Chapter Sixteen #2
Theo let out a shattered breath. It felt as if his brother had just sucker-punched him in the gut. But he couldn’t call the wedding off. He didn’t want to. Why couldn’t he have this one thing for himself?
He was trying to unknot his brain and figure out how he could make this all right when the bishop rushed back into the room without knocking, his robes flying.
‘Monsieur Caras, the prince’s staff cannot find the princess.’
‘They… What?’ Theo charged out of the office, to find the teams of advisers and assistants and press agents and security personnel in an uproar with Prince Andreas in the middle of it all, shouting and screaming at everyone.
‘I will not tolerate this disobedience again,’ Prince Andreas shrieked, his face so red he looked as if he were about to explode. ‘Tell her if she does not return willingly her brothers will be returning to Italy…’
Something flowed through Theo’s veins that felt like pride, sweeping away everything but a fierce feeling of respect… And longing.
‘No, they won’t,’ he announced, striding towards the prince. ‘She’s their guardian now, Andreas, not you.’
‘Did you plan this, together?’ the prince asked, apoplectic with rage now.
‘I wish,’ Theo murmured, the pride and longing becoming a tidal wave.
Freya was magnificent—so brave, so smart, so strong. If only he’d realised how magnificent, before it was too late. Of course she’d run from him. Who could blame her?
‘I will have you arrested,’ Andreas said.
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Theo replied, dismissing the man and his threats.
‘It seems the princess has taken matters into her own hands,’ his brother remarked wryly from behind him.
Theo swung round and pulled his brother to one side, the sense of urgency blinding him.
He had no time to lose. He’d been an idiot…
And a coward. But maybe it wasn’t too late to make things right…
All he had to do was bare his soul, admit he didn’t have one single clue what he was doing and not much to offer her… And beg her to forgive him.
‘How did you travel to Galicos?’ Theo asked in Greek, so the prince’s staff couldn’t understand them.
‘I had to come on the yacht, as you had already commandeered the company jet,’ Xander replied.
Was that a sign? Please let it be a sign. ‘Cover for me here. And let the yacht’s captain know I’ll be using the yacht next.’ He hoped.
Xander’s brows furrowed. ‘What are you planning to do?’
‘What I should have done days ago,’ he said. Then he headed for the back door of the chapel, raced through the corridors of the palace and ran across the winter garden in the falling snow towards the wall he had watched Freya try to scale once before.
The only difference was, now, she had scaled the walls of his heart.
Don’t stop, keep going, you can do it.
Freya strained, her arms like limp spaghetti as she pulled herself up the rope.
She couldn’t fail, not this time. Because there was no one coming to help her. This time she was truly alone.
Her boots slipped, but she held firm, her thighs trembling with the effort to make the next incremental step. To freedom—she blinked back the tears scouring her throat—if not to freedom, to independence. She’d given her heart to Theo and he’d used it against her.
‘Freya, stop!’
Her head jerked around, to see the man she had convinced herself she would never see again, standing beneath the wall, wearing his wedding suit, his dark hair speckled with the snowflakes that had begun to fall.
He clapped his hands, blew into them. ‘Come down, before we both freeze.’
‘I can’t. I won’t… I won’t marry you.’
He gave her a brief nod, his expression grim, and more serious than she had ever seen it before. ‘Okay…’ he said, simply.
For a moment her heart sang. He sounded so sincere, as if he truly respected her. Perhaps this hadn’t been a trick to get her to come back here, to make the land deal with her father… But then her mother’s letter came back to her.
I believed I loved your father when I married him.
I was young and foolish and besotted. He had sworn to protect me.
To care for me. That ours would not be a typical royal marriage.
But once we were wed, I soon realised that I was trapped here, Freya.
With a man who was not capable of love. Over the years I tried to change him, to make him love me, but if men can change who they are, it is not within a woman’s power to do it for them.
And when I met Danny, I knew—after only a week together that Christmas—that this was what I had been seeking all along.
Not infatuation, but companionship, connection, chemistry, yes, but also love.
And I could not fight for our loveless marriage any longer.
The tear fell, freezing on her cheek, but she turned back to the wall, determined to ignore Theo. If she could just get over the wall, this time. Prove to herself that she was stronger, better without his help. Then the shattering pain in her heart would eventually ease.
