Page 22 of Twins For His Majesty (Royally Tempted #1)

‘Cancer.’ She toyed with her hair, pulling it over one shoulder. ‘She only lived a year after her diagnosis. It was very aggressive.’ Tears sparkled on Phoebe’s lashes then. ‘I was devastated.’

‘You must have been. What happened to you, Phoebe? You were only seventeen and an orphan. Where did you live?’

She shrugged softly. ‘I just didn’t tell anybody.

I kept paying rent until the lease ended, I kept going through the motions, but meanwhile, I was packing up Mum’s stuff and working out what the hell to do with my life.

I missed her so much it felt like I’d been shot.

’ She shook her head. ‘I was just in a grief fog, I think.’

He nodded with genuine understanding.

‘When did you get the job at the school?’

‘That’s what I was doing all along,’ she clarified. ‘When my mum got sick and I needed work. An old teacher of mine had moved there—she got the job for me. It was just basic admin work.’

He reached across then, finding the hand she’d withdrawn from him earlier, and weaving their fingers together, making it harder for her to pull away from him. Not that she wanted to.

‘And eventually, you met Christopher.’

Her stomach dropped. She thought of Christopher, his steely blue eyes, dimpled cheeks, short blond hair.

She thought of the way she used to look at him and believe him to be the most handsome, perfect man in the world.

She thought of all the things she’d thought and how wrong she’d been, and it was a perfect reminder that she couldn’t trust her instincts.

She couldn’t trust that what she felt was actually true. She’d been so wrong about him.

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me, querida , what was the age difference between the two of you?’

Her skin prickled with goose bumps at the easy way he slid the term of endearment into the question. It meant nothing though. He’d used the same phrase the first time they’d been together. It was just habit for Octavio, it didn’t mean anything. None of this did.

Reluctance held her silent a moment. ‘He was older.’

‘How much older?’

She bit into her lip. ‘About ten years.’

Octavio’s eyes darkened. ‘And did he know about your mother?’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘One of the teachers said something. He’d remarked on me being very quiet, so she’d told him why.’

‘I see.’

‘What do you see?’

‘A man who recognised a vulnerable, grieving young woman and turned that to his advantage.’

‘The same could be said of you and me,’ she pointed out. Then quickly added, lest he misunderstand her comparison, ‘You were grieving. Did I take advantage of you?’

‘We both know the opposite is true.’

‘Oh, really? How did you take advantage of me?’

His thumb stroked the flesh on the back of her hand. ‘Perhaps you were intimidated by me? I am the King. Maybe you felt you had to say yes to me?’

She gasped. ‘Don’t. Don’t say that. Don’t turn—what that night was—into that.’

He scanned her face. ‘What was that night?’

Heat flushed through her. She felt dangerously close to a precipice she didn’t even want to approach, let alone tip over.

‘It was not that. I didn’t care that you’re a king.

I never did. You asked me to call you Octavio and I did.

You were…a man. And I was a woman. And what we shared that night had nothing to do with your position or power or pressure.

It was about us wanting each other, wanting to comfort each other.

It was a moment of shared madness, sure, but it wasn’t a case of anyone being taken advantage of. You can’t really think that?’

‘No,’ he admitted after a beat, and he smiled in a way that made her feel as though she were floating. ‘But I’m relieved to hear you don’t either.’

She squeezed his hand as a prelude to pulling away, but he held tight and she gave up quickly. It was a weakness, but she liked the way it felt to be intertwined like this.

‘It’s incredible to think that our babies were conceived that night, and we had no idea.’

‘I used protection,’ he said, rubbing his spare hand over his jaw.

‘I know.’

‘You’re not on the pill?’

She shook her head. ‘Christopher and I had discussed trying for a baby as soon as we were married.’ Her voice cracked a little. She’d never get over how duplicitous he’d been, and how completely she’d fallen for his lies.

Octavio’s eyes narrowed. ‘When were you to marry?’

‘About a month after I found out about his wife.’

He swore. ‘That seems like a very lucky escape.’

‘Yes.’

She looked away quickly. ‘We were going to elope. Just the two of us. We were going to go to the South Island, choose somewhere remote and pristine and say our vows, just the two of us. I thought that was so romantic, but now I get it. He just wanted to make sure no one from his real world saw us. I have no idea how he was going to pull it off—I guess a fake minister to conduct the ceremony or something?’ She shook her head, anger firing through her now where hurt and grief had once been.

‘I can’t believe I didn’t see through it. ’

‘Being trusting is not a character flaw.’

‘Yes, it is. I was trusting to a fault, and that’s not a mistake I’ll ever make again.’

‘You can trust me,’ he said, quietly, with intensity, squeezing her hand as if to reinforce that.

‘No, I can’t.’ She pulled her hand away properly now, reinforcing the fact she was on her own.

‘I know you’re nothing like him, but I can’t trust you; I can’t trust anyone.

