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Her career was a stuht of her talent and power It see she couldn’t accomplish in her career No role she couldn’t play
On the other hand, there was no man in her life now, and had not been for several years He was sure of it But he had not relied on the tabloids for that information She’d been under the covert protectionand surveillanceof his agents ever since he’d ascended the throne Ever since he’d acknowledged that the unbroken line of Marianescus ruling Zakhar for over five hundred years would be broken, unless
The Privy Council was again pressuring hiet heirs Delicately, to be sure, and so nevertheless He’d ed to maintain his composure in the face of the subtle and not so subtle hints thrown out by the Privy Council regarding the topic of his e He’d never succumbed to the intense pressure his father had placed on hi to the Privy Council’s pressure now
Since women couldn’t sit on the Zakharian throne, Andre’s heir wasn’t his sister, Mara That was his cousin Zax, the oldest son of his deceased uncle Evander—and a year older than he was Andre had never worried overmuch about the succession when he’d served in the Zakharian National Forces, not even when his unit was deployed to Afghanistan He knew Zakhar would be in good hands with Zax at the hel the unbroken father-to-son direct line But in the years since then, he’d recognized the supreme importance of that unbroken line—not to himself or his yet-to-be-born son, but to the people of Zakhar
The Zakharians firood fortune and prosperity their country had experienced throughout the centuries was somehow tied in with the House of Marianescu and the monarchy’s father-to-son direct descent, froht up to the present day Superstition? No question But the average Zakharian citizen vehe with the ti to the Privy Council’s fervent wishes in the near future Just not the way they expected
Andre knew there were eyes all around the, as if his life and Juliana’s were just food for gossip, grist for the tabloid aze away froroup ofin the inane conversation No matter what, he had to shield Juliana from the tabloids if he could, the same way he’d shielded his sister, Mara, until her husband had co to assume that responsibility Perhaps that was an outdated attitude in this day and age, but he was Zakharian right down to his fingernails, and like his fae for no man
Just because he wasn’t looking at Juliana didn’t mean he couldn’t see her, however That heart-shaped face; those violet eyes fringed with long, natural, sooty lashes; those lips that looked so passionate yet somehow unkissable until a man saw the way the hesitant curve of her s, silky, ebony tresses that wreathed her face like a dark wavy halo and cascaded down her back
She was perfection itself now, but that wasn’t why he loved her He reer, unsure of herself, unsure of the changes her body was going through as she irl into a woman He had first loved her when she was sixteen and he enty, had loved her when only her violet eyes had conveyed a hint of the beautiful woman she would someday become
But he had not touched her
He had not touched her when she turned seventeen and began blossoh as his heart, not even when she practiced her newly discovered fe aside her natural curiosity abouther at a physical distance in a way that wouldn’t seem like rejection to her sensitive soul
Even the suh by then her beauty made heads turn on the street, made men openly lust after her with their eyes His body burned to possess hers that summer He knew he could have her—Juliana’s expressive eyes betrayed she ached for him the way he ached for her Desirehis stallion through the countryside late at night until they were both exhausted, then cae he’d made his own Far away froo Far away from temptation