Page 200 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

He needed to know the answers to his questions, and he found that he didn’t want to wait until she decided to reveal them. He wanted to provoke her into revealing more of herself. She was studying him, and some of the wariness was back in her gaze.

“You always said you didn’t want to be royal,” he said.

She frowned. “Yes, I did. And yet here I am.”

“You may get what you want after all.”

Livia frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Today I will announce that my father has squandered the country’s money on his lavish lifestyle and the crown prince has disappeared off the face of the earth. And when I reveal that I now hold the purse strings to the projects my father has promised for too long, I am almost sure my father will attempt to revoke my title—and therefore yours, too—in retaliation.”

Chapter Six

“You…you can’t do that.”

Livia gaped in horror as a faint smile curved Gustav’s lips. “I can and I will.”

She shook her head, and his smile took a more sinister turn. Was this some sort of test? If so, she was failing it miserably. But right now, she didn’t care. He was going to rip away all the prestige of their marriage that had been at the center of the deal with her father. Without it, her entire rationale for going through with this marriage would disappear. If she was embroiled in a scandal, her mother would follow through with her veiled threat, and her sister would be paired off with someone else of royal blood “for her own good.” Even worse, now that Livia was married to a man with his own scorch-the-earth revenge agenda, she had taken away her best tool to help her sister.

Gustav’s expression hardened in the face of the shock that was almost certainly written across her face. “Of course, there’s a good chance that my father’s credibility will be rattled enough that Parliament will not bend to his demands, especially since I am now the one who will control the money the country needed, but I wanted you to be prepared for all the possibilities.”

He gave her an arrogant smirk.

“But…” Livia was having trouble forming a coherent sentence. “If you publicly accuse your father and brother of anything underhanded, there will be a scandal. You will destabilize the entire royal family, and then…”

He was watching her very closely. “And then what?”

She was cornered, and his ruthless stare suggested he would take full advantage of her position. She had almost kissed this man just moments ago. Nostalgia and her desire had almost lulled her into thinking that somehow, now that they were married, the danger would go away. But now it was worse, because she was tied to a man bent on destroying everything around him.

“This is my life you’re toying with,” she pleaded. “How can you be so ruthless?”

“I am what my past has made me, Livia. Every single part of it.”

There it was again, the sting of their past together. For a moment, she saw a flash of hurt and anger before he reined it back in behind an arrogant smile.

Her own anger broke through the shock. “And now you’ll have the satisfaction of having power over everyone who you think has harmed you?”

He tipped his head a little, as if he were considering her question. Then he nodded. “Yes, it is quite satisfying.”

This was what he’d wanted all along. To get his revenge. To tear everyone down, including her. She shuddered at that thought.

Just calm down and think this through, she told herself.

Livia had been dealt enough unexpected blows in her life to know that these situations were pivotal, and too often in the past she had failed to stand up to the moment. Right now, for example, her instincts told her to run away, the way she used to sneak out when she was back at school, just to be free. This had led her to Gustav in the first place, which felt like a dark, taunting twist of irony. But right now, they were literally in the middle of the sea. Even if the open waters that surrounded them had not made that option impossible, it was an escape, not a solution. Not when the strings of her life were being pulled by others, and it was no longer just her own life that was at stake. Livia had to fight back, even when the situation seemed hopeless. Especially when it did.

“So let me get this straight,” she said, trying to steady her voice. “You’re angry at your father and brother for wielding their power over you, so you are going to seize that power and wield it over them.”

“Yes,” he said, unfazed by the accusation. “But unlike either of them, I am doing it for the good of my country.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Causing a scandal is the best thing for your country?”

“I’ve tried other routes, and nothing has worked. My father does what he wants, but he will sacrifice a lot to tame bad publicity.” His jaw had hardened, and his body was alive with tension. “All my life, I have been bad publicity for him in one form or another. Though he found an illegitimate son harder to keep quiet than a less tangible mistake.”

Livia flinched at the word mistake and felt a pang of sympathy for him, despite her frustration. Both Adele’s and her own experiences of being treated as fourth-class citizens at the Alpine Institute had shaped the way she saw the world—including how she saw Gustav’s position. Gustav, too, was shaped by pain and anger of going through life being treated like a mistake by his father.

“You’re planning to overthrow the king, aren’t you?” The question came out more like an accusation.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he snapped.