’ She sighed again. ‘The thing is, I guess when it boils down to it, I don’t trust myself.

I went out with Christopher for years and was so in love with him I just didn’t question anything. ’

Octavio’s features tightened visibly. ‘His levels of deception were incredible.’

‘But I didn’t realise. I didn’t suspect. I don’t trust my instincts any more. I don’t trust my perceptions of people.’

‘Okay,’ he conceded, rather than pushing a point she was stuck on. ‘But let me say this—I will never lie to you. If I say something, it’s the truth. That’s who I am.’

She nodded, because she knew it was the only way to end the conversation.

And she knew that he was probably being sincere.

Phoebe also knew that regardless of his assurance, she would continue to protect herself by doubting, by believing him—and everyone—to be capable of the worst. If she’d done that with Christopher, she’d never have been hurt.

‘He contacted me the other day, you know,’ she volunteered spontaneously.

Octavio’s whole bearing changed.

‘Christopher?’ His voice was sharp. Phoebe glanced at him, nodding once.

Octavio swore. ‘He called you?’

‘No, he sent a message through the app we used to use.’

‘Did you reply?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Why?’

‘You can’t speak to him.’

Phoebe narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t been planning to, but the way he was telling her what to do rankled. ‘It’s really not any of your business.’

‘I beg your pardon, but you are my wife.’

A shiver ran down her spine. Not a bad shiver, but a delicious, delightful shiver of warmth. Despite everything she’d just said, despite everything she knew to be true in her heart, hearing him call her his wife so possessively, so intently, set a fire in her bloodstream.

‘I am also my own person.’

‘Not any more you’re not. You are Queen of Castilona and you are a target. People will be trying to sell stories about you for the rest of your life. This man cannot be trusted, Phoebe. If you engage with him again, he will betray you.’

Anger and something like crushing disappointment mingled in her belly, making her throat feel acidic. ‘I know that,’ she hissed, scraping back her chair and standing. ‘He’s ruined my life once already. Do you think I’d give him a chance to do it again?’

Octavio stared at her though, a muscle ticking in the base of his jaw. ‘It wasn’t that long ago that you broke up. Do you still love him?’

‘I hate him.’

‘You can love someone and hate them at the same time.’

She pulled a face. ‘No.’ She was emphatic. ‘I don’t love him. He’s nothing to me.’

‘Then it should be easy to ignore his message.’

‘Which is what I was planning to do. You don’t need to tell me how to act, Octavio. I’m not stupid.’

‘Except with him—’

‘Don’t say it.’ She held up a hand, silencing the rest of that sentence. ‘I already think the worst of myself for how I was with Christopher. I don’t need you to reinforce that.’

He glared at her, the angry words they’d exchanged sparking in the air around them. Octavio controlled his temper first.

‘I meant to protect you, not to undermine you. I know you understand what you should do, but when it comes to relationships, things get murkier.’

‘I never want to see nor speak to him again.’

‘Okay.’ Octavio nodded slowly, but it was clear to Phoebe he didn’t completely believe her. Maybe he’d learned the lesson she’d been preaching: trust no one. It was just safer that way.

Octavio watched her walk away, a sinking feeling taking over his body. He didn’t like it.

He didn’t like the way that conversation—argument—had made him feel.

He didn’t like anything about it. He didn’t like her revelations about her ex, what the other man had done to Phoebe, how he’d lied to her and treated her.

He didn’t like to think how close she’d come to marrying the guy, how eager she’d been to have his baby.

He didn’t like to think that in an alternate reality, in which Phoebe hadn’t discovered the truth, she would be married to him by now, perhaps still blissfully unaware of Christopher’s duplicity.

But most of all, Octavio hadn’t liked the way it had felt to learn that the other man still had a way of reaching out to Phoebe, of contacting her. Of trying to reignite their relationship?

Phoebe surely wouldn’t be so stupid, after what he’d done, but the fact there’d been contact between them had flooded his body with ice and something else. Something foreign and unwelcome.

Anger.

The kind of anger Octavio had learned to steer well clear of, because it was counterproductive and clouded one’s judgement. Courtesy of his uncle’s cruelty, most of Octavio’s life had been an exercise in control and restraint.

Only he hadn’t felt restrained tonight.

He hadn’t felt in control. He’d listened to Phoebe and had felt a violent rage towards Christopher. And then, when he’d learned about the text, he’d felt something else. Something that veered a lot towards jealousy.

He scraped his chair back, as if he could physically reject that feeling. Jealousy?

Impossible.

That’s not what he and Phoebe were. So she had a past?

Big deal. He was her present and her future, and in many ways, their relationship was exactly what he’d needed.

She was providing him with the heirs he badly needed, but more than that, their chemistry was like a drug.

He just had to be careful not to get hooked.

And not to get confused. She was his wife, his lover, the future mother of his children, but they were not a couple, and that was just how Octavio intended for things to remain.