Chapter Eleven
The day was an exercise in endurance for Wren.
She smiled until her face ached, a false smile that felt faker and faker the more she used it.
There were endless dignitaries to receive congratulations from, photographs to be taken, and then changing from her wedding gown into yet another gown for the reception.
This time it was a simple but elegant wrap gown in ice-blue silk that clung to her figure, making her bump indisputable.
The dinner was endless, Isandro at her side strangely distant in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. His arm was constantly around her as if he couldn’t bear not to touch her, but he didn’t look at her.
Had he noticed her tears at the ceremony? She’d blinked them away in the limo, and had hoped that had been enough since she hadn’t wanted to draw attention to them by requesting a cloth to wipe them away.
He’d kept glancing at her during the ceremony, so maybe he had noticed. His kiss at the end had been perfunctory, and not at all what she’d expected, and after that, well, it had been nothing but cameras and people.
Still, this was the course of action she’d decided on, even before she’d got into the limo that would take her to the cathedral. She wouldn’t leave him. Even if staying meant having to bear this constant pain inside her, this constant ache.
It was the price she paid to be with him, and there was always a price for love. It always hurt in some way.
Maybe this is your punishment.
Yes, maybe it was. Punishment for the mistake she and Isandro had made. It wasn’t a mistake that could ever be fixed, but she would bear the consequences. It was only what she deserved.
After their first dance in the palace ballroom, Wren finally decided that she’d had enough. She needed to be away from all the people, with their smiles and congratulations. She was tired of pretending she was happy when she was dying inside, and she needed to be alone.
As she and Isandro walked off the dance floor, she said quietly, ‘Would you mind if I went to bed now?’
He glanced down at her, his gaze unreadable. ‘Are you feeling okay?’
‘Yes.’ She gave him another fake smile. ‘Just tired.’
‘It has been a long day.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll join you.’
Despite her fatigue, heat licked up inside her.
A wedding night with her new husband. Well, at least in bed she didn’t have to pretend. She could lose herself in the glory of his touch and forget about the pain in her heart for a night at least.
Wren watched him as he found one of his aides. He looked phenomenal in his wedding suit of dark blue, embroidered with silver thread over one shoulder and on the lapel. It made his eyes look even darker and bluer, and suited the olive of his skin.
Your husband now.
She swallowed, the new platinum band around her finger, a match for the sapphire engagement ring, feeling abruptly heavy.
There was no going back, not that she wished otherwise.
It was only that this was a life that sometimes, in the dead of night, she’d allowed herself to imagine.
Being in Carlotta’s place, being his wife.
Having his child. Marrying him. Being allowed to love him.
This was everything she’d fantasised about and yet it felt…dark. He didn’t feel the way she did, but she knew that he was capable of it. The fact that he didn’t feel that way for her was a choice, and he’d made it.
He’ll never change his mind. Why would he? For you? When no one else ever did?
She turned away, her heart squeezing tight in her chest in pain.
Then his hand was at the small of her back, and he was beside her, ushering her through the crowd.
He said nothing as they left the ballroom, moving silently through the corridors.
She expected to go back to his bedroom—their bedroom now, she guessed—except they were moving in the direction of his office.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked as they approached the door. ‘Aren’t we going to bed?’
He shook his head, opening the door and ushering her inside. He came in after her, closing the door behind them, then he gestured to the chair in front of his desk. ‘Sit, Wren.’
She hesitated a moment, not knowing what was going on. The hard, set look on his face alarmed her. ‘What’s wrong?’
Isandro didn’t sit behind his desk. Instead he leaned his hip against it, folding his arms across his broad chest and looking down at her. ‘I saw your tears,’ he said after a moment.
She felt her cheeks heat. ‘It was nothing. Bridal nerves.’
‘No, they weren’t.’ He was looking at her as if he could read every thought in her head, and he probably could. ‘Something upset you.’
He didn’t miss anything, did he?
‘I saw press photos of our evenings together,’ she said, a little reluctantly, since there was no real point bringing it up. But she knew him, he wouldn’t rest until she’d told him. ‘I thought they were just for us. For…me.’
