Then what stopped you?
He’d asked himself that every time he replayed the hurt in her eyes when she asked him to leave her alone. Every time, he came to the same conclusion. There were only two reactions he could imagine her having. The first was pity, the second, disgust. Either way, he couldn’t stand the thought of her associating either of those emotions with him.
The alternative wasn’t that much better. Watching her hurt and close herself off from him was cutting him into tiny pieces, and he didn’t know if he’d be able to tape himself back together again.
“Things are not well between you and your queen, are they?”
He closed his eyes at the sound of Jasiri’s voice. Of course he and his ever-observant mind would call the situation for what it was the moment he saw it.
“What did you do, Cousin?” Jasiri prompted.
Aléx turned narrowed eyes on Jasiri and found the man waiting for him expectantly.
“How do you know it’s my fault?”
Jasiri didn’t even try to hold the knowing chuckle in. “I know you too well, Cousin. Of course this is the result of something you did.” Jasiri took a long gaze at him before he said, “Or more accurately, something you didn’t do. You haven’t told her, have you?”
Aléx used that moment as an opportunity to snatch a champagne flute from a passing tray and downed it in one swallow.
“You see that look in your eyes,” Aléx countered. “The look that says, ‘The poor little king. He’s so pathetic with grief and loss that he can hardly function.’ I refuse to be viewed by my wife in the same way.”
He saw understanding cast a shadow on Jasiri’s deep brown skin. He of all people should understand exactly what Aléx meant. When Aléx had received news that the ship had gone down on the border of Obsidian and Nyeusian waters, he’d called Jasiri when he couldn’t reach his father and begged him to allow Obsidian naval ships to search inside Nyeusian waters.
He recalled how panic had pulled through him like a taut rope. He was wound so tightly in it, he could hardly think, and he’d lost all eloquence and poise.
Jasiri had heard the panic in Aléx’s voice, and even though they hadn’t spoken in years, he not only granted Aléx’s request, he met Aléx on the water with Nyeusian ships and divers in tow to help with the search. He’d stood on Aléx’s ship with him and had held him when he’d collapsed to his knees when his captain announced they’d discovered the bodies of Charlie and her mother.
“I don’t want to be that man again. I don’t want Regina to know how broken I am. I don’t want her to know it was…”
He couldn’t say the words. He couldn’t make himself say them. Jasiri placed a strong hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly enough to make him wince, intentionally dragging him out of the fog of grief that was trying to cloud his mind again.
“It wasn’t your fault, Aléx. You told her not to travel because of the storm, and she insisted.”
Aléx shook his head. “It doesn’t matter that I told her not to travel that night. They were only on that ship because I’d demanded to see Charlie immediately or I would use all my power to make Farah’s life a living hell. She knew I wasn’t lying, so she risked the trip for fear of what I’d do if she didn’t make it at the assigned time. No matter how you try to clean it up, I’m the reason they’re dead.”
Jasiri squeezed his shoulder again before he moved to Aléx’s side. He looked out over the balcony they were standing on, watching the people milling about beneath them in the ballroom.
“Aléx, I tried to carry the fear and utter panic I had when my uncle was targeting Reigna’s life. I wouldn’t let her in, and I tried to make her a prisoner within the walls of the palace. The only thing trying to handle all that pain and fear by myself did was push my wife away until she chose to leave me over watching me devolve into rage and insanity.”
Aléx snapped his head toward Jasiri, searching the man’s face for any hint of an untruth. His sullen face and his ticking jaw were better than any lie detector in creation: Jasiri was telling the unvarnished truth.
“I didn’t know she’d left you. I know she played a hand in trapping Pili in America. I just never realized she was there because she’d left you.”
Jasiri pursed his lips. “No one does. Not even my parents. It’s not exactly something I wanted in a royal press release, if you know what I mean. I nearly lost everything that I loved.We didn’t know it yet, but Reigna was pregnant at the time. If I hadn’t gotten myself together, I could’ve missed out on watching her grow with our daughter. I could’ve missed how our love deepened once I had her in my arms again. If I hadn’t found a way to be honest with myself and my wife, if I hadn’t found the sense to listen to her instead of acting as if I had everything under control, I would’ve lost it all.”
At that moment, Reigna looked up from the ballroom as if she’d felt her husband calling to her. She raised her eyes and gave him a warm, broad smile that seemed to make Jasiri stand taller.
“Open up to her, Aléx. Let her love heal you.”
“Regina doesn’t love me. We both agreed that bringing love into the equation was a bad idea.”
Jasiri fell into a big belly laugh, no doubt at Aléx’s expense. Frankly, it was beginning to get on his nerves.
“I’m sure that’s some nonsense you came up with and Regina went along with.”
Aléx shook his head like a recalcitrant child. “She doesn’t love me, and I don’t—”
Jasiri interrupted Aléx. “Don’t even speak that lie into the ether. That woman loves you. She’d shower you with it if you let her believe she had a chance of you accepting it.”
