Chapter Twelve #2
Whatever had she been afraid of? Gabriel was her husband. He might not love her but he was committed to her. The truth should never be something to be feared. ‘I knew if I told you I was a virgin, you would stop.’
One eyebrow rose, his stare searching. ‘You’re saying you knew I would stop?’
‘Not consciously at the time. In the moment... I wasn’t thinking.
I remember I didn’t want to think.’ She closed her eyes as memories of their first night together flooded her.
For the first time in a long time, there was no bitterness at the aftermath.
At some point, she didn’t know when, she’d forgiven him for that.
‘You touched me and I exploded. It was the first time in my whole life that I ever threw off the shackles of Princess Alessia and became just Alessia.’
There was a long pause of silence.
‘Then it’s a real shame you won’t throw the princess shackles off for me now, isn’t it?’
It was the underlying bite beneath the smooth veneer of his voice that made her gaze fly back to him. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Jaw clenched, he stared at her for an age before giving a curt shake of his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You wouldn’t have said it if it didn’t.’
‘It’s nothing. Excuse me but I have an early start. I’m going to bed.’
And then, to her bewilderment, he walked straight out of the room. Moments later his footsteps treaded up the stairs.
Her heart thumping, her head reeling, Alessia palmed the back of her neck wondering what on earth had just happened and what he’d just meant.
There was only one way to find out.
She entered their room as the bathroom door locked.
Gabriel brushed his teeth furiously.
The darkness he’d been fighting had tightened its grip on him, the cobra winding its way to the base of his throat.
This was unbelievable. All this time.
There had been nothing—nothing—to indicate Alessia was a virgin.
But you weren’t thinking clearly that night, a voice whispered. Not with your head...
Teeth done, he took stock of his reflection, breathed deeply and gave himself another pep talk.
The past was the past. Alessia was his wife and his future...
Acrid bile flooded his mouth. He swallowed it away but the bitterness remained.
Closing his eyes, he took one more deep breath and stepped back into the bedroom.
He took one look at his wife perched on the side of the bed facing the bathroom door and all the efforts he’d made to get a grip on his emotions were overturned.
Her stare was steady. ‘I need you to tell me what you meant.’
He clenched his jaw. ‘Now is not the time.’
‘Now is the time. I must have done something to warrant that remark, and as a wise half-Spanish, half-French man once said, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, how can I fix it?’
The look he gave her could freeze boiling water.
‘I know things are tough for you right now,’ Alessia said, somehow managing to keep the steadiness in her voice through the thrashing of her heart.
‘I know your mother’s actions feel like a betrayal, but if I’ve done something to add to it then you need to tell me so I can put things right.
Is it because I didn’t tell you I was a virgin? Or is there something else at play?’
His chest rose and fell sharply. A contortion of emotions splayed over his face.
Gabriel gritted his teeth so hard it felt like his molars could snap into pieces. The scalding fury...he could feel it infecting every part of him.
‘Did I hurt you that night?’ he asked roughly.
Eyes widening, she shook her head violently. ‘No. It was wonderful. You know it was.’
‘Sorry,’ he bit out, ‘but this little revelation has made me rethink the whole night. I suppose it explains why you weren’t on the pill.
Or is that another false assumption?’ Somehow Gabriel was hanging onto his temper but the thread of it he clung to was fraying and the control he’d always taken with his speech was slipping out of his reach.
She closed her eyes briefly. ‘No, I wasn’t on the pill. But you already know that.’
‘But you didn’t think to tell me that then? In the moment? Before we got carried away?’
‘I thought you’d taken care of it.’
‘How? By wearing an invisible condom?’
There was a flash of indignancy. ‘I didn’t know and I didn’t think to ask. I was stupid and na?ve, I know that, but I wasn’t thinking that night and neither were you, and you have no right to be angry with me about it because it’s on you just as much as it’s on me.’
The thread snapped.
‘If you’d told me you were a virgin then none of this would have happened!’ he snarled. ‘Don’t you understand that? Do you not know what you’ve done? I would never have touched you if I’d known! You’ve trapped me into a damned marriage I never wanted!’
The colour drained from her face. For the longest time she just stared at him, her mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out.
