CHAPTER FOUR
THREEMONTHSLATER, on a late September day that was blue and cool with hints of the glorious summer that she had seen here with her own eyes in July, Carliz stood on an Italian beach at low tide and hated...everything.
Mostly herself.
Well. No. Mostly one Valentino Bonaparte, but herself came in a close second.
“I do not want to do this,” she muttered, letting the spiteful little breeze steal her words and send them tumbling down the beach toward the village that had stood right where it was since long before there were any Bonapartes kicking about.
Or any Sosegadases, for that matter.
But there was no point in her having come back here if she wasn’t going to do the thing she’d come to do, so she forced herself to start walking.
She remembered walking off the island last time all too well. The shoes she’d chosen to potentially stop a wedding had proved unequal to the task, so she’d had to do it barefoot. In the previous night’s dress of scarves and mystique.
If there had ever been a walk of shame more complete, Carliz really could not imagine what it might look like.
It was almost funny, she had thought that morning as she’d walked away from all things Valentino Bonaparte, her toes cold in the wet sand and every single muscle in her body screaming out in a full-throated, brand-new voice. She had been accused of many, many a walk of shame in her day. All she really had to do was appear in public before noon and some or other walk of shame was assumed and then speculated upon. Just as any indication that she’d been so much as introduced to a man meant, to all the tabloids, that she was dating him. She’d always found it all entertaining in the extreme.
Likely, she’d discovered that day, because she’d never done the things they’d accused her of doing.
Because that walk away from Valentino’s personal castle had taught her that she was not meant to be like the people who did these things on the regular. No shame to any of them, of course. She envied anyone’s ability to love themselves enough that it didn’t matter whether or not anyone else did.
That was not how she’d felt that day. She still couldn’t really imagine putting herself in a position like that again, much less with someone else. Or with someone new. The very idea made her feel ill, then and now.
Back in July she’d tried to convince herself that it was all for the best that she’d had that long walk ahead of her, with more than enough time than anyone would need to sort these things out in their head, surely.
She’d assured herself she was emotionally sorted when she’d arrived on the shores of mainland Italy and had then turned to the actual details of rescuing herself from her own folly. It was possible that she taken her time with that rescue, despite her self-assurances. She’d called her unamused security team once she’d gotten on a train to Rome so they could meet her there. She’d spent a few days in one of her favorite spas, complete with ancient baths and mandated silence, and then a rather leisurely route back home into the mountains of Las Sosegadas.
Where Mila had been waiting with a stack of international papers the palace staff curated for her perusal and entirely too many questions about the called-off wedding of the man the whole world thought she’d had that epic affair with.
I was not invited to Valentino’s wedding, Carliz had replied, calmly. But it was the sort of calm that was undercut with the kind of steel she used very rarely. Which, of course, had only made her sister’s brows rise higher. Therefore, anything that occurred there has nothing to do with me.
It’s very scandalous, Mila had replied in her usual manner, though she looked more speculative than normal. She waved her hand at the collection of papers. Everyone is speaking of it. And, of course, as his most notable ex-girlfriend, your name is coming up. Quite a lot.
If there was a better definition of reaping what one sowed, Carliz had already slept with him. But that she’d created an affair that hadn’t happened until now, and that she would very much like to pretend had not happened at all, ran a close second.
She’d made herself shrug, though nonchalance had felt difficult to come by. You know as well as I do that no one can control what the tabloids choose to speculate about, Mila.
Carliz had suffered through a similar interrogation from her less sedate mother, then had taken herself off to her apartments in the palace, curled up on her bed beneath blankets she did not need for warmth, and wondered what the hell she was going to do with the rest of her life.
Slowly, she came to think that the way Valentino had chosen to reject her that terrible morning had helped. Because she had always believed that if he would just give in to the chemistry between them, he would see. He would know.
He would stop telling her that it was nothing.
And it turned out that he did see. He did know—and he still wanted nothing to do with her.
In its own way, that was really very liberating.
A few days later, when she’d grown tired of acting perfectly fine to her family while assuming the fetal position in private, she’d found herself in the studio space she’d long kept for herself in the palace. It was an airy room in her apartments that she hadn’t so much as walked into in ages. Or even thought about. But she’d once found painting a more appropriate emotional release than, say, planting stories in tabloids.
Carliz had settled in with a sense of purpose. She’d looked through all of her half-finished canvases and she’d sat down before the one she’d loved the most, certain that at any moment, inspiration would strike and she would leap into one of those painting fevers that had used to take her over in school. She would go off on an oil paint bender that would last until the painting was done and she emerged, feeling reborn and victorious, on the other side.
