Overhim. And he’d learned the only way to survive it was to retreat within himself. Through the fights, the abuses, the blame, the death. Even watching Enzo beat his mother’s body. He’d learned how to exist outside himself. So that reality couldn’t touch him.
Ines had upended that skill for a while, but it was back because this hurt badly enough he needed it to be back to survive.
He turned to face her then. He felt nothing but ice and was relieved. Because she understood, so maybe he couldsurvive. “No. I will not. The car will take you and Evelyne and Gabri to the airport first thing in the morning. You will be ready.” He did not pose it as a question.
She studied him, her hands clasped together over her heart as if she could feel his own pain radiating inside of her chest. She looked broken. Appalled.
But there were worse things in her eyes. Worse even than the tears. Something too close to pity to be considered anything but.
He was aking. He was not meant to be pitied.
“We can go back to the way things were.” There were tears in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. There was a shake in her voice, but each word came out clear. “I will make it all as easy on you as possible. I will go while you fight this threat, and when I came back, it can all go back to the way it was.”
He had no words for this strange turnaround. No way to fight the shockingpainthose words elicited, when he should feel nothing but relief. Or the calm detachment of disassociating.
“But I will love our daughter,” she continued fiercely. “With all I am. And I will prove to you that it will not warp me. It will not be a weapon. Because what your father called love, and perhaps even your mother, was nothing more thancontrol, Alexandre. And you of all people should know that. You are not your father, but you have certainly learned how to control the world around you. You do it for good, but that does not make it good.”
He had no words. He couldn’t even breathe. Was she accusing him of being, if not as bad as his father, still notbetter?
“I love you,” she said firmly, never looking away from him. “That’s not a weapon. It’s only a fact. It is only apromise.”
But he felt stabbed clean all the same, as though it was nothing more than a dagger shoved into his heart.
“When you are ready to heal from these horrible things you saw and felt, I will be here.” She pressed her palm to her stomach. “We will be here.”
“I will never be ready.” Because there was nothing tohealfrom. He had endured. Survived. He was aking, and his kingdom would remain in one piece no matter what he had to do in the coming days.
Men might need healing. King’s were only the weight of their crown.
“Then, I guess we will all be miserable,” she said, as though it washewho was the one damning them to that fate.
Before he could find words, or perhaps more likely before she could do anything else, someone cleared their throat behind them.
Alexandre looked back to find Gabriel standing somewhat awkwardly in the doorway.
“I apologize for the intrusion,” Gabriel said, his expression apologetic, the set of his mouth grim. “We’ve moved up the timetable. The car is ready. I’d like everyone to get out now.”
Chapter Thirteen
THINGS MOVED QUICKLY THEN. Ines might have sunk into a depressed grief, but the threat of danger had her heart beating heavily in her throat as Gabriel packed up the car and gave instructions to a driver Ines didn’t recognize.
Because the man was some kind of security guard who worked for Gabriel and not the crown, so he could be trusted not to fall into any traps of revolution.
Gabriel then said his good-byes to wife and son. Ines knew it was a private moment, but she watched the embrace, the soft whispered words, the lingering kiss from Evelyne, the last tight squeeze of Gabri, and ached.
Where was her husband? What was he doing? Off somewhere believing that this was a weapon. Believing he could only be a king—not a man. Save his country while sweeping his wife and unborn daughter out of the way.
She wanted to be angrier than she was, but how could she be angry at a boy who’d seen and felt and endured such terrible, terrible things? Life had never taken him by the hand and taught him different.
Of course he was afraid of love.
But understanding him now solved nothing, because there were no magic answers in his trauma. She had no answers, no ideas, only a terrible kind of grief welling up inside her.
The women piled into the car, Jonet helping Evelyne strap Gabri into his car seat. Ines sat in the back of the car, pressed in between Jonet and Evelyne, as it pulled away. Evelyne was silently crying. Ines felt too much fear to cry, but she pulled the handkerchief she kept in her purse out and handed it to Evelyne, who wiped her eyes.
“Are we doing the right thing?” Ines managed to ask. Because it didn’tfeelright. It felt awful.
Evelyne’s gaze was down at the sleeping Gabri in his carrier. “Yes.” It was clear thatyeswas for her son, not for herself.
