Page 18 of Wedding Night In The King's Bed
He thought, again, of how hard he had worked to disappear—to fade into the walls, the brocaded chairs. How he had done his best to hide in plain sight so that as his parents warred and shouted and threw their missiles at each other, he would not draw fire.
It had not always worked.
And yet here he was.
He supposed he should find a way to be grateful that it was in bringing him to this state that she’d given herself away...but he did not feel anything like grateful.
“I don’t think I’m following you,” Helene said after a moment, and it was some small comfort that her voice was slightly less serene. “Is this...? Are you suggesting that I...wasn’t a virgin last night?”
The bitter laugh that burst from him then offended him, horrified him, appalled him to the core. Because he recognized the sound. Had he not heard his own father make it a thousand times throughout his childhood?
Was this how the war zone began? Was he even now wheeling in the artillery?
His ribs hurt and yet that laugh still hung in the air of the room between them. And he could not seem to keep himself from throwing more words after that sound, as if to make sure he laid down enough cover fire. “Are you suggesting that you were? After that performance? Please spare me the act, Helene. It’s too late now.”
“Performance?” Her mouth opened, then closed. “You thought that I...? That it was...a performance?”
She seemed to sway slightly on her feet, and though he wanted to reach out to steady her, he could not trust himself to touch her. Not when he knew she was naked, and all he needed to do was unwrap her like the most delectable gift...
Where is your vaunted control now? he demanded of himself, but he had no answer.
“Gianluca.” Helene was whispering now. “I can’t understand any of this.”
“You gave yourself away,” he said softly, and even though he knew better, he closed the distance between them.
And he didn’t mean to touch her, because surely he should not even wish to touch her, but without his meaning to reach out at all his hands were smoothing over her hair.
Almost tenderly.
Though he did not feel anything like tender. “You gave yourself away again and again.”
She frowned, and swallowing seemed to take her a moment. “What is it you think I have done?”
He made himself drop his hand, but he could not seem to step back. He, who had long considered his will stronger than iron, could not do it. And all she did was gaze back at him as if he was the one hurting her. “I will find the truth. You must know this. I will dig up your lovers, one after the next, if it takes me a lifetime.”
“My lovers?” She sounded as if she wanted to laugh, but didn’t. Instead she searched his face, her eyes as gold-tipped as he remembered, and how was that fair? Surely he could have imagined at least that. “What lovers do you imagine I have taken? And when would I have enjoyed these trysts? Everyone knows what the Institut is like.”
Helene pulled in a breath as if this conversation was upsetting her—but he could not let himself be pulled in by this act of hers. Not again. He could not let her continue to deceive him. He did not yet know what he was going to do about the initial deception that had made him as much of a liar as she was, tainted as he must be by his association with her if anyone were ever to know.
“Maybe you actually don’t know what the Institut is like,” she corrected herself when he didn’t speak. “So I’ll tell you. Even if I had wanted a battalion of lovers, there were none to be found. There were guards, but they were never allowed inside the buildings where the students reside. And even if they bypassed the rules, they would regret it, as we are monitored night and day. Your country is not the only place in the world obsessed with something as silly as virginity.”
“You think it’s silly.” Gianluca leaped on her words as if they were evidence. A smoking gun she’d thrown down in the middle of the floor. “Is this why you chose to deceive me? You thought you could trick me and the whole of my country besides because you think our ways are silly?”
Helene blew out a breath and closed her eyes for a moment. But only for a moment. Just long enough for Gianluca to start talking himself into reaching out for her once more, as if that might shift the weight of this betrayal inside him. If the great ball of it, dread and shame alike, might ease if she helped him hold it—
But that was a new, terrible madness.
He was very nearly delighted when she opened her eyes again and focused on him, though he found himself less pleased that there was something like the light of battle there. As if she’d found something within her, something resolute.
Not that heavy wedge of concrete she’d left in him.
“I have not deceived you in anything,” Helene said, distinctly. But then she wavered, there as he watched, and he couldn’t stand that either. That was how his hands ended up on her shoulders. There was an acre of fluffy down stuffing between his palm and her skin. It was the same as not touching her. “But if I had... How was it—exactly—that you decided I was lying to you?”
Gianluca could not let go of her, no matter how many times he ordered himself to do so at once. It infuriated him.
He was Gianluca San Felice. His parents had proven themselves unworthy of the roles they’d held, but he had always been made better. Stronger. He had always had the utmost faith in his righteousness above all things.
And yet this woman seemed to cast some spell upon him that made him question the fundamental truths of who he was. She made him wonder if he even cared about those things when he more than cared. He had built back the trust of his people by being, always, nothing short of a paragon.