But no matter how long she sat there, she never touched brush to canvas.
She looked all the colors, all the shapes, and saw Valentino. She saw the things that they had done. She felt his handprint, hard and red against her bottom.
It had taken days to fade.
She had cried—hard—when it finally had.
Carliz had been home for nearly two weeks when her mother once again brought up the subject of an appropriate husband. This time, the Queen Mother chose to do it at one of their usual weekly family dinners, just the three of them. Her Majesty the Queen, the queen mother in her typical shroud, and the normally bright and shiny Princess Carliz, who was not sure that she would ever feel sparkly or at all like herself again.
Mother, Mila had said reprovingly after a lengthy monologue on the implications of both the queen and the Princess Royal’s enduring single state as well as what the appearance of a tight family unit would do to bolster support for the monarchy, her favorite topics, can you not see that Carliz is suffering? A man she was very close to had a very well-publicized breakup and yet has been notably absent from Carliz’s vicinity, so one can only assume that Carliz’s affections were not returned. She needs grace, not dating advice.
It was nearly unbearable, Carliz had thought then, her gaze on the plate before her, to have it all boiled down like that. Her sister might as well have said, he’s just not that into you. Because it amounted to the same thing, didn’t it?
She had forced herself to look up. She’d forced a smile at her sister, then had looked at her mother.
You keep going on about wanting me to marry, she’d said. But I am quite certain that in one of the twenty thousand or so extremely boring lectures that we received as girls about our duties, responsibilities, and so on, Her Majesty the Queen herself must marry first.
She certainly should, their mother began.
I will not be marrying for some time, Mila had said then, in that firm way that made it clear she was speaking as the queen, not as a family member. Even their mother inclined her head. Mila toyed with her wineglass. Our father regrettably died too soon. I am too young, I think. I will need to wait some while before I can be certain that whoever marries me does not harbor any aspirations to power.
Understandable, murmured their mother with great sympathy, because her reverence for the crown and its pronouncements knew no ceiling. Only days before she had been ranting to Carliz that Mila must marry, and soon, to secure her legacy.
Very well then, Carliz had said, to her own surprise, perhaps because she was tired of gazing despondently at her plate. I suppose I might as well carry on the family legacy until Mila is ready.
When no one had responded—an excessively unlikely occurrence with her family—she had looked up again to find the pair of them staring back at her with differing levels of shock. Mila’s was tinged with curiosity, her mother’s with suspicion.
I’m not joking, Carliz had clarified. I need to do something with my life. As Mother has pointed out repeatedly, and more vocally by the day, it might as well be doing my duty to crown and country.
And really, it hadn’t been that bad. She had heard her friends from school speak of far more painful dating scenarios that they underwent simply because they were seeking a partner in life, and they didn’t have an entire palace team involved to act as a buffer.
First there had been a great many meetings with the team assigned to the mission of getting the Princess Royal married. They had started off with a startlingly thorough dig through her entire life, asking all manner of impertinent questions.
I would hope, Carliz had said at one point, her manners beginning to fail her, that the fact that I am a royal princess, sister to the queen of Las Sosegadas herself, should stand in place of whatever curriculum vitae it is you’re building here.
Indeed, huffed her mother, who had been sitting in.
Rather shockingly, Carliz had thought. It was so...supportive.
Forgive me, Your Highness, the chief aide in charge of the marriage operation had said at once. This is not a CV, for, naturally, you do not need to sell yourself. You are the prize. We are only gathering as much information as we can to help us choose the appropriate partner for you to consider. There had been the slightest, deferential pause. And, of course, only those who complement not only your strengths, but the kingdom itself.
Carliz did not mention a stern mouth and pale blue eyes. She had not allowed herself to think of such things in the light of day—though her dreams did as they pleased—and anyway, it had been clear that only she thought they complemented each other at all.
She had heard a lot about the needs of the kingdom after that. As if her family wasn’t intimately and intricately linked with the kingdom in too many ways to count. As if she, herself, had not spent the whole of her life in the kingdom and of the kingdom, and therefore could not possibly understand it.
But the good news, she’d thought as she sat in all those meetings and resolutely refused to think of Valentino no matter how many potential suitors they paraded before her, was that she was fine as time went on.
Perfectly fine.
