"I can't marry you."
"What?"
Riley's cheeks are wet, and Drake feels like he's been gutted. "What do you mean you can't marry me?" The ring that burned a hole in his pocket moments earlier now feels like a slug of lead. "Riley, what are you talking about?" Drake brushes the tears from Riley's bottom lashes, pulling her closer, but she covers her face with her hands and steps back. "Riley?!"
He remembers the first time he saw her in Manhattan. Another girl he could never have, not after she found out Liam was a prince. After she'd been sponsored by House Beaumont and he'd gotten to know the real Riley... He'd tried not to fall, and then he did - so fast and so hard even he isn't sure how it happened.
She pushes him away, gentle yet firm, and Drake stumbles backward with surprising force, catching himself on the rail of the balcony.
"There you are!"
You can never really be alone when you're in the royal entourage, not even when you're trying to have some privacy. Drake glares at Maxwell, who has made it a habit of bumbling into the wrong place at the wrong time, but never as wrong a place or a time as this. "Oh... Am I interrupting something?" Maxwell looks back and forth between them, and Drake battles the urge to wipe that insouciant smirk right off of Maxwell's face with his fist.
"Yes, Maxwell," Riley isn't crying anymore. Her face is set now, and she turns to Drake apologetically. "This is private."
"Oh - oh! Sorry, it's just that Liam is looking for you. Everyone is looking for you ... highness." Maxwell raises a brow meaningfully, making his exit.
"Highness?" Drake wishes he didn't believe it - but he knows the truth all too well.
"I'm marrying Liam," she says, and this time when the tears start, he doesn't try to stop them.
•••
The engagement after-party finds him with a bottle of whiskey at his elbow and the cool oaken solitary of the hotel's private wine cellars. The whole evening has been a nightmare. Watching her with Liam all night, eyes sparkling, blushing as Liam whispers into her ear, Liam's arm around her waist, the two of them posing for the press... He should be the one making Riley laugh. He should be the one making her blush. Every memory he has of his time with Riley feels false.
"So it's true." Drake looks up to see the Duchess of Lythikos, bottle of Moët clasped in one elegant claw, champagne flute in the other. She looks the way he feels - in short, a mess. Her feet are bare, her eyes are red, and her hair is loose. If Drake didn't know any better, he'd think Olivia might actually have a heart just as broken as his. In fact, he might almost pity her - if he didn't already know for certain that she has a heart of ice.
He glares at her, holding up his whiskey. "She played you for a fool, just like she played the rest of us."
There is a sudden vulnerability in Olivia's eyes, and she bumps him with her elbow. "Move over, Drake. Don't let a lady sit without pulling out a seat for her or anything."
"Seat? There's nowhere else to sit. So I guess you'll just have to go drink your sorrows down somewhere else, Ollie."
"Don't call me that! You know I hate that name." Olivia's eyes narrow, but then her shoulders slump. "Pax, Drake." She sets the flute on the counter, struggling with the champagne bottle. "Where's a servant when you need one?"
"You don't need one." Drake lifts up the bottle of whiskey and pours a generous helping into the flute. "I gotcha."
Olivia sniffs, turning away. "You don't have to pretend to be nice to me." She picks the flute up, and pinching her nose, takes a gulp. "I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with..."
"Ya think?" Drake snorts. "Understatement of the century. Now you've got what you came for..."
"Not quite." Olivia turns back, and her smile is sharp and white. She walks forward, hips undulating sinuously under her red dress, and Drake finds he's holding his breath, but he's rapidly becoming too drunk to care why. "A Nevrakis may lose a battle, but never the war."
"What's that supposed to mean?" He swivels towards her and she smiles again, licking the rim of her glass with quick darts of her small pink tongue. "Drink the whiskey, Ollie. Or leave. I don't care."
Olivia's eyes flash dangerously. "Drake, I swear you are the most infuriating man in all Cordonia!"
