Chapter Thirteen
THE LIbrARY BECAME their neutral ground. They spent much of the day separate from one another, and Andrei felt that it was a decent testament to how they would manage everything once the baby was born.
He could imagine, very comfortably, the two of them having a life here. They would be… Friends, he supposed. Something so much less toxic than his parents. Throwing dishes, shouting, disappearing to their room for hours.
His mother crying.
His father had been particularly good at twisting the knife in his mother’s ribs when he wanted to get a reaction out of her.
And his own love—as he’d known then, as he knew it now—served as a reminder of how emotions could be twisted and manipulated. He’d been so young. A vine that had been easily twisted around a trellis, to grow around the wrong ideas, feelings and conclusions.
It was only the royal family that had allowed him to understand love, but even then, in himself, he could not trust it. For good reason.
This place was so… Haunted. It held so many memories. Good and bad, and often the good and bad twisted around each other. He didn’t want his child to grow up that way.
And that made him feel all the more resolved in this.
They took meals together occasionally, but tonight Emerald was having dinner in her room. She was having bouts of sickness at all times of the day.
She insisted that it was normal, and all completely fine. She was on a diet of herbal tea and extremely pungent pickled cabbage that made his stomach curl, but that she seemed to enjoy.
Or rather, craved, which she had informed him was slightly different from enjoyment, and had more to do with necessity.
He had been an only child. He had never really been around pregnant women. It was an experience.
He heard her behind him, and he turned. She was wearing a nightgown, barefoot, her red hair swirling around her shoulders. There were circles under her eyes, and he wished he could go to her and wipe them away. But he didn’t.
Because that would be to break this spell between them.
Everything was good right now, and he didn’t want to break it.
“And how was your day?” she asked, floating into the room and moving to sit in his chair.
A little quirk of hers. Or, she was trying to be annoying. The thing that was really annoying about it was that he found it cute, and he supposed it was okay for him to find her cute. Maybe they would coparent. Maybe they wouldn’t even be a couple.
The thought of that made him taste something metallic in the back of his mouth.
“Fine. I did some work.”
“What work do you do exactly?”
“I have investments. Mainly in companies that make military grade weapons.”
“That sounds…”
“Like the most legal way to be adjacent to the kind of work my father did? You would be correct. But I understand it.”
“It wasn’t a judgment. I help run a country. I understand how these things work. Or I guess, I did run a country. Who knows what will be there when we get back.”
“Well, nothing catastrophic has happened so far. Though the headlines about this are hysterical.”
She narrowed her gaze. “You have internet access and you’ve been keeping it from me.”
“Not consciously. But, I did figure it might only upset you.”
“That’s not for you to decide,” she said, sniffing.
“I would disagree, Emerald. As I have brought you here to protect you. In all the ways that I can.”
“Yes. Well. I do feel quite wrapped in silk.”
“Good. You should.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s a bit weird to have you be this nice to me.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
“I know. I am very sorry that I slapped you.”
“You don’t need to keep bringing that up.”
“No, I just… You’re right. Things don’t have to be like that between us. And I understand.”
“Your parents seemed to have such a nice marriage,” he said.
“Yes. And they were strangers when they met. It’s so funny, because I know that in the modern world that’s a very strange experience. But in the grand context of history, it’s not. It’s the way things used to work. And they made a lot of happiness out of it.”
“My parents didn’t. Or rather they had… Excitement.
I fear very much that my mother loved my father more than he loved her.
But then, I’m not certain my father loved anything more than he loved himself.
No, I know he didn’t. Because in the end, he held on to his position in the crime family for far longer than he should have.
He should have gotten out earlier. He should’ve done something to save my mother.
To save himself. Something more than running as he did. ”
“It probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome.”
“Maybe he would’ve been able to get safer passage if he hadn’t been taking the only vessel available.”
“And maybe my parents could’ve taken a different route. Left five minutes later. Not gone out at all. We can’t know these things. And the truth is, you probably don’t even have a clear view of your parents’ marriage. That is the terrible thing about being young when your parents die.”