True, she’d felt a little gray around the edges. Some people might call that a touch of depression, but that wasn’t something members of her family were permitted to suffer from, so she certainly hadn’t claimed it as such. And besides, she’d had nothing at all to be depressed about. Her days had been filled with worthy appointments. In service to the queen, she’d cut ribbons to open things and had made grateful little speeches of commendation that she’d forgotten entirely the moment the words were out of her mouth. She’d smiled, she’d posed, and she’d no longer bothered to argue with the soulless wardrobe department in the palace, who were forever trying to dress her as if it were still the 1940s and there was a war on.
Carliz had assumed that the strict policy she’d taken of no longer allowing herself to dwell on anything involving Valentino Bonaparte—not her memories, not any stray mention of him in the papers, as if the man did not exist—was the reason that she often felt...unwell. Not actually sick. She’d just had a general sense of ongoing malaise that she’d assumed would pass.
Eventually.
Because all things passed eventually.
Or maybe it wouldn’t, she’d found herself thinking sometime in the beginning of September. But so what? It was probably better for everyone involved, from her sister on down to the subjects who clapped so wildly when they saw her in the street, that Carliz pretend she’d never known what it was to sparkle in the first place.
Because, after all, that had always been an act.
Maybe that was the part that needed to pass, she’d thought. Maybe this was the new, improved, mature version of her. As September had started, the team had begun to send her out on carefully curated dates. Though, functionally, they were more like interviews. The men had already been briefed that they were being considered as potential husbands for the famous Princess Carliz. Accordingly, they were all perfectly polite. They were all blandly good-looking in the same sort of way. They all looked...European, she’d supposed. They all visited exquisite tailors, which they demonstrated in their sartorial choices, suggesting a certain fashion threshold was on the palace’s list. They were all happy to talk at length about their pedigrees and their portfolios, while she sat and made note of which ones had receding hairlines to match their receding chins.
The better the bloodline, the more unfortunate the chin, she’d discovered.
It sounds hideous, Mila had said one evening. She’d come home from an event and Carliz had picked up the habit of their youth, slinking into her dressing chamber when she arrived home each evening so she could lounge about while Mila got ready for bed. Because it was one of the few times she was really just...Mila.
Assuming she was ever just Mila any longer.
Hideous is far too strong a word, Carliz had replied, curled up on the nearest chaise with a glass of wine, though she’d found she was enjoying her wine a good deal less these days than she had once. They are all... Perfectly nice. Eminently suitable. Astonishingly adequate, I would say.
Her sister had shaken her head. Damned with faint praise.
I did not think I was praising them at all, Carliz had replied, laughing. But then had sobered when her sister had trained a very steady look on her.
I understand that it is very unlikely that I will ever meet anyone, Mila had said, but very matter-of-factly. There was no hint of self-pity in her voice. I’ve come to terms with that. But I really did hope that you, at least, could have that pleasure. I thought you might even fall in love.
I love the idea of love, Carliz had said, carefully, after a moment. She thought of her half-finished canvases. She thought of a long, lonely walk on a sandbar in the sun, while the incoming tide threatened and there were hot handprints on her flesh. I love the fantasy of it. I could read books about love, watch films about love, sing songs about love forever. But the reality is something else. And I think only fools pretend otherwise.
Her sister had watched her a long moment, then changed the subject.
And so Carliz had gone out on her businesslike dates, debriefed with the team afterward, and had made no complaint about the men they selected. This had pleased no one, because her lack of any choices, for or against, made it impossible to winnow her suitors down to one clear winner.
Which was, the head aide was at pains to tell her, the point of the entire exercise.
I think I might just write all their names down on pieces of paper, Carliz had said on another night later in in the month, this time sitting next to Mila on the queen’s favorite sofa in the small, private sitting room where she watched television programs she then pretended she’d never heard of when in public.
The better to remain mysterious, she always said.
Carliz had continued, I’ll throw them in a hat, then pick a name. Instant fiancé, problem solved, and we can all move on.
Mila had actually turned toward her, pinning her with that look of hers. This is really not what I want for you, she had said quietly. And so kindly that Carliz had nearly felt the urge to cry. I understand that you don’t want to talk about this, but ever since Valentino Bonaparte’s wedding failed to happen, you’ve been broody. Withdrawn. Words I would never use to describe you. If I didn’t know better I would think you were...
Carliz had forced out a laugh. The bitter sound of it had been unforced. Heartbroken? Yes, Mila. Yes, I am.
And there had been something liberating in saying that out loud. She hadn’t allowed herself that. She hadn’t let herself think about her heart at all. And here, now, she felt...thick, everywhere, as if her heart had shattered into so many pieces she’d had to grow a protective barrier to keep from bleeding out.
