Chapter Seven #2
But he did have experience with these kinds of tests, didn’t he? Hoops to jump through to prove himself. His father had given him nothing but tests and hoops and challenges. Of course, there’d been no winning those.
He could win this one. Ines was honest and fair, even if this was utterly ridiculous. She wouldn’t change the stakes.
What was a few months? She would be pregnant the entire time, and if he could suffer through these months of her pretending they could be more than their roles, their titles, their responsibility, on the other side of it was everything he wanted.
A partnership with his queen. A detached, joyless, loveless abyss as she defined it. Yes, that was what he wanted.
And she would have her child—the best doctors in the world would ensure she and the baby were healthy through this—so she would get what she wanted.
And all would be well.
He just had to resist his wife through a few months of intimacy. He’d survived nearly a year before. He could do this. He would do this.
For Alis. Even for her, though she would not see it that way.
Ines thought her acting was superb this evening. Alexandre had to believe she was nonchalant and unaffected. That she would happily trot away to wreak havoc on his life if he did not agree to her terms.
She would do it, but it would hurt. Even when she was furious with him, she would take no joy in trying to ruin his reputation. He cared so much for it, and she understood why. She didn’t want to continue to run or go to the press.
She wanted what she’d outlined. A marriage.
And it had occurred to her, after she’d eaten her morning cake and taken that long nap this afternoon, that he didn’t even know what that might look like.
If he didn’t know himself, didn’t understand his own feelings, then why should he know what a functioning relationship looked like?
His only example was likely his parents—and while Alex almost never mentioned his mother, knowing King Enzo meant Ines knew it could not have been good.
Not that she had any fine example of marriage in her life, but she had solid relationships that weren’t romantic. With Jonet. With Evelyne. She understood how to care for someone without needing to protect them. Without the threat and terror of abuse in every corner.
Alexandre loved his sister. He even loved Gabriel. He was capable of love, but Ines did not think he understood it except in the role of protector or savior. He only knew how to exist in a world where people owed him for being the good one in relation to the evil one—King Enzo.
With his father dead, he was only protecting everyone from his memory. Something no one needed. Especially her. He did not need to be her protector in anything, so he did not know what to do with her except keep her at arm’s length.
There would be no more arm’s length. She was sure—almost certain—that if she could get him to behave as a real husband, as though they were in a real relationship, he would see that it was possible.
Neither he nor his kingdom would crumble if he was allowed to be the real man underneath the cold, detached crown.
“Fine. I agree to your terms. Dinners. Appointments. Et cetera.” He waved these away like they were inconsequential.
But they wouldn’t be. Ines wouldn’t allow them to be. She beamed at him, showing only her pleasure that she’d won—not the wave of relief that he hadn’t made her hurt them both by running away over and over again. “Excellent.”
When dessert was served, she ate her fill. A well of hunger had begun to displace the nauseous feeling. Or you’re just happy to be home.
She looked around the luxurious dining room full of history—some of its furnishings particularly ugly—and did not know for sure when it had begun to feel like home. Early on, she supposed, when she’d decided that marrying Alexandre meant marrying Alis, meant marrying his goals.
If she could be a good queen, if she could belong to and serve Alis, then she could be something. More than the pawn her father had used her as.
But she wanted to be more than a useful tool now. She wanted to be a person too. Who loved her husband and her child. Who had a family. They would always be beholden to their country, but they all deserved a place to go to just be themselves.
She would have to build it, to show Alexandre it was possible.
With dinner finished, Alexandre stood and helped her up out of her chair as he always did. But she did not let his hand go. “Shall we take our garden walk? And then, tonight would be our normal appointment, would it not?”
He stiffened, as she’d known he would. He even cleared his throat. “Surely you are exhausted from your travel.”
“Funny how a short drive and an equally short flight on a private plane did not quite exhaust me. Besides, I took a nap between lunch and dinner. Do you have any other excuses you’d like to trot out?”
His face became a storm. “They are not excuses, Ines.”
