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“But, Sire” Da unprotected, even in these relatively safe confines, but he acquiesced under the imperious expression on the face Andre turned on hi kneould station hiht outside the door, within earshot And he would fuht
Andre’s elderly English valet was in the dressing rooold-braided dress unifor away a fleck of lint Testing each button for a loose thread Inspecting the belt, gold-handled sword and scabbard, ensuring the leather was polished to a high gloss and that there wasn’t a spot of tarnish or a finger s would be no less than perfect when he left his valet’s hands Normally Andre was ah he never let the other man fuss over him But today wasn’t a normal day, and Andre craved solitude
“Later, Sinclair,” he told his valet “Come back later”
Alone finally, Andre glanced once at the large, intricately woven tapestry on one wall of the bedroohts away fro every detail in his hts of Juliana to the background As if he could quiet the eager pounding of his heart as it anticipated her arrival Useless
“Propinquity is not love,” Andre’s father had reh the years, as he paraded one potential bride after another in front of his son’s disinterested gaze Refusing to believe what he didn’t want to believe, despite knowing—as all Zakhar knew—that Marianescus ain Refusing to believe his son’s heart had been irrevocably given at such an early age
Not propinquity, Andre told hi about that as he’d been wrong about everything regarding his children—especially his only son Andre’s love for Juliana had never had its roots in their close proxier Eleven years without her would eventually have eradicated his love if that had been the case, but it had not She was the other half of his soul—so since accepted, but that his father had always denied And since Andre had despised his father for his treatment of Mara, father and son had rarely spoken except in confrontation He’d never confided in his father that his love for Juliana burned like an eternal flame and alould—forever and a day
He impatiently pushed open the French doors and strode out onto his private balcony The balcony was another thing Andre’s bodyguards didn’t like But the risk was slight The royal palace stood on a hill above Drago, surrounded by a high castle wall patrolled by are outside the wall, and there was very little that would give any would-be assassin cover as he lay in wait Nevertheless, to a ed him to have a care how often he exposed himself on the balcony without them to protect him
Andre wasn’t thinking about that He had soht now, and he needed the escape the balcony brought him
Usually the sight of Drago in the early-ed by towering mountains, calainst the stone railing, his eyes scanning the empty skies for the plane he kneould not arrive for some time “Come to me, Juliana,” he whispered, the words he had dreamed for years but had never dared to utter aloud Until today “Come to me”
The man picked up the newspaper, unfolded it and shook it outthen cursed The headline blared what he’d known for weeks, so it wasn’t the headline or the accory It was the reht he’d taken care of for good was co back to haunt him, and the radiant pictures beneath the headline only added fuel to the fire of anger that surged within him
“Damn you,” he whispered to the photos
He knew the ostensible reason why Juliana Richardson was returning to Zakhar after all these years But he couldn’t trust that secrets long buried wouldn’t somehow resurface while she was here Couldn’t trust that the truth wouldn’t so he’d plotted and planned for the past three years
If he believed in God—which he didn’t—he would al in the pal the two covert attereatness But although he didn’t believe in God, he did believe in the devil And his two previous failures had recently prompted him to cut a deal with the devil himself—Aleksandrov Vishenko The head of a particularly vicious branch of the Bratva—the Russian Mafia