Page 28 of Twins For His Majesty (Royally Tempted #1)

It wasn’t about trusting herself to love.

Somewhere along the way, she’d fallen in love.

Actual love—the all-consuming, heart-stopping, world-shaking love.

She couldn’t pinpoint the moment it had happened, but when she looked back, she wondered if even that first night, in the hospital, when she’d stayed with him instead of doing the smart thing and leaving, if there hadn’t been a part of her that had somehow been destined to be with him.

To love him and to help him accept that love was safe after all. At least, it was with the right person.

Her tongue darted out and licked her lower lip. She stared across at him, her heart in her throat, her whole body on tenterhooks.

‘Is that all you wanted to talk about?’

She stared at him, terrified. She loved him.

She loved this man who’d told her again and again that their relationship would never be real.

She loved a man who was so emotionally closed off because of what he’d endured that she had no idea if she’d ever get through to him, but she knew she had to try.

‘No.’ The word was almost a groan. She closed her eyes on a wave of nausea.

‘Octavio, in my dream, you were in the palace and I couldn’t get to you.

You were there, staring straight ahead, but you couldn’t see me.

I kept trying to knock on the glass but I couldn’t quite reach it.

There was something invisible holding me back.

And then you started to disappear in front of my eyes, fading away from me, and I couldn’t stop it.

I lost you, and it was the worst feeling in the world. ’

He frowned, as though he couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. ‘But I’m right here. It was just a dream.’

‘You’re missing the point. I thought it was a bad dream, and it was, but maybe it was actually the dream I needed to have to wake me up and make me see with my own eyes what my heart has been telling me all along.’

He was suddenly very still, his features locked in a mask of disciplined coldness. ‘And what’s that?’

She wanted to bury herself under the sheet; she wanted to run away.

But she couldn’t. Not after starting this.

‘I love you.’ Three small words, so simple, but so life-changing, whether they were returned or not.

‘I love you,’ she repeated. ‘I love everything about you. I know what we both agreed this marriage would be, but it’s so much more than that.

We’re going to be parents, a family, and I want to start that with total honesty.

Mostly, I want you to know that you are so loved.

By me. I love you,’ she said, again, when he was silent.

He closed his eyes, his face paling before her eyes. As though it was the worst thing she could have said. As though he had hated hearing it. ‘I see.’

‘I don’t think you do,’ she contradicted fiercely. ‘I love you. All of you. I love who you are, who you’ve been, what you’ve done, what you’re working towards. I love that you’re going to be the father to my children. I love you.’

He stood then, dislodging the hand she’d placed on his thigh. ‘With respect, you do not.’

Her heart twisted but she stayed the course. ‘I think I know how I feel.’

‘You’re misinterpreting it. You’re seeing sex and reading love. They’re not the same thing. I warned you about that.’

‘They’re not the same thing, but nor are they mutually exclusive. I love you. I love having sex with you. Both things can be true at once.’

‘But they’re not. This is just about the sex.

And maybe a bit about your pregnancy hormones making you feel things—or want things—that would turn this sham of a marriage into something more desirable.

You want to believe we’re living some kind of fairy tale but that’s not what this is.

We got trapped by a stupid one-night stand and we’ve made the best of it. ’

She sucked in a sharp breath at his awful, hurtful words. How dare he say that?

‘I’m not saying I’m not pleased. I need an heir, and you being pregnant means I will have not one but two, and quickly.

This is very good news for me. But I have been clear all along about what you mean to me, what our marriage is to me.

This is a means to an end, nothing more.

’ His nostrils flared. ‘You do not love me.’

She swallowed hard but her mouth was dry and her tongue would hardly cooperate. He turned towards the wardrobe, disappearing inside of it and returning only moments later dressed in an impeccable suit, looking regal and untouchable. She shivered.

‘Don’t think about this any more. It’s a silly child’s fantasy, and you and I both know better than to hope for that.’

He began to walk towards the bedroom door, and she was so angry she would have pitched something after him if there were an object to hand.

‘You can say that a million times, it won’t change the way I feel, Octavio. I love you!’ She shouted the last words, as if by raising the volume of her voice they would permeate his stupid, stubborn head and find their way to his heart.

He slammed the door when he left the suite, and Phoebe fell back against the pillows, tears forming on her lashes.

He felt like a caged predator, a wild beast that had suddenly been locked away, as he went through the day’s meetings, scheduled back-to-back, just as he usually liked it.

But today, he would have killed for an ounce of breathing room.

Just a little freedom to think clearly about Phoebe and her dream, her words, particularly three little words she’d said again and again.

Only the moment he allowed his mind to turn to her, to recollect her face as she’d said those words, everything in his body had come to a catastrophic stall.

It was as if his blood ceased pumping, his heart ceased working, his lungs stopped inflating, his cells froze.

Every part of him rejected every part of what she’d said.

He couldn’t let her do this to him. He couldn’t let her make him think and feel… feel anything.

It just wasn’t what they were, and it sure as hell wasn’t what he wanted.

But was that the truth?

Hadn’t there been a small part of him, a part that Octavio had immediately tamped down, that had heard her words as one might see a perfect ray of light piercing thick, grey clouds?

Hadn’t there been a part of him—the part that his childhood had all but destroyed—that had wanted to revive and delight in what she was offering him?

He dropped his head forward on a rush of disbelief and determination. There was no way he would be so stupid as to let that part of him grow, however. Octavio knew what he wanted in life, he knew how to get it, and most importantly, he knew what Phoebe and his marriage were. This wasn’t about love.

It wasn’t about anything personal.

