traitorously from her virtuous work among the women to a frank desire merely to see Jex’s face again. Her anticipation was so intense that it hurt; she felt her cheeks go taut with want. And even seeing him, even being allowed to touch his hand, would not be enough for her, though it was all she could have of him today. It had been six months since she had made love to Jex Zanlan, and every single day she had missed that great, simple pleasure.

Patrin greeted her at her grandmother’s door, and she made rare use of one of her aristocratic privileges. “Could you have my grandmother’s limousine ready to take me to the city in fifteen minutes?” she asked him.

He nodded. “Certainly, hela.”

“Thank you,” she answered, already bounding up the stairs.

Jex’s favorite color was red, but it made Kit’s cobalt skin look garish and overbright. Instead she dressed in a sunny yellow pantsuit, with a high collar that unfolded around her face like the petals of a proud flower, and a multicolored belt that accented her slim waist. She slipped on a dozen gold bracelets, all of them gifts from Jex or his father, and twisted her hands to make them chime together. She bothered, just this once, just for Jex, to make up her face with rouge and eye color, darkening her lashes, arching her brows, hollowing out the curve of her cheeks. She scorned the practice, she despised the women who felt they had to adorn themselves to attract a man, but Jex would appreciate the effort, she knew. She wanted to be beautiful for Jex.

The car was waiting for her when she ran back downstairs. During the whole drive to the city, all she could do was think of Jex. She had loved him for almost as long as she could remember. He was the embodiment of the gulden ideal: the lordly young prince, handsome, charming, self-assured, dangerous. He had been a man groomed for power, and it made him lethal and irresistible; just the turn of his head betrayed his utter self-confidence, his cool knowledge of his worth. All the gulden girls were mad for him, and Kit was as besotted as the rest.

But she had not showed it at first. When he came to visit his mothers and sisters in the women’s quarters of the Zanlan palace, when Kit happened to be there, she would ignore him. She would read magazines until he was done teasing his sisters. She would watch the news monitors while he debated family matters with his mother. On the state occasions when Chay invited Kit and her father to banquets and festivals, she would give Jex the required formal greeting and then go stand in the back of the crowd. She would not gaze at him doe-eyed like all those other girls. She was too proud for that.