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Turn her back on him.
He would not allow it.
And still...the thought of enacting his twenty-year revenge left him feeling sick.
It would be better to wash his hands of this place. Forever. Once and for all. Leave Zandra here so that Diamandis had to always live with the fact that Lysias was the one who’d returned her to him. Lysias would return to his life in Athens. Throw himself into his work once more. Erase all mention and existence of Kalyva, Diamandis and Alexandra from his mind.
Yes,thatwas the answer. Get as far away from this as he could. Forever.
He climbed down from the platform, cut back through the way he’d come, once again fueled by something. Not anger this time.
Fear, Alexandra’s voice whispered inside of him.
But she was wrong.Wrong. He entered the ballroom and ignored anyone who spoke his name. He did not smile. He made a beeline for the king.
He went right up to Diamandis, didn’t bother to acknowledge that the king was speaking with people.
“I need to talk to you. Privately,” Lysias said.
Diamandis’s eyebrows raised. “Can itwait?” the king said through gritted teeth, keeping his smile on the couple he’d been talking to.
“It cannot.”
Diamandis sighed, motioned for his assistant. “You’ll have to excuse me. Perhaps you can give your information to Miss Floros, and I can be in contact with you soon regarding the matter.”
The assistant moved forward with her ever-present clipboard, and Diamandis led Lysias out of the ballroom.
“We need privacy,” Lysias said.
“Very well, we may use my office. Is Zandra all right?” he said as they strode through the halls. “She has not arrived yet.”
“She is, but you are not.”
Diamandis frowned at this but led Lysias into his office, closing the doors behind them. Diamandis stared at him suspiciously but crossed to his desk and leaned a hip on the corner.
“Go on,” Diamandis said.
All that ferocious anger and hatred the king had first held toward Lysias was...missing. As if finding out Alexandra was Zandra cured everything.
Could it be that simple? That Zandra was alive, so all the pain and suffering of the past twenty years could be swept away? Forgiven?
But why would life be that simple? That was a childish way of viewing things. That was the way he’d viewed things at twelve. He had survived too long to believe in something as simple as forgiveness. How could he forgive a man who’d been instrumental in his parents’ death? How would Diamandis forgive a man who’d stripped him of his crown?
Forgiveness was a childish pipe dream. Nearly as bad as love.
“There will be a vote of no confidence at your council meeting tomorrow,” Lysias said, and it was almost as if he floated outside his body. Watching himself ruin everything he’d worked twenty years for. “Everything is in motion, but I can stop it.”
“Is that so?” Diamandis replied. He was calm, but Lysias recognized the seething temper underneath.
“It is. And I will stop it. If you meet three demands.”
“Demands. So, you’ve come all this way to blackmail me? Well, that makes more sense than you having heart enough to return Zandra to me.”
She is not yours. She is mine.
But that wasn’t true, and not only because Alexandra was her own person. “It was meant to be revenge. You can thank your sister for the downgrade to blackmail.”
“I hope these asks will be reasonable,” Diamandis replied, sounding bored. But his gaze was direct, explorative.
