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Not that she needed him to love her, she’d decided as his tall form disappeared in the crowded ballroom. It didn’t matter in the end. Because what she wanted was his happiness, and that was all that mattered to her. He had no one. His parents were gone, he had no siblings, no friends. He was an island, in splendid isolation, and she was his only bridge.
He might decide to divorce her and he probably would—‘for her own good’. But she didn’t care if he did. She wasn’t going to leave him. She couldn’t leave him. And she’d rather be trapped inside the walls of the palace with him than be free to go wherever she wanted, because his happiness was her happiness and there was no freedom without him.
So she’d gone after him, to tell him that she wouldn’t be leaving him, and had found him on the balcony alone, a look of despair on his face.
He’d muttered something about divorce, but she’d ignored that, showing him, then telling him, that she wasn’t going to leave.
Her heart felt barbed and sharp, but the pain wasn’t as bad as when she’d stood in the ballroom, because she’d made a decision. It hurt now, though, with his warm palms against her cheek, his expression fierce, silver eyes blazing as he told her she deserved happiness.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. And luckily I already have it here with you.’
‘Guinevere…’
‘You make me happy, my king. And you don’t need to do anything more and you don’t need to be anything else. Just you, as you are.’
‘Two hours a day,’ he said roughly. ‘You wanted more than two hours.’
She tightened her arms around him, holding him fast. ‘If you can only give me two hours, then I will be happy with that.’ Her eyes prickled with the force of her emotions. ‘I will never be happy without you, Tiberius. Don’t you understand that?’
The look on his face intensified, and the silver flames in his eyes burned impossibly bright, and for a long time he just looked down at her. Then he said, his voice hot and deep, ‘You told me that love isn’t something that’s finite and I think you’re right. I’ve been afraid that I can’t love you and my country at the same time, but I think I’ve been doing so for the past two weeks.’
A hot wash of shock went through her, her painful heart igniting into flame. ‘You…love me?’
Tiberius smiled, natural and brilliant, like the sun coming out. ‘Yes, little lioness. I love you.’ Then he bent his head and kissed her, his mouth hot and demanding, and when he came up for air, he growled, ‘Two hours, my queen. I demand two hours of your time every day. Two hours for the rest of my life.’
‘Two hours? My king, I will give you eternity.’
And she did.
EPILOGUE
‘There,’ Tiberius said,adjusting the telescope. ‘Can you see Venus? It’s very bright.’
Standing beside him under the orange trees, on the grass of the orchard, his lioness peered through the high-powered telescope Tiberius had brought with him.
‘Oh, yes!’ she exclaimed in wonder. ‘You’re right. It’s amazingly bright.’
It was their little ritual—to come out here at night once a month, to look at the stars and remind themselves of the whole beautiful universe that they were only tiny parts of.
Plus, Tiberius simply liked astronomy, and had been pursuing it whenever he had a moment. Which was more often than he’d expected.
Being a king was hard work, as his father had said, but it was work that he shared with his lovely wife—and a burden shared was a burden halved.
He glanced down at the baby who slept peacefully in the crook of his arm. His gorgeous daughter and his heir, barely three weeks old and already proving to be a lioness, just like her mother.
He’d thought it wasn’t possible to love his wife and his country at the same time, but it was eminently possible. Just as it was possible for that love to grow to include his new daughter, and any more children they would have together.
And there would be more. He’d already decided.
Love expands, he thought, slipping his free arm around his wife, and holding her close.
Love was as infinite as the stars.