The Queen's Baby Scandal Page 15

  “Is it? Because it seems to be something that terrifies you. I love you,” she said it again.

  “That isn’t what I want,” he said.

  “I don’t care what you want.”

  “No. You never have, have you? You find it so easy to make proclamations, to say that you’re going to change because you now realize the error of your selfish, entitled ways, but you don’t actually intend to do it, do you? Because the moment that it becomes inconvenient for you, you begin to tell other people they are wrong.”

  “That isn’t what I’ve done,” she said, pushing back, indignation and anger filling her. “I love you, Mauro, and if that offends you so very much you might want to ask yourself why.”

  “That is not what I signed on for when I signed on for this marriage.”

  “Yes. You only signed on for forever and said that I was yours. Why would I think a little thing like love would be a simple thing for you to accept?”

  “You say that you want nothing, but in the end, you will,” he said. “Nothing that I do will be enough for you, now that you’ve entered love into the equation.”

  “That sounds like baggage that we haven’t discussed,” she said flatly. “Because I never asked for a damn thing.”

  “This is not the way that I operate. It is not what I do.”

  “No,” she said. “I know. You’ve done anything and everything to build yourself this tower. This place where you can look down on the world. And you seem to be fine as long as we can play games, and you can look down on me when I’m naked, and I give you everything that you desire. But now that I’m telling you there’s more, now that I’m telling you I want more, you find that to be a problem?”

  “You’re asking for the impossible. You’re asking for something I can’t give,” he said, his voice hard. “I don’t love.”

  “You’re not going to love our child?”

  “Dammit. I already do,” he said, his voice hoarse. “But I...”

  “But you can’t love too many people, is that it? You can’t open your heart any farther? Because you might be hurt?”

  “You don’t understand. I had to make myself hard. I had to build myself a tower, because no one would take care of me. My mother loved me, and she did the best she could, but when she was whoring herself out, she didn’t exactly enact a screening process to make sure that none of the men she brought into her home tried something with her son. And no, none of them ever succeeded, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Yes, I had to become hard. So you cannot ask for me to open up my heart on command. I’m not even certain it’s possible. More than that, I’m not certain I want to. I want to have this arrangement.”

  “More fortification. That’s what you want. You marry me, you get that.”

  “That is not why I married you.”

  “You married me for our child,” she said. “And certainly not anything to do with the fact that you keep hoping if you put enough Band-Aids on this wound you’ll be all right.”

  “I am an infamous playboy,” he said, his tone hard. “I am legendary for my ability to sleep with women and move on. What makes you think you’re any different?”

  “I know I’m different,” she said. “I am a queen, and not just that, but I am your queen. You are the only man that I have ever knelt before, and the only man that I ever will kneel before. But until you can set down your own pride, and you can make yourself honest, afraid, vulnerable, we can’t ever be. You’re right about that.”

  “Are you issuing ultimatums?”

  “Yes. As I said before, we had to either be forever or not at all. But to me, now forever is about love. Because I lived in a family where pride and stubbornness won. I lived in a home where there wasn’t...love. Not really. I won’t treat our child to the same. I will not. I won’t treat you to the same. I deserved more. I deserve more, and I didn’t get it. Because those around me were content to let it be. While I am not. Not anymore.”

  “And what will you do if I say no?”

  “I will get on my private jet and I will fly back to Bjornland. You may come and see me again when the baby is born. But you and I are not a couple.”

  “I will not allow you to keep the marriage. I will not allow you to keep your front for the benefit of the world.”

  “I don’t care. Or have you not been listening? I don’t care anymore. It isn’t about image. None of this is about image. I want you. I love you. I don’t care how it looks. I don’t give a damn if you were a prostitute. I don’t care who your mother was. I don’t care who your father is. I care about us. I care about our baby. I care about what we could be. And how much happiness we could have. How much more we could have.”

  She touched his face. “You were fearless once. You climbed up to your father’s house and faced him when you were a boy, not having any idea what you might get in return. I’m standing here guaranteeing that you will have me. All you have to do is say yes.”

  “No,” he said. “The divorce papers will be in the mail.”

  “Mauro...”

  Astrid had to make good on her promise. And in her last act of paying heed to appearances, she squared her shoulders, and held her head high. She collected her clothing, and dressed in front of him, hiding nothing. Then she walked out of his apartment, out of his life.

  And only when she was in her plane, up in the air and alone, did she let herself weep.

  But she knew she had made the right choice. Because she was the queen of so many. The hope of a nation.

  But to Mauro, she had been a woman. To Mauro, she had been Astrid.

  And Astrid wanted his love.

  She would settle for nothing less.

  * * *

  Mauro was a study in misery, and he stubbornly refused to believe that he had any recourse in the matter. Astrid was being unreasonable. He called his lawyer in the middle of the night, in a fit of rage, and had divorce papers drafted.

  And then had spent the next three days doing nothing with them. Nothing at all. The view from his office window was tainted, and he hated it all now because of her. Because of what she’d said. That he was using it to look down and hold himself above.

