Chapter Thirteen #3
“Her husband,” Gustav thundered. He braced himself as the words triggered a wave of desire and longing that had no place in the cold excesses of this room. “Do you care about your daughter, or is she a negotiation tool?”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Jacard quickly, but he looked away.
“She can participate as a partner in this negotiation whenever she chooses,” Gustav said.
It was at this inopportune time that the full effect of his mistakes hit him.
He had demanded Livia’s obedience, but now he could feel that wasn’t what he wanted from her, not really.
When he said he wanted Livia by his side, he had wanted a partner with all of her compassion and strength who would be there for him.
And now she was on an unnamed Greek island far across the continent.
If he wanted to find her, he would have to convince the pilot to help him locate her.
“I’m here.”
Her voice floated through the room, but Gustav was sure he was imagining it. He could only hope so many times. Still, he turned.
Livia stood in the doorway. She was wearing the same navy dress that she had worn when she had ridden away in the tender this morning, but she had pinned her hair into a twist at her nape, exposing the graceful column of her neck.
She looked like a princess, and she looked like Livia. So beautiful it made him ache.
But both his father and Jacard were looking in her direction, too.
Livia glanced at Gustav, and her gaze was wary.
She was quite possibly still furious with him, but she was here.
That was something. Gustav resisted the urge to cross the room and carry her away somewhere where they were alone, where he could show her exactly how much he needed her. Over and over.
He loved her.
The truth of that simple thought rang through him. He clenched his fists, resisting the urge to get to his knees right here and tell her that. Soon, he told himself. Instead, he watched as her chest rose and fell, and she approached the table.
“What is this?” the king barked. “What is going on?”
Gustav raised his eyebrows. Even when he had gotten kicked out of school, his father had not raised his voice—or shown any emotion beyond disdain. It was a reminder of how much his father wanted and expected control.
“Let’s begin,” said Gustav smoothly as Livia sat in the chair between his father and him. “I have a public campaign ready to launch that details your spending over the past five years and proposes an alternate plan for investing in the country.”
Livia stilled, and Gustav had to force himself to keep his gaze on his father.
“You have given me every reason to destroy your public image and take away your power. But my wife has challenged me to think beyond revenge.” He flashed his father a tight smile. “I admit, I am out of practice.”
The room was silent, and his father’s jaw flexed in unspent anger.
Jacard was silent, his brow was deeply creased.
They were both waiting to hear his next move so they could each figure out their most advantageous position.
Not so long ago, the power he was wielding would have invigorated him.
But right now, he just wanted to finish this conversation so that he could talk to Livia alone.
“Do you have contact with my brother?” he asked the king.
His father frowned. “He has been located.”
There was an uncharacteristic uncertainty in the king’s voice, and Gustav noted the evasiveness in his answer.
There was something Gustav was missing about his brother’s disappearance.
Whatever was keeping his brother away, his father was clearly not privy to it.
Which implied a distance between the two men that Gustav had not suspected.
“Then you can pass on this message,” he said.
“Livia and I, together, will control the money from this marriage.
I am giving both you and Edvin two weeks to propose spending plans that put the welfare of this country at the center.
Those plans will be considered alongside our clean-energy initiative, when Livia and I make decisions.
“I may be the Bastard Spare, but I am still a member of the royal house, and I will not waste this position on my own gratification. And that includes revenge.” He glanced at Livia, then turned back to his father.
“I will not drag your excess spending to the court of public opinion, but you are done spending the country’s money on thinly veiled personal gratification. ”
“I don’t care where the money goes.” Henri Jacard pounded the back of the chair with both hands. “I arranged this marriage for the benefits of a royal title, and now Livia is part of the scandal of the month. This is a breach of contract.”
Gustav froze as this new possibility spread out in front of him. Livia would have no reason to stay. “Are you suggesting you would annul the contract?”
“And the marriage.”
A familiar, dark thundercloud hovered, its dangerous bolts ready to strike at the nearest target.
If Jacard annulled the contract, Livia could leave him and marry another royal.
Just a few days ago, he would have been venting his anger into coldly weighing different paths to renegotiate, to make sure he maintained control of the situation.
But instead, all he could think about was those last words. Her father would end their marriage.
Slowly, he turned to Livia. “Is that what you want?”
She met his gaze, and it felt as if everything that had happened between them since the day he showed up at her apartment passed between them.
His manipulations in bringing her to the church, and the kiss at the altar that had hinted at something different.
Her demand that they spent their married lives a continent apart.
Each night on the boat that had brought them closer instead.
Their last fight that had made the distance feel unbridgeable.
Was it? Could she trust him after everything that had happened between them?
They had started on unequal footing, and he would never be a man for whom compromise would come easy.
But as he looked at her, he knew that there was nothing more that he wanted than a life by her side, and he was willing to work as hard as he could for it.
You know me. Do you still want me? It was the question he had been too afraid to ask, and now it hung between them.
His heart thudded ominously in his chest as he waited. Finally, her bright green eyes met his, and when they softened, it was as if the weight that he had held up for his whole life, the armor that he had been holding could finally be lowered.
Then she looked at her father. “I want this marriage.”