“Then what are they?” she asked, feigning innocence.
But he had no answer for that. Just a disapproving expression. “Very well,” he muttered. “We will go for our walk.”
She noted he did not mention their appointment, but she let that slide for now. He tucked his arm into hers and led her out of the dining room, through the palace, and then out one of the terrace doors that would lead them down to the gardens.
The night was warm, the scent of flowers and midnight wafting around them.
The gardens were extensive and one of Ines’s favorite places in the palace.
Some long-gone ancestor of Alexandre’s had planted them, and the gardeners tended them, and in every season there were different delights to discover if a person perused the winding, meandering pathways.
Ines often did just that, alone, instead of with her husband. But tonight, they walked, her arm tucked into Alexandre’s, and she felt something ease inside of her that had been tied tight these past four months.
Perhaps she’d known all along that running away wasn’t the answer, but she was glad she’d done it. Learned something from it. And now she was glad to be back, fighting for something good.
“This reminds me of our wedding.”
“Why?”
The bafflement in his tone made her smile, because the memory was not with him. It was before. “My hair and makeup was done, but they hadn’t put me in that monstrosity of a dress yet.”
She watched his face illuminated by moonlight, surprised to see his mouth curve ever so slightly. “It was a bit of a monstrosity.”
Neither of them had been allowed any say in it. Their wedding had not been for them. It had been for King Enzo to show off his wealth—well, her father’s wealth combining with the king’s power. But still, they had said vows, married and consummated said marriage.
And here they were over a year later. Walking the gardens. A baby on the way. It should be enough, but it wasn’t. Not yet.
“I needed some air while they dealt with how they were going to get me into such a thing. So I came out here. I sat there on that bench and looked at the gardens. I listened to the birds. I told myself that it didn’t matter if I hadn’t chosen this, there were things I could choose.
Like being a leader and a good princess.
That even if your father was a scary monster, there was… you.”
He eyed her warily as they walked through an archway of blooming trees.
“Do you know what I thought when I first met you?” she asked him. Because they never discussed them. They never discussed anything but work, and that needed to change.
He did not say anything, and that slight curve to his mouth flattened.
She kept talking. He would not silence her.
“You were so handsome, but so severe. And I had no reason to trust my father’s choice in suitor, and, of course, I knew what a despot your father was.
Even though people around the palace seemed to speak highly of you, I could hardly take it at their word.
And then we met in that reception room. Do you remember? ”
The wariness in his expression had only intensified. “Yes.”
“And what did you think of me?”
He took a moment, no doubt searching for the right answer in his mind, not the actual answer. “That you were very small.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you always looking for ways to protect, Alex?”
Something flickered in his eyes. She was beginning to think he actually liked it when she shortened his name. Few people did it. Evelyne or Gabriel sometimes, but not often.
The longer name suited who he was better, but there was a man inside who was more than his long, royal name.
“You were very polite. We talked of birds. Do you remember? I said I liked birds—just a nervous blurt because you were being so silent and foreboding—but then you spoke, and you very kindly told me there were great places to watch birds in the gardens.”
His gaze lowered to hers, his eyebrows furrowed as if he didn’t quite understand what she was saying.
“And then the next time I came, you showed me. Every time, you always looked after my comfort. You were always gentle. Nothing in my life had ever been gentle before. Pampered, yes, but not gentle. Does that make sense?”
He looked at her, not detached now. Maybe a little confused. He didn’t answer, but she thought it did make sense to him. She thought if anyone could understand the difference it was him.
“I went into those first few meetings with you always waiting you to show your true colors. But after a while, I began to understand. You were different than the men I’d known in my life.
Not perfect, certainly. Abrupt and aloof and…
cold, at times. But you had a goal—to see your kingdom and your sister survive your father.
And to be nothing like him. And when I realized that, I began to trust you. ”
Alexandre stopped—not quite abruptly, but the stop wasn’t smooth either. “We should return. You do not want to overdo it.”