  “Mr. Bianchi...”

  He turned around to see Carlo rushing nervously into the room, with Gunnar von Bjornland striding in front of him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked his soon-to-be former brother-in-law.

  “I should think that was quite obvious. Oh, but then I forget you don’t know that I have a gun hidden in my jacket.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Yes. I knew that you would hurt my sister.”

  “To the contrary, your sister walked away from me.”

  “Astrid is a sensible woman. If she walked away from you, she had a reason.”

  “Yes, your sister is just so damn sensible. So sensible that she sneaked away from her minders, went to one of my clubs and tricked me into getting her pregnant. Then married me. Then left me when I refused to produce the correct words of love on command. Truly, it is a miracle that I was able to walk away from such a creature.”

  “I will concede that her tricking you into getting her pregnant is a problem. The rest... Why don’t you love her? Everyone should.”

  The words hit him square in the chest, because actually he could only agree with them. Everyone should love her. She was strong, and her belief in him was the strange, unfailing thing. The way that she bonded herself to him, even as he told her about his past, the way that she stood resolute, as he showed her the slums that he’d been born in.

  Truly, there seemed to be nothing he could do to lower himself in Astrid’s esteem. After a lifetime of finding he could not raise himself in the esteem of others no matter what he did, it was a strange and refreshing thing.

  “Is it that simple to undo a lifetime of not loving?” he asked.


  “I don’t know,” Gunnar said. “I personally have yet to overcome much of my life. And I suppose it could be argued that no matter the situation with our parents, that we have had it easier. Astrid certainly had a different situation than I did. An heir and spare cannot, and will not have the same experience. But our parents were hard on her. And if they loved, they did not show it in easy, warm ways. If Astrid loves you, then it is truly an act of bravery. Not just because there has been nothing in our lives to suggest that love is something to aspire to, but because in Astrid’s world nothing has been more important than maintaining that facade that she spent her entire life cultivating. That sense of total invulnerability. That sense of perfection. And then she married you. And we all saw those headlines about you. She went with you to Italy, she made a show of being yours no matter what, and I’m not sure that you can possibly understand what that means.”

  “Because I’m nothing but the son of a whore.”

  “Because you weren’t raised to care quite so much. Your entire world never stopped and turned on your reputation. But for Astrid it did. You don’t know what she has given up for you. How could you understand? And yet, she gave you the gift of her love and you threw it back in her face. If you divorce her and humiliate her on top of it...”

  “Is that why you’re really here? To prevent embarrassment?”

  Gunner shrugged a shoulder. “My function in the royal family has never been to prevent embarrassment. Whatever Astrid is, I’m her opposite. My father always felt that I should be the one ruling the country, but I can tell you with great certainty that is not true. She is strong. Not only the strongest woman I know, but the strongest person I have ever had the privilege to be acquainted with. My sister is phenomenal, and you would be privileged to have her. Not because she is blue-blooded. Not because she is a royal, and you’re not. But because she has come through our lives with the ability to love, which is more than I can say for myself. The strength in her... If you truly understood it, you would be humbled. But I am not certain that you can. Not unless you find a way to do the same thing she has done.”

  “I’m tired of receiving lectures from poor little rich kids who imagine that their emotional struggles somehow equal the emotional and physical struggles that I endured. Unless you know what it is to sell your body for a place to stay, I’m not entirely sure we can sit here and compare war wounds.”

  “Perhaps not,” he said. “But then...” He shrugged. “So what?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “So what? Your life was hard. Maybe it was harder than mine. Perhaps harder than Astrid’s. Perhaps it is a struggle now, for you to figure out how to accept love. But so what? That part of your life is over now. You have money, you could buy whatever it is you need to make your life whatever it is you want, but the one thing you cannot pay to make better, or make go away, is the situation with my sister. That requires feelings. And it requires work. And in the end, life doesn’t care how hard you worked for it. But it might mean more to you. If you figure out the way through. But you won’t be given instant happiness simply because it would’ve been harder for you to sort yourself out than it might be for me.”

  Gunnar straightened the cuffs on his shirtsleeves, then treated Mauro to the iciest look he’d ever received. “Remember what I said. Do not embarrass my sister. Don’t give me a reason to come for you.”

  And then, as he appeared, Gunnar walked out of his office. Carlo looked around the corner, his expression one of comical concern.

  “Leave,” Mauro said.

  And Carlo vanished instantly.

  Mauro was hardly going to listen to the ranting of a rich prince who wouldn’t know struggle if it transformed into a snake and bit him in the face. But one thing kept replaying over and over in his head.

  So what?

  So everything.

  Everything.

  Because his life had been about struggle. Had been about wanting. And Astrid created more of that feeling inside him than anything else ever had. That ache. That sense of being unsatisfied. Unfulfilled. Of needing more than he would ever be able to have. A desperate hunger that could not be satisfied by food, by money. On that score he was right, as well. Because he knew that this was something that money could not solve. Knew that it was something he would not be able to fix. And that left him feeling...