‘They were for you.’ His gaze didn’t waver. ‘I had heard the press had discovered we were meeting and had turned it into a game, trying to get pictures. I…didn’t stop them. I thought it would help the story we were trying to build for the—’
‘You were trying to build it,’ she interrupted before she could stop herself. ‘I wasn’t trying to build anything.’
He was silent a moment, just staring at her. Then he said, ‘You didn’t want to marry me.’
It wasn’t a question. She folded her hands in her lap, unsure about where he was going with this. ‘Isn’t it a bit late to have this conversation?’
‘I want to make you happy,’ he said, ignoring the question, his gaze strangely intent. ‘But… I don’t think I can, little bird. I think the only way you can be happy is to be far away from me.’
A cold arrow of shock pierced her as she stared up at him. His expression was hard and set. He could have been carved out of marble for all the reaction he displayed. Yet his blue gaze was as dark as she’d ever seen it, full of shadows and smoke.
‘What are you saying?’ she asked, not understanding. ‘You’re sending me away? Now?’
‘No,’ Isandro said, his voice so determinedly neutral he sounded almost robotic.
‘I’m not sending you away. What I’m saying is that I’ve decided to go on a royal tour that will take some time.
You won’t be able to come with me, because your pregnancy will require you to stay in Valdora.
The palace is not your natural home, I understand that, so instead you can stay in a lovely villa in the south.
It has a rich history, beautiful gardens, and there will be medical staff on hand.
You can stay there until the baby is born.
You’ll never have to see me or speak to me.
’ He paused a moment and then, as if forcing himself to go on, he said roughly, ‘I do need the child to be born here for citizenship reasons, but he or she will stay with you afterwards. I won’t demand full custody.
You can leave Valdora and take the child back home to New Zealand, and perhaps…
find the happiness you truly need there. Because it won’t be with me.’
Wren blinked, the cold shock getting icier and icier. ‘So…what? You’re getting rid of me?’
He frowned, the darkness in his eyes shifting. ‘No. I’m not getting rid of you. I’m freeing you. I’m letting you go. I don’t want you to have to choose between your own happiness and your child. And I don’t want to force you into a life you’d never have chosen for yourself.’
Her fingers were cold, almost numb. It felt as if the world had suddenly turned upside down, and she didn’t know which way was up any more.
After all of that. After all his demands and his insistence. After he’d captured her heart so completely it would never be hers again, he was letting her go.
‘No,’ she said faintly. ‘I promised that I wouldn’t leave you.’
‘I’m not going to hold you to that promise,’ he said. ‘Your happiness is more important to me.’
She stared up at him, into his midnight eyes, searching for the truth. Did he truly believe that he was doing this for her? Did he honestly and truly believe she would be happier without him? After she’d told him that she loved him?
He doesn’t understand. He really doesn’t.
Carefully, Wren pushed the chair back and stood, trying to still the tremble in her hands that came not so much from the shock as from a building fury that threatened to burn her to the ground.
‘What about you?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice level.
‘What about this great love story you’ve been orchestrating?
What will the press say when your brand-new wife suddenly leaves? ’
‘What does that matter?’ A sudden anger glittered in his eyes. ‘The press will say what they want. They’re irrelevant.’
The fury inside her built and built, because it was becoming abruptly clear to her why he was sending her away. ‘You’re not freeing me,’ she said, rage colouring the words. ‘You’re protecting yourself.’
His frown deepened. ‘What?’
‘This isn’t about me or my happiness.’ She took another step so they were mere inches apart, holding his gaze with her own. ‘This is about you. You’re terrified, Isandro, and you can’t bear to acknowledge it.’
Temper glittered in his eyes. ‘Terrified?’ he demanded. ‘Do I look terrified to you?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘You’re scared out of your bloody wits. So scared that you’d rather send me away than have to deal with your own issues.’
A muscle ticced in his strong jaw. ‘What issues?’
‘This ridiculous nonsense about not being able to love.’ She threw the words at him like stones, hard and sharp and cutting, because how dare he do this to her?
After everything that had happened. How bloody dare he?
‘You can love, you stupid man. You want to be a better king for your country and your people, because you love them. You loved our baby the moment you felt it kick against your hand.’ She took a sharp breath.
‘You want to be a father, and you want to be a husband, but you’re actually terrified of emotionally committing yourself to anyone. ’