Drake leans back in his chair, letting his eyes travel all over Olivia's curves. "We're not in Cordonia now. You say that, but you don't mean it." A blush stains her cheeks. He smirks, then raises his glass to her. "A toast."
"To what?" Olivia demands, hands on her hips. "I won't be mocked, Drake Walker!"
He's enjoying this, maybe too much, but he doesn't give a fuck. She's entirely too easy to wind up, and besides, anything that takes his mind off Riley is worth pursuing tonight. "Why, to your war of course, your grace." Drake pats his lap. "Come sit down and tell me all about your wicked plot to overthrow the throne."
Olivia bites her bottom lip, and Drake slams his shot.
"You're not scared, are you?" he sneers.
"You're the one who should be scared, Drake Walker," Olivia hisses. She perches primly on his knee. "If anyone catches us - oh!" She gasps as Drake pulls her body flush against his.
"There. Now we don't have to start a real war over the most important thing tonight - this fine bottle of McLellyn." Drake pours himself another glass, but not before catching a whiff of Olivia's perfume, vanilla and musk, with just a hint of caramel.
"I swear, you have a one track mind," she sniffs, bending her pinky as she sips from her flute, just like a she's a guest at one of Regina's interminable tea parties. "You are such a simple, simple man, Drake." She shifts in his lap, trying to get comfortable, and he forces himself to think of horses, or of tea cups, of anything except the sensation of his sudden arousal. Olivia doesn't notice, or if she does, she pretends not to. And he is grateful. Really. "I suppose I should be grateful," she says, echoing is thoughts. "Not everyone thinks like me."
"Explain it to me, then." Drake adjusts her in his lap, and she turns to him, one hand on his shoulder to balance herself. His voice drops an octave, husky and full of whiskey courage. "Tell this simple man what brilliant plan you've dreamed up, your grace."
Olivia is flushed, her breath unsteady. Under her collarbone, her pulse jumps, and Drake presses his thumb there, stroking the smooth, creamy skin. "Only if you promise," she says. "That this never happened. That you never saw me here." Her hands bunch in his shirt. "This never happened," she whispers urgently. Her eyes are too bright, and it's making him uncomfortable. Drake doesn't want to have a soft spot for Olivia Nevrakis, but when she looks at him with those big green eyes, so wide and vulnerable...
"This never happened," Drake says, his eyes fixed on her lower lip, which she worries between her teeth. She only does that when she's really upset, and Olivia never lets anyone see her upset... Except Liam. He traces her collarbone with the pad of his thumb, watching her face. Her eyes are dark forest pools of truth, real and raw. "This never happened," he repeats, his lips against her ear. He inhales her scent again, tempted to lick the curve of her neck, to taste vanilla and musk on the tip of his tongue. "Do you trust me, Olivia?"
"I don't trust anyone," Olivia whispers back, her voice raw and full of pain. "Only Liam."
"Well, I trust him too, and he trusts me," Drake continues stroking the line of her collarbone, his hand coming up to cup her cheek. "So you can trust this simple man, my high and mighty lady of Lythikos."
She turns her head and her lips brush his wrist. "Show me," Olivia whispers, and as her hands grasp his shirt, he tangles his hands in her hair, tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue until she opens her mouth to him, trusting him, letting her defenses down.
She tastes of bittersweet memory and of Cordonian apples, of long summer nights watching the stars rise, lying in a hammock beside the sea.
•••
"This never happened." Olivia pulls away, her lips swollen, and she takes his finger from her collarbone and pulls it into her mouth, sucking gently, her eyes never leaving his.
He groans, his eyes closed, his forehead bent to hers. "Oli...Olivia...Livvy, Livvy," he whispers. He hasn't called her Livvy since the summer they were seventeen. Olivia Nevrakis never allows herself to feel regrets, she has no time for weakness, especially not her own. But sometimes, in her deepest, most secret fantasies, she thinks of those languid, impossible months, and of the hayloft over the royal stables, where she and Drake explored each other's bodies - before the real world came calling, intent on pulling them from one another's arms and putting them neatly back in their boxes: noble and commoner.