It has to.
But as she strained on the rope, her feet skidded again. A symbol of her weak foolish heart.
Suddenly she felt the rope tighten, and tug against her gloved hands.
‘Hold on, Freya. I’m coming to help you.’
She looked down to see him climbing the rope, hand over hand, with the easy agility she lacked.
‘Go away! I can do it on my own.’
He reached her. His hands clasping the rope above hers, his big body cradling hers and shielding her from the cold and the six-foot drop below them.
‘I know you can,’ he whispered against her neck. ‘You can do anything you set your mind to, Freya. But let me help you get over the damn wall this time.’
‘I won’t go back. I’m not getting married,’ she announced furiously.
‘I don’t care about the deal you made with my father.
And I have my brothers’ guardianship papers with me.
As soon as I get to Switzerland, I’m going to send for them.
And neither of you can stop me.’ The words barrelled out in a rush of recrimination.
She wanted to be angry with him, she had to ignore the rush of heat as his breath warmed her neck and made her skin tingle. And the foolish clattering of her heart.
‘It’s only six more feet to the top. You’ve got this, Freya, but you have to let go with this hand,’ he said, clasping her fist.
Even through her gloves she could feel his strength.
‘Now, Freya,’ he demanded. And like all the times they’d made love, when he’d taken control of her pleasure, her yearning, she found herself following his instructions instinctively.
Inch by inch, as he guided her, they edged upwards.
Finally she was able to clasp the top edge of the wall.
Bracing his feet against the brick, he boosted her the rest of the way.
Suddenly, her legs were straddling the high wall and she was looking down at the palace gardens, blanketed in snow.
She could see the chapel lights in the distance, where their wedding had been due to take place.
Her heart twisted under her ribs, the betrayal a wound that couldn’t be healed, no matter how many walls he helped her climb.
He swung a leg up and over the wall and sat facing her. Their breathing frosted in the night air.
‘What made you run this time, Freya?’ he asked, but the question was devoid of accusation, or anger. Instead she heard the note of something else… Yearning? Fear? She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t trust her ability to read him any more, because she’d been fooled by her heart before.
‘Was it the marriage, or was it me?’ he asked.
She could tell him about her mother’s letter, about the things she’d realised, the strength it had given her to stick up for herself again. But it wasn’t her mother’s story that had given her the courage in the end. It was the knowledge she deserved so much more than he had offered her.
‘Both.’ She looked out over the landscape, the foolish tears falling down her cheeks. ‘I’m in love with you, Theo. I have no control over that… But I won’t let you take my freedom from me.’
He nodded and scooped a tear off her cheek. Apparently, this wasn’t news to him.
Her heart shattered all over again. To realise she’d been right. He’d known how she felt and he’d used her feelings against her.
But then he ran his thumb down the side of her frozen face. And let out a heavy sigh.
‘Don’t cry, Freya. I don’t deserve your tears. I never did.’
‘Oh, just shut up,’ she said, furious now, with herself as well as him. ‘I can’t cut off my emotions the way you can. And I refuse to try. You weren’t honest with me, Theo. You agreed the wedding date with my father three days ago. Why did you lie? When you didn’t have to?’
‘He was going to destroy your reputation, Freya, screw with your brothers the way he had screwed with you. I didn’t want that to happen. I did what I thought was right, to protect you. To protect them.’
‘That’s bullshit and you know it,’ she replied.
‘If you’d told me that marriage was the only way to free my brothers, to save Galicos from bankruptcy that day, I would have agreed.
But you didn’t give me all the facts. And because you didn’t, I didn’t have the chance to make those choices for myself. ’
He swore softly in Greek, a word she had come to recognise whenever he was angry or frustrated, but the expression on his face was one she’d never seen before, because it was transparent and totally unguarded.
The charm and confidence had finally been stripped away completely, until all she could see was the man…
And maybe the boy, who had once been so powerless…
Because suddenly he looked as hopeless as she felt.
He let out a heavy sigh. ‘Fine, I admit it. I didn’t think you’d agree to marry me if I told you the truth.’
Her breath hitched in her chest, the pain somehow worse because of his regret. ‘What truth?’