Pressure tightened in Alexandre’s chest. He did not wish this on his nephew. He did not wish this on…anyone. He had only ever been concerned withhisrole, but he would not live forever. Someday, this all would be someone else’s mantle to bear.
That little baby.
Who will be loved by Gabriel and Evelyne, and it will be different. You will make it different.
But if he could make it different for Gabri…
He shook that fear, that concern, that possibility away. Everything would have to wait until this trouble was solved. Even that.
So he went in search of Ines, because that was a tangible. He would find her, tell her she must go. She must be safe. The end.
He found her in her bedroom. There was a suitcase on her bed, open but full. Alexandre frowned at it, then her. “You’ve packed.”
“Yes,” she agreed, putting a little bag on top of the neatly folded clothes. She didn’t look at him.
“Then I don’t… Why am I here if you’ve already agreed to go?” Had Evelyne misunderstood something? What a waste of—
“I haven’tagreed, exactly,” Ines returned equitably. “I thought it best to discuss it with you first.”
Frustrated and not at all understanding her, he fell back on icy detachment. “You know my thoughts.”
“You wish to send me away, yes, but I wanted to be certain it was for my safety, not for your convenience.” She sat on the edge of the bed, all regal elegance, and met his gaze with a direct one of her own.
Convenience.Temper licked, but he could not let it win. Not today. Not with all thislovetalk in the air.
“Ideally, there is no violence,” he said, a bit through gritted teeth but clearly nonetheless. “I think Gabriel and I can stop this before it becomes something, but on the off chance thereissome kind of skirmish, the children should not be anywhere near it.”
Would Gabri face this when he was king? No, Alexandre would solve all these problems before he had to pass them along. That was the purview of agoodking, and he would be that—revolutions or no.
But he had to stop this dustup first, and he could not be thinking about any of the things the women in his life seemed determined to poke into.
“Then I will go.”
“Why could you not have simply agreed with Evelyne and let me be?” he demanded.
She rose from her seat on the bed and crossed to him.
“I am so angry with you for so many reasons I can’t even count them all.” She moved to him then, reached out and put her hands on his forearms. “But I still love you, and I will miss you and worry for you. And I didn’t want to leave without saying that. To your face.” Her blue eyes were shiny and earnest.
He stepped back from her before he realized it would be viewed as some kind of retreat. There was no retreat here. He had to stand up to her.
“Why does that hurt you, Alex?” she asked, suchpainin her voice. Which wasn’t fair. He did not wish to cause her pain—she was causing it herself. If she would just do as he said, feel as he felt…Understand.
“Do not concern yourself with what you perceive as myhurt. If you are quite packed, I will take your suitcase down myself.”
“Do you feel nothing for me?” she asked, her voice quiet, tight, hurt.
The question made such little sense he didn’t know how to respond to it.
“I thought perhaps things had changed,” she said, her voice still vibrating with emotion. “That the thought of losing me might have opened your eyes, hence that morning in your office. And then again when I returned. Was I wrong? Was it all about avoiding an annulment? For the crown? Is that all it ever was?”
He should tell heryes. He should form that word. It would be so easy, and everything would be all right. “I never promised you anything to do withlove, Ines,” he managed.
“No,” she agreed, looking solemn and regal and perhaps a bit shattered. “Nor did I to you. But it’s there.”
It was too much. This insistence. The hurt in her eyes. He had not done this. He was not pushing this.Shewas.Shewas using love as a weapon, and this was why he would not engage. He would not love. He would notharm.
“I have had enough.”