But what if it is? That niggling voice pushed, harder and with more determination. What if, despite all his efforts, something about Phoebe had got under his skin, too?

He tried to follow that thought through to its conclusion, imagined the impact that would have on their marriage and the way their relationship would change.

He imagined the power she would have over him, the destructive ability to hurt him, and he knew it just wasn’t possible.

To love someone was to trust them in a way that Octavio had learned never to trust. It would make him vulnerable, and Octavio had to be strong—for himself and the sake of his country.

Phoebe didn’t love him. She couldn’t. She had been caught up in a fantasy, because of their marriage and the pregnancy, but she’d see and accept the limitations of what they were again soon. Wouldn’t she?

Thoughts like this chased themselves around and around his head all day, and as the day drew on, the thought of returning to his apartment, and to Phoebe, kept having the same impact on him.

He didn’t want to see her; he didn’t want to risk having more of the conversation she’d started that morning.

He couldn’t hear her say those words again, knowing that he’d never return them. Even if he wanted to. Which he didn’t.

He was gripped by a need for space and time, by a need to run away.

And though it was a childish urge to surrender to, as the afternoon fell, he called for his private secretary.

‘I’m going to the embassy in Spain for a night or two.

’ He took a deep breath, imagined how Phoebe would feel when she realised that he was hiding from her.

Coward , his inner voice growled. Be man enough to face her.

But then he saw Phoebe’s face in his mind, and everything inside him began to twist with panic. He had to get away. ‘There’s something I want to work on there. Would you have someone let Her Majesty know?’

With a curt nod, the aide was dismissed and Octavio was able to breathe a little more clearly.

She caught him as he was on his way to the helipad and her temper was such that she clearly didn’t notice the guards standing watch just across from them.

‘You’re running away? Are you kidding me?’

His eyes narrowed, a muscle jerking in his jaw. He hadn’t wanted to see her again; he hadn’t been prepared for this. Clearly his message had reached her prematurely; he’d planned to be in the air before it was delivered. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You can beg all you bloody want. You won’t get it. I never had you pegged as a coward, Octavio.’

He glared back at her, his nostrils flaring. ‘You have no right to speak to me like that.’

She flinched. ‘Don’t talk to me like I’m a stranger.’

‘You are acting like one. What the hell has got into you?’

‘You’re running away.’ She jabbed a finger against his chest. ‘Because you’re scared to finish the conversation we started this morning.’

He turned towards the guards and dismissed them with a gesture. Alone in the corridor, just a flight of stairs from the rooftop, he turned back to her. ‘That conversation is already finished as far as I’m concerned.’

‘You think?’ She folded her arms with a huff of something like disdain. ‘You think you can just walk out on a woman who’s baring her soul to you?’

‘You are letting your hormones control you. This will pass.’

‘Don’t you dare do that. Don’t gaslight me. I know what I feel and I know what I want.’

He drew himself to his full height, his expression ominous. ‘Unfortunately, so do I.’

‘And it’s not me?’

‘It’s this marriage, with you, and it’s these babies, but it is not love, it is none of the things you spoke of this morning.’

‘Wow.’ She blinked quickly, her body trembling slightly. With anger? ‘So you’re saying you don’t love me?’

He stared at her for several long beats. ‘We’ve discussed this.’

‘I need to hear it. Say the words.’

But it was a bridge too far. Octavio knew what was in his heart, he was pretty sure he knew what was in hers, too. This wasn’t love, for either of them. He wasn’t a complete bastard though. He had no interest in saying things that were bound to hurt her.

‘I’ve said how I feel.’

‘No, you haven’t. Not directly. So say it,’ she challenged, shoulders squared.

He focused hard on her face, willing her to see into his soul, to understand that he would never love anyone.

It just wasn’t a part of his capabilities any more.

It was no deficiency of hers; it was just how Octavio was.

As he’d been bred to be, after his parents’ death. ‘I have no wish to hurt you.’

She flinched.

‘I have always been clear about that.’

‘Yes, you have. Calculatedly so.’

‘You say that as if it’s a bad thing.’

Her lips trembled a little. He felt the bones in his body grow tight and painful. He looked away, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not running away,’ he said quietly. ‘But we both need some space from this. In a few days, you’ll realise how stupid it all is.’

She flinched again. ‘Loving someone isn’t stupid.’

‘Did you love Christopher?’

Her face paled. ‘Don’t bring him into this.’

‘Why not? You were wrong about him. How do you know you’re not wrong about me?’

‘Because you’re a completely different person.

Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? Don’t you think I’ve been fighting with myself about that—you, him, my flawed judgement—this whole time?

But you are not him, just like you’ve said.

You are his exact opposite in every way.

Loving you is not a mistake, and it’s not based on a lie. ’

‘Maybe it is. Maybe I’ve been lying to you without realising it.

Because if you’re standing there expecting me to be able to say that I love you, then you’ve totally misunderstood who I am and what I want in life.

And how can you be in love with me, if that’s the case?

How can you love someone you don’t know?

’ He felt as though he’d landed the winning shot.

His words made so much sense, all the sense in the world, so he breathed out, relieved that he’d offered an argument that would surely sway her.

He took a step backwards, preparing to escape, but as he turned his back, she said, sadly, softly, ‘Or what if I know you better than you know yourself? What if I can see what you’re not capable of seeing?

What if I love you so much that I understand how hard it is for you to admit you love me back, but I’m willing to wait? What about that, Tavi?’

He didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to hear it and take it on board, and so he kept walking, shoulders squared, face set in a mould of determination.

It was only as the helicopter took off that he dropped his head forward and admitted to himself that he had the strangest sense his world was crumbling down around him again, in almost the same way it had when his parents had died.