She hadn’t said that, though. Not out loud. I think that everyone deserves a devastating heartbreak at least once in their life. Because that’s how you discover what’s important. That it’s not feelings that matter, but facts. And sometimes you have to learn that the hard way.
I wasn’t going to say heartbroken, Mila said quietly, her gaze still far too kind. I was going to say pregnant.
Out on that very same sandbar that served as the only path to Valentino’s island, and only when the tide was low, Carliz stomped on.
She had obviously dismissed her sister with a roll of her eyes. But later that night, she had found herself lying wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Because not once in that entire wicked night with Valentino had either one of them even mentioned the issue of protection.
She knew why she hadn’t. She didn’t know any better.
Or at least, she did know, but she’d never been in a position like that before, where the things that she knew completely deserted her because he’d kissed her, and he’d picked her up, and then nothing was ever the same.
But that did not excuse him.
She’d fretted about that for days. She’d told the team that she was deep in contemplation about her next steps regarding the husband hunt. Then she’d taken herself off to one of her favorite cities, New York, where it was easier than it should have been to sneak away from her security detail, pop into a chemist’s on the nearest corner, and then slip into a bathroom in the first dive bar she came to.
Carliz had taken the test there and then.
And she had nearly caused an international incident because she’d sat in that stall so long, staring at the answer she didn’t want. It had been right there before her in two little lines.
Unmistakable lines.
She had stayed in an apartment down in the West Village that she normally used as a hub while she flitted about, in and out of art museums, having lunches and dinners and drinks out with any of her millions of friends who didn’t know her at all.
But this trip, she just...sat there. She ordered in food from her favorite restaurants, then didn’t eat it. She stared at the walls, but what she saw was that night.
Again and again, that night.
Then, worse, the morning after.
She stayed there for almost ten days, because Carliz had absolutely no idea what she was going to do next.
And now here she was.
She had considered, at length, not telling Valentino about her pregnancy at all. He certainly didn’t deserve to know. Every interaction they’d had had been terrible, up to and including that night and its aftermath. In truth, the past couple of months had taught her that she should be embarrassed that she had spent so much time and energy chasing around after him. She was. Truly.
But the conclusion she’d come to, despite herself, was that while all of that was perfectly valid and she could feel about it precisely as she liked, one thing remained true. It was not and would not be the fault of the baby.
Herbaby.
Because Carliz, unlike Valentino, was not made of stone and spite, she was also capable of feeling empathetic about the things she knew about his history. About the father who had carried on with the housekeeper in the house where he’d lived with his wife. So that both wife and housekeeper were pregnant by him at the same time—though the news about their sons’ true relationship was not disclosed until later.
Carliz knew that she was many things, not all of them flattering or fabulous in the least, but she’d like to think she was not cruel. If Valentino wished to treat his child the way his father had treated him, that would have to be his choice to make. She would not do that choosing for him.
She had interrogated herself on this topic all the way to Italy. Was she truly acting out of that sense of what was right? Or was she using this as an excuse to see Valentino again?
But every time she asked herself that, she thought about those final moments with him in the hall. That opaque mask he’d worn, after everything they’d done with each other all through the night.
And her stomach never failed to turn.
It did again now.
“No,” she muttered. “This is not about seeing him.”
She’d had the palace physician snuck in to see her when she returned home from New York. The doctor had confirmed what she already knew, that she was nearly three months along. But better yet, the baby was thriving. All was well.
You look better than I’ve seen you in a while, Mila had said that night at dinner.
Filled with purpose, Carliz had replied, with a smile. At last.
And that was true in its way. Or if she did not have purpose, at least she had a plan.
First she would tell Valentino. When he responded negatively, as expected, she would start to plot out the next part of her life. She had decided that she needed two possible paths forward. One, a quiet life somewhere else, where she would not embarrass her sister. She rather fancied New Zealand and a magical little town on the South Island that she had visited once, Wanaka, where all kinds of creative people lived. She could simply be a single mother with the rest of them out there in the world, she thought, and raise her child in peace.
On the other hand, if Mila was inclined toward acceptance, she would have to plan her next moves with the palace.
But Valentino was the first step.
She walked and walked, keeping ahead of the tide. And the closer she got to the island, and Valentino’s house that she could see rising there on its hill, the more aware she became of her body.
Carliz told herself it was because she hadn’t exercised as much as she usually did, in these last, grayish months, but she knew that wasn’t quite true.
