Ines put her hand over her stomach.Yes, for you. Everything is for you. No weapons. No bludgeons. Only love. The good, soft kind. The real kind.
They drove to the airport and got on one of Gabriel’s private planes that would fly them to Italy and his parents’ estate.
The truth was, Ines didn’t know how to fight what Alexandre had said. He was wrong, but he wasn’t. He was living based on an experience that had shaped him, and he didn’t know how to believe there could be a different one.
Perhaps there was only time and dedication to the task of proving something to him, but when their daughter came into the world, would time and dedication only hurt her?
Ineswouldlove Alexandre no matter what. It was not something that seemed to shrivel up and go away. It was like some necessary organ inside of her. There was no deciding it didn’t exist, didn’t serve some necessary function to life.
So she would try very hard to give him the life he wanted just as she’d told him. She wouldn’t pressure him for more. She would try to abide by his policies and decisions.
But not at the cost of their child’s happiness. That would be where she had to draw the line.
Ines worried that there was no way to make everyone happy or even content in this situation. She worried, as she’d told Alexandre, that they would all just spend their lives in misery if he didn’t come around.
She rested her hand on her ever-expanding bump.I will not let that be the case for you.
She had to find some way…some way for that not to be her child’s fate. She could live with her own misery, as long as this baby was happy, loved, satisfied.
Once in the air, Gabri awoke, and Evelyne had him cradled in the crook of her arm as she fed him a bottle. She gazed lovingly down at her son, and Ines could picture it, more and more every day. This life inside of her being a child in her arms. A child to care for.
It would change everything. She wanted to believe it would even change Alexandre, but she worried he was ruled by suchfearit would only drive him further into this determination to protect.
Not anyone else.Hethought he was protecting those he loved, but Ines could see it for what it really was now.
Protecting himself, from the pain he suffered as a child. Protecting himself from confusion and control and cruelty disguised as love.
She ached for him because she too had suffered, but not in the same way. Not with such a mantle of responsibilities on his shoulders. She had been a pawn in her father’s plans—but he’d never pretended it was aboutlove. He’d never pretended much of anything. A child was to be the parents’ tool.
She had learned love from her friendship with Jonet, seeing her aunt and uncle together, reading books where hope had more power than cruelty.
She rubbed her stomach.You will never be my tool. You will be your own. Love will never be a weapon.
“What did Alexandre say to make you amenable to coming?” Evelyne asked softly, interrupting Ines’s distressing thoughts.
“Nothing.” Ines laughed, and it wasn’t bitter exactly, but it wasn’t cheerful either. “I didn’t want convincing so much as an opportunity to say good-bye face-to-face. So I told him I loved him and would miss him, and I wished he would tell me why that hurt him.”
“Let me guess. He got very quiet and commanding.”
Ines almost smiled at Evelyne’s very correct guess. “For a time, but I must have worn him out. Or worry over this revolution did. He got a little angry and began telling me things…” Ines shook her head. “Heartbreaking things. About how he sees love.A weapon, he said. Because that is how your parents used it.”
Evelyne frowned. “My father never loved anything but himself.”
“Alexandre claims Enzo loved your mother. That it became a bone of contention between them. I do not think it was love, but they called it that, so Alexandre thinks it was that.”
Evelyne was quiet contemplating that.
Ines realized Alex had not discussed what he felt for his sister, how she fit into his views of love. Someone to protect, yes, but he also loved Evelyne. How did he view that if not as a bludgeon?
“But…he loves me. And Gabriel,” Evelyne said softly, coming to perhaps the same conclusions Ines was. “They are like true brothers. They know each other better than anyone.”
Ines wondered if Gabriel knew what Alex had told her this afternoon. She very much doubted it. “I don’t know. I don’t know how he justifies it. I only know he told me love is a weapon.”
“He said that to Gabriel too,” Evelyne murmured. “Gabriel told him he was doing it wrong then.”
Ines almost managed a smile. “Do you think he believed Gabriel?”
Evelyne sighed, looking down at Gabri again. “No.”