"Drake," she whispers back. She can feel his heart pounding under her palm, and she aches to feel every inch of his hard length inside of her. "This never happened." She pushes the straps of her evening gown off of her shoulders, guiding his hands to her breasts, and Drake rolls one of her nipples between his fingers, his tongue marking a scorching path across her skin.
"This never happened," Drake repeats. His mouth is hot on her nipples, alternating between nibbling and sucking, and she arches in his grasp, moaning. "I know what you like, Olivia." Drake's voice is low and rough, and the ragged edge to it sends a tingle straight down her spine, turning her insides to molton lava. "Do you think a simple man like me could ever forget?"
"Make me forget, then," Olivia says, and from her lips the words are both a command and a plea. She twines her hands in his dark hair and pulling his mouth to hers. He tastes of whiskey, he tastes of sorrow, and his hand slides between her thighs, his fingers caressing the fabric of her panties. She makes a noise somewhere between a whimper and a cry, and Drake pulls the fabric back to thrust his fingers into the folds of her pussy as his tongue parts her lips, his thumb stroking her clit and she gasps, "Drake. Don't stop, don't -"
His fingers stroke her clit, back and forth, circling the hood and pinching it between his fingers, teasing her as she rides his hand, moaning wantonly in his lap. "You're beautiful when you come," he says. "I want to lay you down on silken sheets, and I want to fuck you until you beg me to make you come - do you want to come for me, my lady?"
"Yes - God - please -" Her nails dig into his back as his fingers move faster on her clit, his teeth on her nipples, and she comes fast and hard and gasping his name, Drake, Drake, Drake, and just when she thinks it couldn't get any better,
Drake picks her up, bending her over against the bar, fumbling with his zipper, and when he finally parts her legs to slide his cock inside of her she has to bite her lip, hard, because if she doesn't she'll scream his name and no one can know because -
"This never happened." Drake's voice is husky. His hands are on her hips, on her breasts, on her clit - and he's moving inside of her, rocking back and forth, their bodies locked together, moving in unison, so slow, so right. In the hayloft she'd never let him take her face to face, he was her supplicant, it wasn't proper. She moves her hips against him, wanting him -
"Harder. Deeper. Oh, fuck, yes, that feels so good."
"You should listen to me, my lady... I know how you like it." Drake growls. He bites her neck, and pulls out, sitting back down in the chair, and she straddles him, face flushed, sliding up and down on his cock as he sucks her nipples. She feels her orgasm rising in her in a wave (ladies first, Livvy), and she grabs his hair, roughly pulling his mouth up to meet hers as she rides the sensation, hips bucking against his as she comes and comes and comes again, Drake groaning, the hot scalding rush of his seed filling her to the brim.
They collapse against each other, his hands tangled in her hair, his cheek against her shoulder. Her cheeks are wet, she realizes with embarrassment. Like she's been crying.
"He'll tire of her, you know," she says suddenly, to put the space back between them. The spectres of Liam and Riley rise up, and she feels Drake stiffen under her, every muscle in his body tensing against the unwanted reality.
Drake pulls his head back and looks at her, his eyes dark and bitter, and she shivers under his gaze. She could never hide from him, not when it really mattered. "You'd better get going," he says, pushing her off of him.
She pulls the straps up on her dress, and fishes her panties off the floor. "I didn't mean - "
"No, you meant every word, my high lady." Drake pulls his jeans up, and takes a gulp of whiskey, straight from the bottle. "You'll be the king's mistress, and Riley will be his queen, and I'll always be a commoner, the one who loved you both - once upon a time that never was."
"This never happened," Olivia says, reaching out for him, but his arm slips from her grasp, and she knows she should let him go, for she is a duchess, and he is no one, but -
"That's right." He doesn't look back. "It never did."