Chapter Eleven
Gustav wasn’t sure why he had come to this house full of memories. He had fully intended to stop at the docks of the next town, where they accommodated yachts, but instead, he put down anchor in the bay of the village where he was raised.
It was strategy, he told himself. He was softening her to him in the campaign to uncover the last of her secrets, the ones that were “complicated,” that she needed time to think about.
To uncover any unwelcome surprises before the final stage of his plan was in motion.
So why had he found himself showing her far too much of a past that should stay in the past?
Gustav felt no urge to answer that question.
Her head rested on his shoulder, and wisps of her hair danced in front of him, blowing in the wind.
He kept his arm wrapped firmly around her and stroked her bare skin with his fingers.
His suspicions had eased, but he knew he was still missing something important.
Strategically, it was in his best interest to uncover her motivations, though a voice deep inside insisted that the reasons he wanted to know had nothing to do with strategy.
They had to do with emotions that had no place in his plan because this marriage was headed for ruin, and far too much was at stake for him to turn back now.
He was not just seeking his own justice; he was seeking justice for his country.
But right now, with Livia’s warm, soft body next to his, the price of setting in motion the PR campaign that would bring his father to his knees felt too high.
Livia would leave him for her Greek island, and their marriage would become one in name only.
It was better for both of them this way, of course.
Tender emotions didn’t survive in the world he lived in.
He could not afford them, and the last thing he wanted was for Livia to lose the softest parts of herself.
So, he would find a way to accept their future.
And the explosive frustration that bubbled inside him when the idea of her leaving him passed through his mind…
he would find a place for that, too. Later.
He pressed his lips to her hair, breathing in her scent as he kissed her, and he felt that familiar heat charge between them, but he didn’t follow it up. Instead, he did the last thing he wanted to do. He let go of her.
“Let’s eat,” he said and helped her to standing. He gestured down the stone steps to the seaside beach house. “This way. I’ve ordered our meal to be served by the water.”
The house was perched on a rocky outcrop just a little more than a meter above the water.
It was built in the same general style as the main house, with whitewashed wood and two dormer windows peeking out of the second-story loft.
But the front was lined with windows, giving a view of the two sailboats tied to the dock and the sea that spread out beyond.
“This looks small for royal tastes,” said Livia with a wry smile.
“I built it years ago as a place to eat and warm up in after a swim during the summer. I also come down here and build a fire in the fireplace to enjoy the seashore during the colder months of the year.”
“You built it?”
“I was interested in energy alternatives and green building, so I thought I would do my first tests here.”
“And then you expanded to public works projects?”
“Nepotism has its advantages, even if you are the Bastard Spare.”
Livia laughed, and he was surprised to find that the sharp edges had worn off that tired insult. This was the hidden threat in allowing himself to soften, he reminded himself. The allure to delay his plan and focus on her was strong and dangerous.
“Are we spending the night here or up at the main house?” she asked.
A scene spread out in his mind in the loft of the beach house that he had built with his own hands, holding himself over her, thrusting as the waves crashed into the rocks below. Something warm and dark and threatening seized his heart. He pushed the image out of his mind.
“We will return to the boat after we eat,” he said.
When they finally sat at the table, with the French doors open to the deck above the water and dishes of fish and salads and fresh breads spread out in front of them, Livia lifted her glass of wine and smiled. “What shall we toast to?”
“Our marriage, of course.”
She laughed. “It has been memorable so far.” Her smile faded a little, and she added, “And I imagine it will continue that way.”
She lifted her chin, as if she was showing her defiance to the future itself. And part of him wanted to defy the future, too, but instead Gustav forced himself to focus on what he needed to do.
“I still don’t understand why you went along with your parents’ plans for a marriage with Edvin,” he said.
She frowned, and in that moment he wondered if he should have let it go—all of it—and spent the evening doing something infinitely more pleasurable.
When she didn’t answer, he found himself asking, “What do you want?”
Livia looked out into the dark clouds that had spread across the sky.
“A few days after the first time my sister ran away, she went back to school, and for a while, everything seemed okay. Like it was just a blip. But nearly nine months later it happened again, and this time it was worse. That hollowed-out feeling stayed with her longer. I moved out of the dorms and into my sister’s room at home for a while, and that helped.
But during that time, I would hear my parents talking late at night.
Then we started to have visitors, and one time I recognized my roommate Amelie’s father.
The next morning, when I asked my father why he was there, he said he was starting something new, something that would be good for all of us. ”
A gust of wind swept through the room, and she shivered. He looked around and found a blanket over the arm of a chair by the fireplace and got it for her.
“Not long after, all four of us went out on a drive, up into the mountains,” she continued.
“We drove for hours until we stopped in a valley. There was nothing around, but we all got out and looked up at the peaks, and my father said, ‘All of this will be ours.’ Then he asked my sister what she thought of it, and even before she answered, I knew the answer. She loved it.”
Livia sighed. “He got into business as some sort of land assessor for real estate development, and his wealth began to grow. At first my parents were satisfied with this, but satisfaction is a tricky thing. It’s not a destination.