  Helpless. Utterly and completely helpless.

  He hated that. There was no depth he would not sink to, he had proved that. He was willing to prostitute himself. He was willing to claw his way up to the top if need be. But there was no clawing here. There were no building towers. There was only...

  There was only lowering himself.

  As Astrid had said. Making himself into some debased creature all for her, and he didn’t have any concept of how he might do that. Of what could possibly entice him to behave in such a way.

  To leave all he’d created, to lower all his shields.

  To make himself less.

  Love.

  The need for it, the drive for it... It was the thing that was pushing him forward now. It was the thing that was making him miserable, the thing in his chest that made him want. And he did not understand how he was supposed to do it.

  How he was supposed to...

  It wasn’t fair. She made him ache. She made him feel things, want things, need things that he had sworn he never would again.

  Is she the one making you feel this? Or is it you?

  And that was when the whole room seemed to turn.

  And he wondered.

  Perhaps it was Astrid who made him want. Perhaps it was Astrid who existed to fulfill the want that already existed inside him, and having her there, so close, and not allowing himself to have it all.

  Maybe, she was not the problem. Maybe she was the answer to a hole that had already existed. To a need that had been present.

  If only he was willing to cross the divide.

  If only he was willing to admit that for all his power. For all that he had...

  He could not fix it on his own.

  He needed her.

  He needed her. And he would do whatever he needed to get her back.

  “Carlo,” he said, his assistant appearing as if by magic. “Ready my plane. We’re going back to Bjornland.”

  “As you wish.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ASTRID WAS NOT looking forward to this year’s Christmas celebration at all.

  It was a massive party, and in her mind, it was a total farce. There was nothing to celebrate. Yes, the impending birth of her son was joyous, but she was broken and alone, and it would take some time before she felt anything beyond that.

  Still, all had been planned and arranged, and she was expected to participate whether she wanted to or not.

  Things at the palace had changed.

  In spite of the fact that Mauro was not in residence, her situation with the council was resolved.

  While they would still exist, as long as the men wished to hold the office, she would disband it formally once they all retired, or passed on to the next life. And for now they existed as figureheads, symbols, more than anything else.

  Which, in her mind, was much better than her existing as such.

  The room was full of revelers, crystals dripping from each and every surface of the glorious ballroom.

  The Christmas tree loomed large in the corner, a glowing beacon. At least it usually was. Right now the great golden glow mocked her. A symbol of joy and hope when she could feel none of it at all right now.

  All of the decorations were ornate, in a way that she didn’t truly enjoy, though she’d had her bedroom redone.

  The thought made her smile, if somewhat sadly. Because it was something Mauro had said she should do, and even though he had hurt her, she knew that he was right.

  And every night she
wished that he were there with her.

  Even though she shouldn’t. Even though she shouldn’t wish to see him again. Not ever.

  Love, it turned out, did not fade simply because someone wronged you. Love, it turned out, was a terrible inconvenience.

  The ball gown she was wearing was a gossamer, floaty confection that hung loosely over her curves, which was a necessity given that they were expanding with each passing day. That was another thing that made her miss him.

  He was missing all of the changes, and it made her indescribably sad that this was the case. Guests were being brought forward to where she sat, being presented to her one by one. And there were any number of ushers dressed in navy blue suits, with gold epaulets on their shoulders, traditional dress for noblemen imbuing land.

  Astrid was quite bored with it, and trying her best to appear engaged. It wasn’t any of her guests’ fault that she was brokenhearted, after all.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another of the greeters moving toward her, his head bent low. His hands behind his back. He did not have a guest on his arm. She looked at him, and her heart hit the front of her chest.

  “What are you...”

  “My Queen,” he said, bending to one knee in front of her.

  Mauro. He was here. And he was dressed as... One of the ushers.

  “I had to sneak into your party,” he said, his voice low, “especially as my name is mud here at the palace.”

  “Yes,” she said, feeling dizzy. “It is.”

  “I had to come and find you,” he said. “And I took inspiration for how from you. But I have something that I think belongs to you.”

  He reached out from behind his back, and produced her shoe. That crystalline beauty that she had worn and left behind the night she had seduced him at the club. “I believe this is yours.”

  “Yes,” she said, her throat dry. “It is.”

  “You would permit me to see, if it fits?”

  A bubble of laughter rose up in her throat. “If you must.”

  “I must,” he said gravely. “Because the woman whose foot fits this shoe has something of mine. My heart. But more than that, my everything. I thought... Astrid, I thought that you made me hurt. That you made me incomplete, but that is not true. Instead, you revealed to me the empty space in my soul, and you are the only thing that can fill it. I blamed you, but you are not the problem. You are the solution. And so... Let me see. Do me the honor of showing me if you are in fact the woman who fits the shoe. Who fits that hole inside me.”