King's Ransom. Amelia Autin

reputation with directors for being the consummate professional, able to do most scenes in one or two takes. That was something else she’d learned from Dirk.

      But when Andre was there it was nearly impossible to act naturally. And more than once she was forced to apologize to the director and her fellow actors for some stupid screwup on her part, especially her scenes with Dirk. She told herself to ignore Andre. Told herself he was nothing to her now, no more than any casual acquaintance, so she shouldn’t let him upset her. Told herself she didn’t care what he thought of her, that the respect of her director, Dirk, the rest of the cast and the crew was all she cared about. But she was lying to herself, and she knew it.

      She was dreading the two intimate love scenes scheduled for filming tomorrow: the wedding-night scene, where Eleonora and her husband consummated their wedding vows just hours before Andre Alexei was almost slain and Eleonora was kidnapped; and the reunion scene years later, after the king finally ransomed his queen and her young son at a cost that beggared his kingdom. A stupendous cost equivalent to a king’s ransom, not just a queen’s. And then had brought them home to Zakhar...to him.

      The scene where Eleonora bravely confessed everything to her husband and offered to enter a convent to hide her shame and his—an offer Andre Alexei had adamantly refused. The scene where he made love to his wife so gently, so tenderly, she was finally able to respond to his lovemaking despite everything she’d endured in captivity.

      That scene reminded her poignantly of a scene between Terry O’Dare and Tessa in Jetsam. Dirk had said the same thing to her when he’d first read the King’s Ransom script, and they’d already discussed just how they were going to play it. But that made it incredibly intimate, more than just the words in the script. It was supposed to a closed set, with only the bare minimum cast and crew necessary to film both scenes. But who on the set would have the nerve to tell the king of Zakhar he couldn’t be there?

      * * *

      Andre knew his presence on the set was having a negative effect on Juliana’s abilities as an actress, and it bothered him not at all. He welcomed it as a sign she wasn’t as indifferent to him as she pretended. But the night before the scheduled love scenes he knew he couldn’t be there. He couldn’t watch Dirk DeWinter and Juliana making love, take after take, angle after angle, fully and partially clothed. He knew the scenes would be tastefully done—Juliana was never fully naked in any of her films. And he knew it wasn’t real, that they were merely actors playing the roles of the first king and queen of Zakhar. He still couldn’t watch it.

      I should have ordered the screenwriter to remove those scenes from the script, he told himself angrily. But in his heart he knew the scenes were necessary. The audiences had to see the love scenes, both before and after their long separation, in order to understand the eternal love that bound the two together even through years apart. They were actually beautifully written—the screenwriter had outdone herself.

      But Andre couldn’t watch those scenes being filmed. He also knew he would never be able to watch the completed movie—not with those scenes in it. It was too personal, would remind him too much of the one magical night he’d shared with Juliana. And if Juliana never came to him again, it would be like watching the nails being pounded into his own coffin, knowing that unlike his renowned predecessor, somehow he’d failed to win back the woman he loved.

      He opened the French doors onto his private balcony, hesitated for only a second as he heard his bodyguards’ warnings in his head, then walked out anyway. It wasn’t that he thought himself invincible, but he couldn’t live his life always afraid of assassination, even though in the three years of his rule he’d survived two attempts by traditionalists who resented the political and military changes Andre was trying to implement. One of those attempts he’d used as an excuse to send his sister, Mara, to Colorado, where she’d met and fallen in love with the man who was now her husband. So at least something good had come out of what could have been a national tragedy for most Zakharians.

      He was a little more cautious these days—the attempts on his life had shaken him more than he cared to admit, and he no longer took unnecessary risks. But here in the palace—even exposed as he was on his private balcony—he was fairly safe.

      Andre breathed deeply and looked down upon the twinkling lights of the sleeping city where he’d been born and raised, the city that was such a part of him he knew he could never live anywhere else even if he wasn’t its ruler. There were precious memories here, too—memories of himself taking fourteen-year-old Juliana and his sister, Mara, thirteen, from one historical site to another, relating the history of Zakhar to them as they listened, spellbound. Juliana, even more than Mara, had been captivated by the love story of the first Andre Alexei and his beloved Eleonora, and never tired of hearing him tell the tale.

      Even that long ago he’d been drawn to Juliana. Her lovely violet eyes set in what was then a plain face had glowed with an inner light that told him she understood far beyond her tender age the anguish of lovers torn apart for years. The longing. The yearning. The hope and despair. And then, incredibly, the joyous reunion, never to be parted again in life. Not even in death.

      They had stood together at the lovers’ mausoleum in the royal cemetery as he translated the Latin script carved upon the walls for her:

       Two hearts as one,

       Forever and a day.

      He’d watched the words seep into Juliana’s soul, watched her eyes fill with tears of empathy for what the lovers had endured before being reunited. She had felt the story, the same way he always had.

      He’d been immeasurably wounded when she’d mocked the love story the night of the reception. The Juliana he remembered could never have said those things, could never even have thought them. He’d struck back with a statement calculated to flick her on the raw. But then he’d seen the fear in her eyes, and that had wounded him far more. He’d never given Juliana reason to fear him. Even when he’d taken the gift she’d offered him so many years ago he’d shown her nothing but tenderness, had shown her how precious she was to him.

      Once upon a time Juliana had believed in immortal love—he knew it. He didn’t know what had happened to change that belief, but if he had anything to say about it she would believe again. Somehow he had to find a way to reach her. Come to me, Juliana, he urged, closing his eyes as if that would help deliver his silent plea. Come to me.

      * * *

      Juliana studied the next day’s script lying in a bubble bath with a half dozen scented candles surrounding her, her favorite way to memorize lines. But somehow tonight it wasn’t working. Instead of the intimate, romantic dialogue between the newly wedded king of Zakhar and his queen on their wedding night and the poignant reunion scene she was supposed to be committing to memory, she kept hearing Andre’s voice in her head like a siren’s song, calling her to him.

      She could have sworn she’d heard him calling to her eleven years ago, the night before she was to leave Zakhar, the same way she was hearing him now. The same way she’d heard him calling to her over the years. She knew it was just her own yearning—her own desires—projected in her mind as Andre’s voice calling to her. Usually she was able to block him out by focusing on a script, but not here in Zakhar. Not where everything reminded her of him. Not where everywhere she turned memories tugged her into wondering what had happened to the beau ideal prince she’d known.

      She tried to drag her concentration back to the script, but it was impossible—the script itself reminded her of Andre. Too much. Finally she gave up. I’ll just have to get up extra early tomorrow morning and memorize, she told herself.

      She got out of the tub and dried herself off, then slipped on one of the oversize cotton T-shirts she preferred instead of the silky, slinky, diaphanous gowns the public imagined she wore to bed. This one had a picture of a sleeping pink-and-white kitten curled up on the front, and it came down to her knees. She crawled into the comfy bed, set her little traveling alarm clock and tried to force herself to sleep. Tried to block out the eerie sensation that Andre was calling to her.