And it didn’t prevent the Incident from happening several months later, when Adele took those sleeping pills. ”
Gustav could see how painful it was for her to talk about this.
“But my parents were already hooked. A bit more power and wealth was the answer to every new problem. So even as they amassed more and more money, they found the final step of status and respect were still out of reach. Which is why my mother conceived this plan for me to marry royalty. They are giving away a good chunk of their fortune for it, but their daughter would be married to a crown prince.” She glanced at him and lifted an eyebrow. “That part didn’t go as planned.”
“Your parents must be disappointed,” he said evenly, even though that stubborn jealousy still clawed somewhere inside him.
She shrugged. “As I said, I never intended to marry Edvin, so they actually got closer than they would have.”
Gustav felt the claws retract.
“Looking back, every time my parents had a new scheme to help my sister, I didn’t want to disappoint them. And Adele didn’t want to disappoint them, either, by saying that she didn’t want whatever they proposed. So it all just spiraled from there.”
“What do you think they should have done instead?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I think my sister would have struggled no matter what our circumstances were. She is just her own unique self, and there are always people who target anything they see as different. But it might have been easier away from this kind of life.”
She gestured at the stately main house.
“I knew that none of my parents’ ideas were good for her.
You know better than anyone that a title doesn’t absolve you from feeling like you’re second best,” she said softly.
“There always seem to be people who say you don’t deserve to be somewhere.
There are always ways to make others feel low, and no amount of money will change that.
I knew all of this, and I didn’t try to stop my parents’ endless pursuit of status. Not until it was too late.”
She looked at him, her gaze piercing his. “You asked me what I want? I want to find a way out of all of this.”
He felt the ache of her story. It was a web of hurt and complicated love, one that was not so different from his own.
Despite all the things that set them apart.
Were these touchstones behind why they had been drawn to each other from the start?
Was this why he had pressured a woman he hadn’t seen in eight years into marrying him?
He froze. Was this love? The thought was an ice-cold dip into the sea, and he found himself gasping for breath.
But instead of that ecstatic rush that came after a plunge into the water, there was only dread.
He couldn’t be falling in love. Not now.
Not with a woman who already planned to leave him.
Soon she would be on an undisclosed Greek island, far away from anyone’s reach. Alone. Or…
The awful realization from a moment ago was quickly pushed out by another. Livia was protecting her sister.
The story about dropping out of college, about the night of their first meeting, about her parents’ misguided efforts to amass power and wealth…
It was so obvious now that the puzzle had fit together in his mind.
Why else would she have agreed to marry someone she didn’t know, in a position she had always hated?
Of course it wasn’t for herself. She must’ve been doing this for Adele, though he had no idea what the threat to her sister was.
Still, as he played back her reactions each time he had set them on a different course, he saw the fear in her expression. Genuine fear.
Why hadn’t she told him?
That answer was easier: She didn’t trust him not to weaponize that information. Even now, after they had opened up to each other. He had thought they were growing closer. Building a new connection. But clearly it didn’t mean the same thing to her.
Anger, his old friend, shuddered through him. The urge to tear down everything around him threatened to erupt, but he held it at bay with another urge that warred inside him: The urge to lay down his arms. To give up his fight in exchange for the woman in front of him.
He couldn’t have both, not really, but tonight he would pretend. One last time. And then it would end.
Dark clouds came in from the west, sweeping over the open sky in a thick gray blanket, blowing and expanding, closing in on the crimson of the dying day.
Late into the night, when they boarded the boat and the rain began to fall, Gustav followed her down the stairs and into the bedroom.
She said nothing as she undressed, and neither did he.
He took his time with her, tracing the soft skin of her arms, the full swells of her breasts, the lush curves of her belly, her hips.
He trailed his fingers down the smooth column of her neck and reveled in the soft heaven of her fingers on his skin.
She didn’t look away. She let him see the heat, the uncertainty and, more than anything else, the want.
He wanted to give her everything, and he couldn’t.
So he pleasured her, teasing them both and listening to her fall over the edge, clinging to his self-control.
Then, when she knelt in front of him naked, her breasts brushing against his thighs and her lips so close to his hard cock, he knew that giving her up would break something in him that he would never be able to mend.
He pressed his hand to her cheek, and she looked up at him from beneath dark lashes, and her dark green eyes held both a promise and a plea: Please don’t hurt me.
Agony shot through him, draining his anger.
Or maybe he let it go. But in its place there was raw pain, and he clenched his jaw to contain it.
He had to numb himself from the hurt that his plan would cause her.
Instead, he clung to hollow vengeance toward his father and Edvin that had sustained him for so long.
Gustav had no idea what to do with the way everything seemed to have shifted inside him over the last few days.
But he couldn’t promise not to hurt Livia, not without giving up on everything he had worked for. The best he could do was to find a way to take care of her and her sister afterward. That had to be enough, because he didn’t have anything more to offer.
When she took him into her mouth, so sweet and hot, it felt as if nothing else was right in this world except this moment with Livia. He told himself that this was enough because it had to be. Then even that thought disappeared as ecstasy took over.