“As the king and queen, it will be our duty to usher Evelyne’s child into our world, into being anheir. We may not be his parents, but we will have a very important role. Surely this is enough.”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t look down or away. She held herself as still and regal as any queen should. Her gaze was direct, if a little chilly. “It is not enough.”
It is not enough.He blinked. Once. Before he remembered himself. Gathered himself. Armored himself. He looked down at her, as he might any recalcitrant employee. Because at the end of the day, his wifewasa role—not a person. They were titles, not feelings.
He would forgive her for forgetting, but he would not change course.
“Ines, I’m sure you can be reasonable.”
“In this I’m afraid I cannot be,” she said, sounding the very example of control. “If you are not going to give me a child, then I should like an annulment.”
Queen Ines Lidia regarded her husband with as much control as she had left in her. She had begun to think she didn’t affect him. That any flashes of temper or passion she had seen over the past year were figments of her own imagination.
But she saw both in his eyes now. Little flickers of a man she knew existed under all the trappings of the title he was so devoted to.
“I understand how divorce is out of the question for you,” she continued, keeping her tone reasonable. “But I’m sure your publicity team can work through an annulment.” She didn’t let herself clutch her hands together like she wanted to. She wouldnotlook down at her lap. She had to maintain eye contact and certainty. She’d been practicing this conversation for weeks now.
Perhaps she’d had thetiniesthope he would simply agree to return to their appointment schedule rather than an annulment, but mostly she had known better. He’d made the decisionnotto come to her bedroom on purpose and with reason.
Alexandre did nothing without his precious reason.
“The timing could not be better,” Ines continued, keeping her polite smile in place. “Evelyne having the baby, theheir, in the coming days means there will be ample distraction from anything such as an annulment. Any bad press over it shouldn’t last long in the face of the new heir being born.”
When he didn’t speak, she knew he was angrier than he let show on his face.
In some ways, she thought she understood her husband better than anyone. She too knew what it was like to be saddled with a duty far too adult at far too young an age. And she could even admit that Alexandre’s duties were far more complex than hers had been. Not just to be a good king, but to be the king thatfixedeverything. It was difficult work. A constant fight. King Enzo had done deep, lasting damage to the country of Alis.
All Ines had been tasked with since she could remember was to bag an important husband so her father’s wealth could buy him some influence. She had been trained since birth to be nothing more than some royal’s wife.
And she’d succeeded.Bagged a prince, as her mother had told her somewhat drunkenly one night before the wedding. Before Enzo had died, her father had enjoyed that royal ear he’d wanted. Of course, Enzo had been chaotic and not very trustworthy, so Ines didn’t think it had worked quite the way her father had hoped.
Particularly when Enzo had died and Alexandre had shown no interest in playing her father’s games. In those first few months of being a princess, of Alexandre meeting everyappointment, she’d been happy enough. Then, she’d gotten everything she’d wanted when King Enzo had died, except a child, and her father had gottennothing.
But such satisfactions were short-lived when she was left with no child—and a husband who avoided her.
She would have stayed with Alexandre forever, and maybe even happily, if she had a child. But if he couldn’t even bear to visit her bed, she needed something…else.
“You made vows, Ines,” he said, enunciating every word like he could turn it into a dagger without any heat or ice behind it. “You knew going in what those vows meant. You cannot simply break them because…we don’t see eye to eye.”
She made herself breathe carefully before she responded. She’d learned as a child to hide her temper, her reaction. She knew how to keep those things buried deep down, and they would not serve her here anymore than they had served her in her father’s house.
But this was more than seeing eye to eye, as he well knew, and his trivializing it wasinfuriating.
“But you are changing the nature of our agreement,” Ines argued, keeping her calm even if she had to clasp her hands together to remind herself she had to be centered. “You are changing what that meant. We were meant to have a child. Now you are saying we won’t.”
There were other things she wanted, but she was giving up on them. Something about seeing Evelyne so happy—with her husband, Gabriel, and with her pregnancy. It was a window into a life Ines had never believed she could have. She had known since birth her only role was to secure her father’s status with the royal family. That love would never really matter.
She had done her duty, married the prince, become a queen. She had thought that would be it. And all along she told herself it would be all right because someday she would be a mother, and she would raise a prince or princess to be a good person.
Someday she would have someone to love and love her back.
Perhaps she could have withstood being unhappy forever, Alexandre always at arm’s length no matter how she’d come to care for him. There was that careandmany things she enjoyed about being queen. She got to work with charities, make sure the issues she cared about were supported throughout the country of Alis. She had power and sway and influence, and because of Alexandre’s outreach programs, she got to go into the public andhelp. She had not expected to be allowed to be so deeply involved in her people’s lives. She had not expected any future royal husband to actually want her input and help.
That had certainly not been her father’s way. He’d rather viewed a female child as cattle to be sold off.
So if Evelyne had never returned to the palace—married and pregnant and happy—perhaps Ines would still be going along. Perhaps she would even let Alexandre strip this last dream from her.
But the friendship she’d developed with her sister-in-law had opened her eyes to a different future. Ines liked to think she’d learned a thing or two from Evelyne over the past few months. How to stand up for herself as much as she stood up for others. How to value herself, not bury herself in everyone else’s value. Evelyne was not afraid, not dutiful. She stood up to her brother and to her husband.
