Page 51 of Wedding Night In The King's Bed

“I was sure that I could handle you,” he told her then, his voice low and rough, not cultured at all. “I told myself that the connection between us was simply...icing on the cake. Instead of what it really was.”

She nodded, solemnly, and did not pretend that she didn’t know exactly what he meant.

“And then, on our wedding night, it was all too much.” He raked his hands through his hair again. “I thought I could control that, too. I needed to control everything, Helene, and when I couldn’t, I seized on the only possible explanation I could find for why everything between us was...”

He couldn’t find the right word.

But she could. She gazed at him, all solemn gold and a kind of certainty that made his heart thud against his ribs. “Magic.”

Gianluca had no defense against her. Why had he ever imagined otherwise?

“And so instead of telling you that I was terribly afraid that I’d fallen in love, when the only thing I had ever seen was its death throes, I chose instead to accuse you. I worked for years to block my father’s offense from my memory, because the truth is that he never loved anything. Not Lady Lorenza. Not my mother. And certainly not me.”

“But your mother did,” Helene whispered, as if she already knew this confession was so terrible, he had never admitted it even to himself. “She loved you no matter how horrible you were to her.”

Something old and painful cracked inside of him. “She did.”

“That’s what mothers do,” Helene told him, standing there before him as if she was impervious to the mountain air. “That’s what my mother did. There were no public recriminations, not like here. But you’ve met my father. He was always a cold man. Before my mother died, commenting on his moods was like the weather, nothing more. After she died, I had to cater to those moods, and that was different. Because a parent who doesn’t love you, or loves himself far more, allows for no imperfections. Every step put wrong is a mark against you and a stain upon their name. I learned to be spotless.”

“It is as if you and I were raised by the same man,” Gianluca said roughly, though the words still hurt. His throat was still too tight. Every bone in his body ached. And his ribs could not seem to contain his heart. “Though I find myself envious that you had the time you did with your mother. My father saw to it that I could not have even that. I was sent away to school so soon that I heard stories about my mother from my classmates, and so she was framed in my mind as the harlot he painted her to be, even then.”

“I don’t think I really understood until this moment,” Helene whispered, “that my sweet mother spoke to me of fairy tales and Prince Charmings, not because she wanted to inure me to my fate, but because on some level she must have believed that she would be able to sway my father from his path.” She pulled in a breath gone ragged. “Because it never occurred to me until now that fathers who truly love their daughters do not sell them for clout. Not even to kings.”

And then with the weight of all of this clear and obvious between them, Gianluca sank at last to his knees.

When he reached for Helene, he found that she was crying. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and splashed on his fingers. This from a woman who he had never seen cry, not outside the bedroom.

“I did this to you,” he said gruffly. “I have stolen your reserve.”

“That is nothing but a mask I wear,” she whispered, dashing her fingers across her eyes, though more tears followed all the same. “I don’t think I knew until just recently that I could take it off.”

And Gianluca thought of the day he had proposed to her. How he had come once again to that château in Provence, sweeping into the old house in all his state, with all his aides and staff. They had conducted the last of his talks with her father—all about money, naturally, not a word about his daughter’s well-being or happiness—and then the many contracts had been signed, one after the next.

It had been a business meeting like any other.

Then they had all sat down to an excruciatingly formal lunch, where Helene ate nothing, her father made off-color jokes, and, at last, Gianluca had stood, inclined his head, and announced that it would please him greatly if she would consent to become the Queen of Fiammetta.

Tonight, he took her hands in his. He pulled her close so he could kiss each one, and then he circled her hips so he could lean in and place a kiss to her belly.

It felt like starting over.

So that was what he did.

“I believe you,” he told her.

Gianluca did not think about kings, not his father nor himself. He thought about Helene. And whatever man he was, hidden beneath all that perfection he had imagined he could attain when what he wanted most was this.

To breathe a little while and hold her while he did it.

No wonder she had scared him so much he’d turned tyrant instead of facing that he, all along, was the problem between them. He was the lie.

“I think I always knew you did not lie to me, no matter what I tried to tell myself. For how could you be so perfect in every way, even in bed? I could not make sense of it. I’ve had my staff scouring all of Europe to uncover your deceit, yet they continue to come up empty. And I think that you are very wise, Helene. Far smarter than you sometimes let on. But I do not think that even you can escape the kind of scrutiny that I have given your past.”

“That is all very logical,” she said dryly. “I’m so pleased you had your reasons.”

And as he knelt there on the cold ground, he felt a huge thing move in him. For a brief moment he thought that perhaps he was dying, after all—

But it was a laugh.