Chapter Twelve
IT TOOK EVERY single ounce of willpower not to run after him. She felt physically ill, shaken all over.
She felt as though she’d just been lanced clear through her heart.
She felt everything, even when she showed nothing.
She felt his offer, his words, his hurt, his love.
She felt the truth of his statement even when she knew that she had to resist and protect herself.
To keep her heart under lock and key for the rest of her life, rather than risk the pain of losing him.
For as much as this hurt now, she couldn’t even contemplate what it would be like if any harm were to befall him.
And how does letting him go protect him from that?
It didn’t. But in time, she would care for him less. She would become less attached, less fixated. She would be able to let him go, one day.
But not this day. At least, not emotionally.
While she’d watched him walk out of her apartment, knowing it would be the last time she saw him, he was still there, inside of her, for the entire rest of the day.
When she closed her eyes, she saw his face.
She imagined reaching out and touching him, running her fingers over those familiar, stubbled cheekbones, staring up into those incredible eyes, his mouth dropping to claim hers.
Speculation about their relationship didn’t help.
Everywhere she turned, she saw people gossiping.
She knew that this was not a situation that would go away quickly, for the simple reason that she had never truly dated before.
When the press had tried valiantly to spin any possible photo of her talking to a man into a story, it had been flimsy at best. Whereas those photos were beyond question evidence of a relationship.
Those photos were also a guilty secret for Astrid.
Each night, when she climbed into bed, she’d load them up on her phone and stare at his face.
At the way he was holding her, so protective and strong, so understanding and, yes, lovingly.
As though he would gift her every star in heaven, if she wanted it.
How had she not seen that? How had he?
It felt as though they’d both been blindsided by the falling in love part of this. Though, unlike Astrid, Javier had been brave enough to step into that love, rather than run from it.
Then again, he didn’t have the expectations of a kingdom wrapping around his throat so tightly it was almost impossible to breathe.
* * *
Javier had lived most of the formative years of his life in Norvenheim and yet Spain was home.
Spain was where he’d been born and where he’d found his feet.
Where he’d built the solid foundations of his life post-Carlotta and post-Juanita.
Brick by brick, step by step, he’d found his purpose and strength there.
So why, when he looked out at the familiar streets, from his luxurious penthouse apartment, did he feel nothing but distance?
A sense of being untethered from not just this city, but his whole life.
He felt an unbreachable distance had formed, separating him forever from the world he’d so comfortably and confidently inhabited only two weeks earlier.
He gripped the crystal glass of scotch with enough force to break it, before lifting it to his lips and letting the pungent, spiced aroma assail his senses.
His eyes squeezed shut as he threw the whole measure back, taking comfort from its predictable heat and the potential it had to numb him completely.
To numb him against the deep, tormenting pain of her rejection and the way it had stirred so many memories of pain to life. Of the way she’d briefly made him remember what it was like to be worthless. Unwanted. Discarded and unloved.
And this was so much worse, because unlike Carlotta, Juanita and even the mother he no longer remembered, in the space of such a short time Astrid had become…
his everything. His all. The woman he would fight lions with his bare hands for if it would keep her safe.
The woman he loved with every ounce of his heart.
But it wasn’t enough.
He strode across the living room to the sleek, polished wood bar, a tribute to mid-century modern design aesthetics, and poured himself another measure of scotch.
The dusk sky was a tribute to a moody palette of greys and mauve, the hint of night smudging across the horizon.
He lifted the glass to take a drink then slammed it back on the counter with a harsh curse that ricocheted through the space.
Fuck this.
He was Javier Diamandi and he had built his life from the ruins of hatred and rejection once before. He had conquered heartbreak and hurt once, and he would do it again. And he knew just where to start.
Astrid had dismissed his love, his offer of marriage, as though he meant nothing.
Maybe he had to do the same thing. Maybe he had to act as though she was just some other woman he’d taken to bed and enjoyed the pleasures of sex with.
Maybe it was time to move on, find someone else and begin to erase her from his mind, his heart and his body.
To erase her from the future that he’d started to want, almost more than anything…
* * *
The day after Christmas had only one small event, which Astrid attended physically, even when mentally she remained focused on Javier. The following day she had to herself, which was somehow worse, because it gave her far too much time to think and to crave. To miss him as though she’d lost a limb.
Prior to meeting Javier, Otto had been one of several men she’d considered suitable husband material.
As she perused the guest list for the New Year’s Eve ball, she realised that at least three of those men would be in attendance.
It would have been the perfect opportunity to get to know them better in a low-pressure environment, to speak to them at length because she would be in host mode.
But the thought of even entertaining the idea of marriage was impossible to bear in that moment.
She knew it would come to it. The same pressure that had been building around her from when she was around nineteen years of age was now at fever pitch.
Particularly in the wake of her romance with Javier.
He’d left the country immediately after their fight.
She only knew because it had been widely reported on.
Even without her being at his home, paparazzi were camped out there.
They’d trailed him all the way to a small airport outside the city and photographed him getting onboard his private jet.
She’d thought she might be able to exhale, with temptation no longer within reach, but it only bound everything up more tightly inside of her.
Grief saturated her. Not a familiar grief either.
This hadn’t slammed into her with the power of a freight train and fundamentally changed her world.
This was different. It felt as though it had swept her into a current and was dragging her endlessly towards the bottom of the ocean.
She could hardly breathe, she could hardly think, she couldn’t sleep.
She kept replaying their last conversation over and over again and imagining what it would have been like to let herself love.
To let her heart do what it clearly wanted and give herself to him.
Yet how could he have expected that of her? How could he have expected it after such a short time?
Because he was right.
She stifled the thought, focusing instead on the guest list, making notes, ensuring no one had been left out.
Only, even as she focused on the work at hand—duty, duty, duty—he was there, in her mind.
Promising her the world, showing his courage and bravery, only to be shut down.
By her. Because she couldn’t let herself love.
Especially not him. She’d been right, she knew she’d been right, but it didn’t take away from the sting she felt at knowing she’d hurt him.
That she’d let him down. Until the day she died, she knew she would see his face, exactly as it had been in that moment, the rejection heavy on his features, just as it might have been when he was a boy and his own stepmother pushed him away.
She almost groaned aloud as she remembered his pain and faced the reality of having been the cause of it. God, how she hated herself for that. How she hated this whole godawful mess.
The ball itself was one of the hardest nights of her life.
It was a long event, filled with merriment and cheer, and even Astrid—an excellent performer—couldn’t fake it that well.
Not when she felt the exact opposite. She watched the fireworks with a swirling sense of relief, because it meant the whole thing was almost over and she could slip from the crowd and disappear into the palace, to be on her own again.
As she was determined she always would be, at least in her heart.
The ball was difficult, but it was nothing compared to the next morning—the first day of the new year. When she checked her phone, out of habit, and went to a major news site, his photo was there. Only, he wasn’t alone.
She sat up straight, her heart leaping into her throat at the sight of Javier, her Javier, with his arm around another woman.
The blonde was staring up at him, smiling, looking like the cat that had got the cream.
Astrid knew, because that’s how she’d felt, for a small time.
That’s how she’d felt when she was with him.
‘Oh God,’ she whispered, pressing a hand to her mouth, trying to stop the sob that wrenched from her, but it was too late.
Grief was no longer swallowing her, it was ripping her to shreds. She lay back against her pillows, phone dropped to the bed beside her, and she cried all the sadness, hurt and hopelessness that was buried deep in her heart.
* * *