Chapter Thirty #3
Taddeo stopped on the opposite side of the bed, the open suitcase separating them. “I should have brought the order to you before agreeing.”
“Yes.”
“I should have told Cesare I needed your answer.”
“Yes.”
“I didn't.”
“No.”
There was no satisfaction in making him say it.
Isolde folded the scarf and placed it near the top of the suitcase, careful not to compress the silk beneath anything heavier. When she looked up again, Taddeo's expression had changed in a way she recognized but had never seen this nakedly before.
He wanted to say something.
She could almost see the words gathering behind his teeth.
Taddeo opened his mouth, then stopped.
Isolde waited despite herself.
His gaze moved over her face, and for one suspended second she thought he might finally say the thing neither of them had allowed into language. Her own heart reacted before her mind could, beating harder with a hope she resented the instant she recognized it.
Then Taddeo looked toward the suitcase.
Whatever he had been about to say disappeared.
“Nothing,” he said, though the word was accompanied by a small shake of his head and enough regret to make clear it had not been nothing. “Finish packing.”
Isolde understood why he stopped.
That almost made it worse.
If Taddeo told her he loved her now, while she packed for an exchange he had agreed to, the confession would sit dangerously close to persuasion.
Even if he meant every word, even if saying it had nothing to do with convincing her to behave differently tomorrow, neither of them could separate the declaration from the circumstances surrounding it.
He had finally learned enough not to use love as leverage.
The lesson had arrived at a devastatingly inconvenient time.
Isolde closed the suitcase halfway to test the space and discovered she still had room for her books.
She knelt beside the lower shelf and began selecting which ones belonged in the first bag, leaving professional reference volumes for a separate box because carrying twenty pounds of conservation manuals into a freight exchange seemed unnecessarily absurd.
Taddeo crouched several feet away but did not touch anything. “You can leave the books. I will have them delivered wherever you go.”
“Thank you.”
His jaw tightened at the formality again. “Please stop thanking me like I'm hotel staff.”
Isolde looked over her shoulder. “How would you prefer I speak to you?”
“Normally.”
“This is normal right now.”
“No, it isn't.”
She sat back on her heels. “You don't get to decide that either.”
Taddeo closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, the frustration had disappeared. “You're right.”
The readiness with which he accepted correction should have felt hopeful.
Instead Isolde looked around the bedroom and wondered why so many of his best changes seemed to arrive one decision too late.
She stood with two books in her hands and put them into the case. “Corwin used to do this thing when we were younger where he'd decide what I needed and then make everything around me easier so I wouldn't object.”
Taddeo's attention sharpened.
“If I was sick, he brought medicine, canceled things for me, called whoever needed calling, and then got angry if I said I still wanted to go somewhere because he'd already arranged the sensible version.” She smiled faintly without humor.
“After Mom died, it became worse. He meant well often enough that objecting made me feel ungrateful.”
Taddeo remained silent.
Isolde continued folding the remaining clothes because looking at him made the comparison harder to finish.
“He still does it now. He tells himself he's protecting me from you, so he sends coordinates and promises he can get me out.
Then when that doesn't work fast enough, he creates a deal where I go into his custody, because apparently the possibility that I might want neither man's custody never becomes the first question.”
Taddeo's face hardened at Corwin's wording. “I don't consider you in my custody.”
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“And tomorrow?”
Taddeo looked at the suitcase between them. “Tomorrow you leave.”
“That still wasn't what I asked.”
He said nothing.
Isolde zipped the smaller interior compartment and straightened.
The exhaustion returned, heavier now than anger.
She walked to the dresser and picked up her laptop charger, wrapping the cord around her palm before placing it into the front pocket of the suitcase. “Maybe Corwin and you aren't as different as either of you think.”
Taddeo went still.
Isolde met his eyes across the bed while the last of the evening's fragile politeness gave way to the one truth she needed him to hear before she stopped trying to explain herself. “You both love me most when you're deciding what happens to me.”
Taddeo's face changed as though the words had reached somewhere nothing else had managed to touch, but Isolde did not remain long enough to discover whether he had an answer.
She turned back to the suitcase and continued packing, while he stood on the other side of the bed with all the power that had once defined their relationship and nothing left he could use without proving her right.