I puff out a relieved breath, and with it, some of the tension that’s been sitting on my shoulders since I walked into the breakfast room ebbs. I know how to do this. How to be tactical. Patient. Read my opponent. If I want to survive here, survive him, and do what needs to be done, then I have to keep my boundaries. Maintain my façade. Even when he seems to have some obscure way of cracking it without much effort at all.
Just as he said.
“Yup.”
“Fine. Salad is your favorite food. Boring.” He exaggeratedly yawns. “Moving on. How many siblings do you have?”
The answer flies past my lips from practiced memory. “Three. Two older brothers and an older sister.”
“What’s your favorite book?”
“I don’t have time to read for pleasure.”
He swipes his thumb along his bottom lip. I have no ideawhat that move is, but it’s unfortunately as entrancing as the rest of him.
“What do you do for fun?”
I laugh. It comes out as sardonic as the last one. “Again, sir, I don’t have much time for fun.”
“Humor me.”
What these questions have to do with anything, I have no clue. I try not to shift, but he’s rubbing at me. I don’t like answering personal questions, and I never practice bullshit ones related to my character.
I do my best to maintain my polite, professional disposition, but I’m struggling, and he knows it. I tug down the end of my ugly dress as I recross my legs. “I go for long walks, play chess, or swim.”
“Again boring.”
I try so hard not to roll my eyes. “Yes, Your Highness, I’m sure compared to you, my life is rather boring.”
His lips twitch. “That sounded like sarcasm.”
“Not at all. It’s the truth.”
“Fine. How old are you?”
I squint at him. “Twenty-three.”
Except the moment I say it, I instantly regret it. Especially when he comes back at me with…
“I’m thirty-three.”
“Yes, sir. Though I don’t think our age difference matters all that much.”
His playful and cocky demeanor shifts, turning frosty. Almost hostile while his bright blue eyes sharpen as if all of that between us was a game I just lost. I realize all his banter, his teasing comments, his flirting are all a ruse. A weapon he uses to disarm and hide what truly lurks beneath his charming smile and handsome face.
“Did you already know that?”
My pulse thrums in my neck and palm. “Yes, sir. I did.”
“Thought so. What else do you know about me, Marcella?”
Jesus. This guy. I hate the way he says my name.
I know how you smell. How you kiss. How you fuck. How you feel. How you look when you come. I know that you’re the most dangerous entity to my being here, and therefore, I need to stay far away from you.
“Not much else, sir. Only what’s public knowledge.”
He looks eerily calm. “If you say so, though something about you makes me believe you know a hell of a lot more about everything than you let on.”