“We have only a few months between now and when the baby is born. For those next months, we will do the following.” She picked up one of the portfolio-notebook combinations she was always using for business. He hadn’t noticed it there on the other side of her, but now she handed it to him.
He took it.
She began to eat, so he opened it and saw a list in Ines’s beautifully perfect handwriting. Neat. Organized.
Alarming.
Because as he read everything in her neatly printed list, his unease grew.
On weekends, we will eat meals together privately, in our own quarters, unless there is an event.They had never eaten meals togetherprivately. They always ate here—with or without guests or his sister.
We will walk the gardens once a day together—you may have your assistant schedule a time or choose spontaneously.Spontaneously? He was trying to rebuild acountry, and she wanted him to accompany her onwalks.
We will return to our appointment schedule—with the additional requirement you spend the night in my bed on such evenings.
“What is this?” he demanded, frustrated that evenreadingthe wordappointmentseemed to elicit a physical response in his body.
“Well, this is what normal married people do, Alexandre. They have private time together. They are intimate. They build a relationship outside of their roles in public. I realize we are not normal, and it occurred to me that you might need spelled out for you what I require to remain in this marriage.”
Remain? “You are pregnant. You are the queen. There is no getting out of this marriage, Ines.” He closed the portfolio and handed it back to her, but she did not take it. “You made certain of that whether you wanted to or not.”
She held his gaze calmly, even as he felt the scalding heat of frustration poke at him.
“These are my terms, Alex. This is what the next few months will entail if you’d like me to stay put.”
Alex. Alex.Why did it matter if she shortened his name? Why did it feel like she was talking to some version of himself he wished existed but didn’t?
He cleared his throat, forced himself to focus. “And if I do not agree to this plan?”
“I will continue to run away,” she said evenly, her gaze direct. “Every chance I get. You will have to lock me in a dungeon to stop me.”
“And you think I won’t?”
“No. I don’t. You’ll want to, God knows.” She put down her spoon, took a sip of water. “But it will remind you of your father. And you won’t be able to go through with it.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“No, Alex, I wouldn’t be,” she said, with absolutely no hesitation. “You have too much nobility in you to ever sink to your father’s levels in anything more than thought.”
“Perhaps I just haven’t been pushed far enough yet.”
She watched him, that blue gaze of hers as steady as ever. When she spoke, each word somehow felt like a curse. “If you haven’t yet, you never will be.”
The staff of course chose that moment to clear the first course and replace it with the second. Alexandre sat there in a seething silence, trying to get ahold of his temper.
If you haven’t yet, you never will be.
He did not know how to believe that was true, but she said it so matter-of-factly, as if there was no doubt.
Once they were alone again, she kept prattling on in between greedy bites.
“Nevertheless, I will take that chance. If you refuse to abide by my rules, I will involve the press. I will embarrass you, if I must. But if you agree to my terms, and the baby comes and nothing has changed—you have no feelings for me, want nothing from me except to be some excellent queen mannequin—I will release you from my horrible attempts to give us a real marriage. I will go back to the way things were, remain as your wife, your queen, the mother of your child in this detached, joyless, loveless abyss.”
He could only stare at her.Detached, joyless, loveless abyss?Is that how she saw her life? It felt like something banded around his lungs and squeezed. It felt likeguilt—when he’d never promised her anything but just what she laid out.
“But you must give me a chance first.”
“A chance for what?” he asked, truly baffled by this woman who had beenperfectfor nearly a year and over the past few months had taken all that perfection and ease away.