He laughed. “My parents were not the king and queen of a country. I guarantee you I have a distressingly clearer review of who they were than you do of your parents. Also remember how old I was when I realized what they did in their room with the door closed for so many hours. They would have meals delivered and not come out. Marathons. I mean, I knew, but I didn’t fully understand. ”
“Goodness.”
“And my father was not soft with her. Or kind. It was… barbs. Coldness. It was… Extremely painful to be around, even as a young child who didn’t fully understand.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was much like his relationship with me. We would go outside and play catch. He could be warm and fun. And then he would bring me into witness the beating of a man who owed them money. And would tell me that I needed to get used to it, because it was the reality of running a business.”
“Oh… Andrei. That is terrible.”
“It was my father. Darkness and light. Good and bad. And God help anyone who loved him. Honestly. I don’t want to be like him. I told myself that I needed to be. To claim you. I… I cannot subject either of us to that. But most of all, I will not subject our child to that.”
“You’re not him.”
“I can never trust that. What I know is that my feelings cannot be trusted, and cannot lead. I need to…”
He looked at her, his gaze locked firmly on hers.
He wanted to stay here because he felt like he had all the power here.
Because there was no king but him. He was God in these mountains, and he did not have to deal with Lucian or Onyx, or the responsibilities that Emerald had in her real life.
But that wasn’t realistic. And it wasn’t the right path.
That was the sort of thing his father would do. Consolidate his power. Protect it above all else. Damn his wife, and damn his child.
Damn them all to the same level of hell that he was destined for.
He couldn’t do that. He had made the decision to keep things… Platonic with Emerald.
To keep from descending into that madness that had captured both of his parents.
But now he had to answer that dark part of himself. The one that wanted to keep her here. Keep her away from everyone.
His child was royal, even if he was not. Emerald loved her country.
And there was more to life than this compound. That was the life the child of a crime lord had to lead. Locked away, with so many enemies beyond the walls that you were never truly safe. All because of your father’s ego.
He was still acting from a place where his ego was making decisions.
Especially with Emerald, and his refusal to marry her.
“This cannot endure,” he said.
Emerald looked at Andrei, certain she was misunderstanding him. “What can’t?”
“We are in hiding here, and it is sadly far too much like the last couple of years I spent with my parents. I will not do that to my son or daughter.”
“What are you…what are you proposing?” she asked, the calm, tranquil feeling she’d had a moment ago turning into something cold, afraid.
“I think we need to go back. Face all of this. Face all of this mess.”
“And what if Lucian orders your death?”
“Come now, Emerald. I would not be so easily defeated. I would not be defeated at all. Do you not know me?”
“I do. You’re arrogant and difficult and… I don’t want the father of my baby to die.”
She didn’t want him to die. She didn’t want to say that. Not now while he was in this space of cold, remote detachment.
“We need to marry,” he said.
“I thought you weren’t…”
“I don’t wish to force you. You will not be my mother. I will not be my father. But I think it is the only way forward.”
So logical. And correct, if she was honest. But it hurt all the same.
“Are you proposing a marriage in name only or…”
“For now,” he said, his tone rueful. “There is no way for us to manage all the things we must if we let ourselves get lost in lust. That is what harmed us in the first place.”
He was taking a lovely moment and turning it into something so cold.
He was right, though.
She didn’t know what to do with all the feelings inside her, so big and unwieldy. She didn’t know how she was going to be a mother, a princess, a wife. And the idea that they had a problem to solve together—that felt manageable.
Sorting out the issues between them much less so.
“All right, Andrei,” she said. “I will marry you.”
It had nothing to do with love, passion or desire. Nothing to do with what they’d felt for each other before everything.
What a strange realization.
He’d cared about her more before they’d ever made love.
Now…
Now there seemed to be nothing there at all. He’d locked it down inside himself, closed it behind him.
Now when she looked at him, she could see nothing but duty and honor. She’d hurt him with hers. Now he was killing her with his own.
“Good. We will travel back to Basilia tomorrow. You will speak to your brother. Leave Lucian to me.”