[ An immediate shake of his head, dismissal of that assertion. She isn't stupid. She's working with half the information, parts and pieces that she's assembled as best she could. ]

I proposed it as an alliance. I understood your affections were elsewhere.

[ Not with him. That he was being accommodated, that he was of use to her, and that their goals for the kingdom were aligned.

Had he loved her then? It is not for Nikolai to say. (He has hardly said the truth of this aloud.) ]

I told you then that I wouldn't kiss you until I knew you'd be thinking of me, not of anyone else.

[ A small admission, one that spills out some heavier implication. An alliance, yes, but what he'd wanted beyond that. How badly he'd wanted to kiss her and know that she was kissing him back of her own accord. ]