She cocked her head, studying him. “To show you what living feels like.”
Living.What else did he do every day but live? Meet all his lofty goals, turn this country back into what it could be? “I breathe. I live.”
“You breathe. Youexist. You deserve more.Ideserve more. Our baby deserves more.”
He could not even grasp these words.
“So do you agree?” she asked. She had cleared her plate. He had not touched his food.
Agree? He could not agree to this. It was pointless. A waste of time. It was…a ransom of sorts, and he did not deal with terrorists anymore, now that his father was dead.
But hedidhave experience with these kinds of tests, didn’t he? Hoops to jump through to prove himself. His father had given him nothing but tests and hoops and challenges. Of course, there’d been no winning those.
He could win this one. Ines was honest and fair, even if this was utterly ridiculous. She wouldn’t change the stakes.
What was a few months? She would be pregnant the entire time, and if he could suffer through these months of her pretending they could be more than their roles, their titles, theirresponsibility, on the other side of it was everything he wanted.
A partnership with his queen. A detached, joyless, loveless abyss as she defined it. Yes,thatwas what he wanted.
And she would have her child—the best doctors in the world would ensure she and the baby were healthy through this—so she would get whatshewanted.
And all would be well.
He just had to resist his wife through a few months ofintimacy. He’d survived nearly a year before. He could do this. He would do this.
For Alis. Even forher, though she would not see it that way.
Ines thought her acting was superb this evening. Alexandre had to believe she was nonchalant and unaffected. That she would happily trot away to wreak havoc on his life if he did not agree to her terms.
Shewoulddo it, but it would hurt. Even when she was furious with him, she would take no joy in trying to ruin his reputation. He cared so much for it, and she understood why. She didn’t want to continue to run or go to the press.
She wanted what she’d outlined. Amarriage.
And it had occurred to her, after she’d eaten her morning cake and taken that long nap this afternoon, that he didn’t even know what that might look like. If he didn’t know himself, didn’t understand his own feelings, then why should he know what a functioning relationship looked like? His only example was likely his parents—and while Alex almost never mentioned his mother, knowing King Enzo meant Ines knew it could not have been good.
Not that she had any fine example of marriage in her life, but she had solid relationships that weren’t romantic. With Jonet. With Evelyne. She understood how to care for someone without needing to protect them. Without the threat and terror of abuse in every corner.
Alexandre loved his sister. He even loved Gabriel. He wascapableof love, but Ines did not think he understood it except in the role of protector or savior. He only knew how to exist in a world where people owed him for being the good one in relation to the evil one—King Enzo.
With his father dead, he was only protecting everyone from his memory. Something no one needed. Especially her. He did not need to be her protector in anything, so he did not know what to do with her except keep her at arm’s length.
There would be no more arm’s length. She was sure—almost certain—that if she could get him to behave as a real husband, as though they were in a real relationship, he would see that it was possible. Neither he nor his kingdom would crumble if he was allowed to be the real man underneath the cold, detached crown.
“Fine. I agree to your terms. Dinners. Appointments. Et cetera.” He waved these away like they were inconsequential.
But they wouldn’t be. Ines wouldn’t allow them to be. She beamed at him, showing only her pleasure that she’d won—not the wave of relief that he hadn’t made her hurt them both by running away over and over again. “Excellent.”
When dessert was served, she ate her fill. A well of hunger had begun to displace the nauseous feeling.Or you’re just happy to be home.
She looked around the luxurious dining room full of history—some of its furnishings particularly ugly—and did not know for sure when it had begun to feel like home. Early on, she supposed, when she’d decided that marrying Alexandre meant marrying Alis, meant marrying hisgoals.
If she could be a good queen, if she could belong to and serve Alis, then she could be something. More than the pawn her father had used her as.
But she wanted to be more than a useful tool now. She wanted to be a person too. Who loved her husband and her child. Who had a family. They would always be beholden to their country, but they all deserved a place to go to just be themselves.
She would have to build it, to show Alexandre it was possible.
With dinner finished, Alexandre stood and helped her up out of her chair as he always did. But she did not let his hand go. “Shall we take our garden walk? And then, tonight would be our normal appointment, would it not?”
