Page 242

But that couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.
“I’m proud of you.”
His father clapped him on the shoulder, and as he walked down the corridor, he was overcome with a sense of disquiet. He walked into his bedroom, and found that Stevie was there waiting for him.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.”
“My father approves of you.”
“Well. I’m very glad to hear that.”
“I would have married you anyway,” he said.
He began to take his clothes off, and made his way toward the bed.
Stevie let the covers fall away, and revealed her shapely figure. How he wanted her. It surpassed anything. He had been honest with her when he said he didn’t typically know the women that he had sexual relationships with. And, of course, it was in all that was always inevitable that he would know his wife in that way. But he had never imagined… He had never imagined his wife being somebody that he wanted. He had always thought that duty would be the main driver. And yet. With her, the possibility for something more existed.
And yet. And yet he wondered if he could give her what she needed.
Or if he was simply consigning her to an incomplete life.
She looked up at him, her expression luminous. How was it that only weeks ago he had not known this woman?
He could not fathom it.
His life had changed, and he had changed. Perhaps it was the near-death experience. Perhaps it was just the experience. Or maybe it was her.
And one thing he did know, was that he needed to change. Maybe he needed to let himself be changed by her. Though the very idea…made him feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff. Because hadn’t his father been changed by his mother, and to what effect?
Hadn’t he been changed by his mother?
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “What you did today was extraordinary.”
“I don’t know that I feel it was extraordinary. I just listened to people.”
“They don’t teach you how to do that.”
“In prince school?”
He laughed, and let his knuckles drift over one of her breasts. “No. They don’t. I was taught a great many things. I told you. I had my nanny. Who was quite firm with me. I didn’t learn to listen, though, I learned to give people what they wanted. On the surface. I was quite expert at that. I wondered sometimes if I would’ve known how to do that before my mother left if she would’ve stayed.”
“Your mother didn’t leave because of you.”
He nodded slowly. “It isn’t important.”
“Why do you think it’s not important? It comes up all the time. It is your reason for so many things.”
He frowned. She wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t like it being trotted out before him like that.
“It’s the whole reason for your image. For all of your incorrigible behavior. You know that. You do. Why, then, are you afraid to admit it?”
“Because I don’t want to be affected by anything. But I recognize that I am. After all, I did cultivate this whole persona to get all eyes on me. I don’t suppose I ever learned how to be much more than a persona. Maybe that’s the real reason I didn’t tell you my name. Maybe it wasn’t so much that I wanted to see you treat me as a real person. I wanted to feel like a real person. One who wasn’t performing. One who wasn’t on notice.”
“I know what it’s like,” she said. “You have your life decided for you. Yours was decided by birth, mine was decided by tragedy. It makes it hard to know who you are.”
“I know who I am,” he said.