It was as if walking back across the sandbar reignited that awareness of herself that he had taught her that night. That stunning, wondrous understanding of who she really was, and what her body was truly made for, and all the astonishing things two people could do with each other.
“Including make another human,” she snapped at herself, in case she was tempted to forget.
But that didn’t make her breasts feel any less heavy, though not in the way they’d been heavy for the past week or so. It didn’t make her feel any less thick, and not simply because her clothes didn’t fit the way they’d used to.
Her body clearly remembered this island and that night, and as far as it was concerned, it was high time to get ready for more. She could feel that telltale slickness between her legs as she moved. Even her breath was shallow, as if she was already panting out all of that passion and need.
She was disgusted with herself.
Once she made it onto the island, she found herself marching down the avenue of cypress trees that led to Valentino’s house. This time, there was no one else about. There was only her. And she had not worn scarves to disguise her identity, either. Carliz was dressed very simply, because this was a simple errand and nothing more. It did not call for an outfit. She wore a pair of jeans with an extremely stretchy waist. A pair of shoes far better suited to traipsing over the sand than the last. She wore a hat on her head to keep the sun off, because she remembered it burning her on the walk back, when she had already been more than red enough. And otherwise, she wore only a camisole beneath a roomy buttoned shirt.
Carliz thought she looked a bit like she was going on safari, though she doubted very much she would get the pleasure of hunting the particular big game she wanted today.
Just as she had three months before, she charged up the stairs cut into the side of the hill that led directly from the house’s extensive gardens down to the chapel. Just as before, she marched directly up to the front door and swung it open.
But this time, she did not walk in to find the place deserted, all of the staff called off somewhere else.
This time, Valentino was standing there as if he was a statue she’d left behind in exactly the same position. Today he was at the base of the stairs, but his arms were still folded. His expression was still disapproving and otherwise, firmly opaque.
And God help her, she did not want to think about that stern mouth and all the things he could do with it. All the things that she’d been lying to herself for some while about. All the things that she would love for him to do to her again.
But she would deal with that shocking personal betrayal later.
“I believe I was very clear, Carliz, the last time we saw each other,” Valentino said.
And she understood then that he had seen her coming from afar.
That he had planned this confrontation when he could instead have very simply...locked his door.
The betrayal got worse, though, because she could feel that shivering thing all over her. She hated it. And she hated him. Yet still there was something in her that was thrilled by the fact that he thought she had come back here for anything less than a good reason.
Because there was always going to be that part of her that wanted nothing more than to get naked with him again. And again.
And forever—but she shoved that treacherous thought aside.
“I cannot imagine that anyone could be more clear,” she told him.
Despite herself, she took him in. She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes moved all over him, looking for flaws, she told herself—but if so, she was disappointed. For there were none.
He did not look like a fallen angel, not Valentino. He looked like the sort of angel that would never dream of falling and more, would mete out retribution those who did.
And really, it would have been better for her all around if she had not thought that word, retribution, in his presence.
“I’m glad to see that you remain as unpleasant as ever,” she continued when he did nothing but glare at her in all his disapproval. “I would have called you, as that seemed the decent thing to do, but it was made clear to me that even if I managed to obtain your phone number, it would be changed should I ever call it. Ditto your email. So here I am.”
“I don’t know why you cannot accept the truth of things,” he said, but almost casually. Almost philosophically. “You are forcing me into a corner and I do not think you will like how I choose to step out of it.”
“There is no need for you step anywhere,” she told him, and it was a challenge to match his tone, but she did. “I have come a great distance—and across a vanishing sandbar, no less—to tell you something I would have much preferred to share from afar. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“And yet here we stand.”
Carliz sighed, though she would have to deal with the wound that left behind later. “After the appalling way you behaved the last time I was here, I have no wish to ever lay eyes on you again. You should congratulate yourself, Valentino. You have finally succeeded. I am entirely indifferent to you, whether you live or die, or anything else that might possibly concern you.”
His brow lifted once again. Maybe as if something she’d said had landed like a weapon. Not that she should care about that.
“Carliz,” he began, in a voice made entirely of warnings that her body took as dark, delicious promises—something else she would need to unpack later, when she was alone.
Later, when she knew she’d survived this.
She lifted a hand to stop him. “I’m having your baby,” she said. Direct and to the point, and it did not matter what he did with that, not now it was said. “You can do with that information what you will.”
And then she finally—finally—did the right thing.
She turned on her heel and marched to the front door, leaving him of her own volition. Something she wasn’t sure she was capable of doing until she did.
Then she started for home.