She did not invite him to sit, and he felt much like he had in Alexandre’s office those weeks ago, explaining himself while Alex sat behind his desk. She had certainly picked up a few tricks from her brother.
“I have given your story much thought,” she said by way of greeting.
Ah, so she was here to convince him he was wrong. Satisfaction wound through him. Not because she was finally fighting it, of course, but because… Because… Well, the fact it had taken her days to come up with a suitable rebuttal just proved his point, didn’t it?
He would be damn glad to be proven right, he was certain of it. And how could she argue with it? She couldn’t.
“Perhaps you are right.”
He opened his mouth to argue with her before he realized she’d…said he was right.
She wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t telling him he was good. That his violent tendencies weren’t unimportant.
She was saying he wasright.
He did not have the words to respond tothat.
“As much as I am not convinced, how can I be more certain of your feelings, the truth of you, than you are?” she said, with the wave of a hand. “You live in your body, your mind. I do not. Perhaps there is no evidence formeto believe this monster exists inside of you, but if you have determined it does, I cannot argue with you.” She held his gaze, still cool and direct without a hint of any other emotion. “I have to accept it.”
Accept… He was having trouble keeping up with her. She spoke so…decisively, dispassionately, as though they were having a meeting about royal protocol. Not…dissolving whatever this was that existed between them.
“We cannot have the marriage annulled, not with a child on the way. Not with how it might reflect on Alexandre and our son’s future reign,” she said flatly. “So I’m afraid that is out of the question.”
“Annulled.” The word echoed through him like some sort of bullet—causing damage as it ricocheted through his insides. Who had said anything about…
“And having grown up without a mother, I do not think I want my son to grow up without a father. Though Alexandre would be a fine stand-in. I do not think you wish to banish yourself from your child’s life completely.”
“Stand-in.” She was talking about him…not being involved in their child’s life? Talking about all this ending?Banish yourself?No… That was not exactly what he’d meant. Exactly.
It is for the best, some vicious voice inside him whispered. But that whisper had nothing on the howl of pain that echoed through his soul. Here she was, their child tucked up inside her, talking about annulments and banishments as though they were…choices on a menu. Considered. Rejected. Of no real import.
“But we do need to come up withsomething, don’t we? To handle this…problem as you see it. I think I have come up with an answer. If you watch Ines and Alexandre, everyone thinks they are married, and they are legally, but they don’t…behave as a couple. They sleep in separate rooms. They busy themselves with different parts of being king and queen. They are cordial, they support one another, but there is no…love. And certainly no passion. I have decided we will follow in their example.”
She haddecided. The princess’s decree. And she left no room for argument, for this crumbling inside him. She simply kept talking aboutplans.
“We will move chambers. There are adjoining rooms we will settle into. We will keep our lives separate in private and come together when needed in public. When the baby comes, he will be with us until and unless we feel the need for a nanny. You may go back to traveling, using work as an excuse. You can spend time in Italy if you see fit. You do not need to clear it with me, because we will live separately. Your responsibility will only be to your son, your friend and your title. Not me.”
They already had been living separately, so this was hardly a blow, even if he could not get that message through to his body. It throbbed with a pain he could not seem to talk himself out of.
“You must be available for royal events. You must still behave as a married earl. I hope it won’t be too much of a hardship for you, but it is too late to undo that which is already done. Not without hurting Alexandre or the kingdom. At least for now. But within those constraints, you may…do whatever you need to do to keep thismonsterto yourself.”
She did not say it with derision. She was being perfectly reasonable. So reasonable she didn’t even seem like herself. So reasonable… She was right. This was all well and good, and the best course of action.
Still, he stood, without the words to agree, to accept, feeling a bit like a soldier stuck in no-man’s-land.
“Do you have anything to say?” she asked. Dry-eyed and detached. She was not being mean or cruel or kind or anything. She was… She was treating this like a business. Which he should appreciate and do in kind, but when he spoke his voice was little more than a rasp.
“And when the baby comes?”
For the first time, she did not meet his gaze. She looked down at her belly, picked something off the fabric of her shirt. “We will have to reconvene and discuss next steps once we understand the reality of having a newborn. If you feel yourself some kind of danger to our child…”
She let that hang there, the sentence not fully spoken, but the meaning clear. Her mouth curved, but it was not a smile. Not from Evelyne. She raised her gaze back to his. “This is what you wish, is it not?”
He stared at her, those dark eyes, never looking away from him. She had taken days to think this through, and she had decided to agree with him, just as he’d hoped. Just as he’dknownwas right.
But he hadn’t expected it, so he did not know how to feel. And he realized… He did not know what he wished, except to protect her. And this would accomplish that. These dangerous, uncontrollable feelings inside him could not win, could nothurtif they essentially lived separate lives. Ifsheagreed to these separate lives.
She hadn’t just agreed. She’d planned it all out. Nothing could be better. Even if his body somehow felt as though it had been cracked in half, opened in front of her, everything inside him spilling out at her feet.
