“It’s all yours. Maybe let me borrow it on shower day?”
He lifted the blade and tipped it to and fro, inspecting its curved handle as though he hadn’t used the device a thousand times. “I think that can be arranged.”
“Am I forgiven?”
He pulled her into a loose, one-armed hug. “I guess so. Until next time, anyway.”
She returned the hug and then wiped her dampening palms on her pants. Now for the hard part. “I want to tell you something else.”
“Careful,” he warned in a teasing voice. “Insult me again and you’ll have to bribe me with something better than a laser blade.”
“It’s about what happened in Marius’s palace.”
All teasing ceased.
“On my wedding day,” she went on. “There’s a reason I never talked to you about that, and it’s not what you think.”
“You don’t have to,” he assured her.
She knew that, but she wanted to. So she paused to steel herself and then told him about the morning she’d awoken to find a bridal gown in her suite. “I was terrified. The wedding bought me some time, but I knew it wouldn’t take long before Marius got bored with punishing me and ordered my execution.”
Kane took her hand in both of his. “Cassy, I’m sorry you had to—”
“No, let me finish. This isn’t easy.”
He nodded, stroking her hand with his thumb.
“I didn’t have a plan,” she said, “and for a while I didn’t have any hope. When I was at my lowest, the only person I wanted was you.” Her pulse thumped, but she forced herself to keep going. “I had so many regrets for how I treated you. I kept putting distance between us because I knew my parents would promise me to someone else. I guess it was safer not to get too attached.” She flicked a glance at him. “But it didn’t work. All I did was hurt us both.”
He didn’t move, not even to breathe.
“I swore if I ever had a second chance, I would tell you all this. But then I took the throne, and there was so much to do. I told myself I was too busy with the colony to focus on anything else, but deep down I was afraid, just like before.” She added softly, “So I gave you whiplash.”
His hands tightened around hers and then abruptly loosened, as if he’d caught himself hoping too hard and then remembered to guard his feelings. She gripped his fingers and held on tight. She wouldn’t let him down this time.
“Today I felt the same regret when I took my last breath inside that dome, only it was a hundred times stronger because I already had a second chance with you, and I wasted it. I never thought we’d survive, but we did, and I’m done being a coward.” To prove it, she looked him right in the eyes. “You said I could have your next twenty years if I wanted them. Did you mean that?”
His mouth worked in silence for a while, until he said, “Yes.”
“Then I want them.”
Hope lifted the edges of his mouth. “So you’re ready to amend the charter?”
“The colony has to be stable first,” she reminded him. “That could take years, maybe decades.”
“Then we’re right back where we started.”
“No, we’re not. I’m in charge now, not my parents.”
“So we’ll…what?” he asked. “Live in the palace together?”
“Why not? Half of Eturia thinks we’re together anyway.”
“I hate to mention this as we discuss shacking up, but you’re married.”
“In name only. It’s temporary.”
“But then you’ll have to make another match. To unite the kingdoms and form a republic, you’ll need money and alliances, right?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t argue with that. “But it won’t change anything between us. Political marriages are different. The usual rules don’t apply. My father had someone else, and so did my mother. Neither one cared.”
“You want me to share you?”
“No, I would be yours in every way that counts. All I’d have to give my husband is a child, and that can be done in a lab. I’d make sure he was agreeable to the arrangement. No one would get hurt.”
“So you’d be okay if I married someone, too?” He arched a blond brow. “Shanna, maybe? She and I get along pretty well. I could make children with her in a lab…cute little babies with my eyes and her chin.”
The idea of Kane and Shanna linked in any way made Cassia want to punch a hole through the wall. And clearly he knew it or he wouldn’t have asked.
“Would you be all right with that?” he pressed.
After huffing a breath and stewing in silence for a moment, she admitted, “Of course not.”
“Then why is it fair to ask that of me?”