The chancellor’s absence is like a gushing wound in my chest. I’m devastated he chose not to escort me himself—leaving my ladies to do it—but I understand why he made the decision.

I think back to my last ten minutes with him, on the cusp of his penthouse door.

“I’m not ready to say goodbye,” I’d pleaded, tears stinging my eyes as his hands rose to frame my face. His thumbs had brushed along my cheekbones as if preparing to wipe the pain away between us.

“This isn’t goodbye, my sweet girl.”

“It feels a lot like goodbye, Chancellor.”

A melancholy smile quirked at the corners of his lips. “I know we’ve grown close enough this past month for you to be comfortable using my name.”

“The title just slipped out,” I’d lied, hoping he’d scold me, spank me, lock me up and keep me as punishment for my refusal to use his name. Anything but sending me out that door.

He’d raised a brow upon my feigned innocence. “If you’re begging for my hand as a delaying tactic, it won’t work. I won’t cause your tardiness for the inevitable.”

By the inevitable he meant the start of my prison sentence with Heath Bordeaux.

I couldn’t have argued with him even if I’d wanted to, because in the next instant he’d kissed me. It hadn’t tasted like goodbye. In the sweep of our tongues, I’d found quiet desperation. Sweet sorrow. A promise for so much more, whether it be eleven days or eleven months down the line.

“Go,” he’d rasped against my damp lips, forehead pressed to mine. His hand landed on the door handle, threatening to thrust me into the supervision of my ladies who waited on the other side of the barrier locking us in this private moment.

“Don’t make me go.”

The handle turned—an almost indiscernible click. “You have to. Don’t make this harder than it already is, Novalee.” His warm breath on my cheek, followed by the press of his lips, would have to sustain me until I saw him again.

I cling to the memory now as his maid stops in front of the massive doors of the library. “Are you ready?” Selma asks, and I think I spot a sorrowful hint in the pinch of her coral lips. She’s in full uniform, a no-nonsense bun holding her graying blond hair at the nape.

“Yes, I’m…ready.”

It’s a lie. I’m as ready for Heath Bordeaux as I was the day he fit me for my crown and revealed a taste of his unforgiving, obstinate nature.