And then something in her demeanour shifted.
She got to her feet.
Somehow she stood taller than he’d ever seen her.
Padding slowly to him, her words had the same cadence as her pace but her quiet tone was scathing. ‘I haven’t trapped you into anything. We created a child together.’
‘You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know the blame lies with me too?
You pushed aside the fact of your virginity and I pushed aside the fact you were a princess and not a mere flesh and blood woman, and I didn’t have the sense to think about contraception, and now I’m trapped in a marriage to a woman I would never have married under any other circumstance.
I’ve given up everything for this, my career, my privacy, my whole damn life! ’
‘You gave all that up for our child,’ she snapped back. ‘Remember? If you’re trapped then it’s in a web of your own making. You married me because you didn’t trust me to put our child’s wellbeing first.’
He crossed his arms tightly around his chest and leaned down into her face. ‘You married me for your damn monarchy.’
‘No, I married you for my family because the monarchy means everything to them, and so that my child could have its father in its life.’
‘You married me so you could continue being the perfect princess and redeem yourself in your mother’s eyes because being a princess is all you’ll allow yourself to be.’
‘Being a princess is who I am!’
‘No, Alessia, you’re my wife too, but you wouldn’t even take one night off from your duties for my sister’s birthday when no one would have missed you at that show.’
‘I’d already committed to it, and how you have the nerve to say that when I gladly offered to have Mariella stay with us.
..’ Pacing the room, she threw her hands in the air.
‘You talk about everything you’ve had to give up, but what about all the things I’ve had to give up, like a whole future spent being a princess without ever having a prince on my arm?
You won’t even come to my brother’s wedding! ’
‘You knew my conditions before you agreed to our marriage,’ Gabriel raged. His unleashed fury and Alessia’s passionate defence of herself had his blood pumping through him in a way that seemed to be feeding his anger.
‘Conditions without compromise, that’s what they were, and I wasn’t allowed to impose any of my own, was I?
As with our wedding and the home we live in, I wasn’t given a say.
I had no choice because you gave me no choice.
You talk a good talk about compromise but you won’t compromise on Amadeo’s wedding, will you, even when you know how much it would mean to me to have you there. ’
‘I will not feed those vultures and I will not set a precedent. I don’t know how many times I have to say that.’
‘A precedent?’ she cried. ‘You call me a flesh and blood woman and then talk about precedents as if I’m nothing but some business contract?’
‘The woman I made love to that night was Alessia Berruti. She’s the woman I committed myself to, the woman I made clear to you that I was marrying, but she’s not the woman I find myself married to, not when we’re here.
The minute you step foot on Ceres your princess mask slips back on and everything becomes about duty, but I have committed myself and so I’m condemned to spend the rest of my life on this damned island hoping every day for a glimpse of the woman I thought I’d married.
But you won’t throw those princess shackles off again, will you?
Not if it means disappointing your mother again.
I will always come second to your damned monarchy and your need to always be Princess Perfect so that you can bask in your mother’s approval. ’
‘It’s not just for her! It’s who I am!’
‘It doesn’t have to be! Look how good things are between us when we’re away from this place. If you step away from your royal duties we can have that all the time.’
She stopped pacing and stared at him with shock. ‘Step away from being a princess?’
‘Why not?’ The thought of his wife quitting her royal duties was not something Gabriel had ever given serious consideration to, but now that the words were out, he grasped at them, for in that moment they made perfect sense.
‘You’ve played your part for your family.
Marcelo’s married. Amadeo’s marrying soon.
That’s two new beautiful Berruti princesses for the public to fall in love with, and soon no doubt new royal babies.
You and I can build a new life away from here where you can be whoever you want to be. ’
Alessia’s early pregnancy sickness had ebbed and flowed since the hormones of conception had kicked in. The nausea in her belly was the strongest she’d known it since the day they’d agreed the contract for their marriage. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes. You, me and our baby, away from this castle building our own private life together. You can take that princess mask off for ever and just be the woman I adore. What do you say?’
Eyes not leaving his face, she slowly wrapped her arms across her stomach. ‘If I consider it, will you consider coming to Amadeo’s wedding?’