Page 48 of Prince She Shouldn't Crave
Lena couldn’t see what they were laughing at, but surely no one had forgotten the wedding ring. She tried to listen to what the announcers were saying. Something about a carriage turning around. However, the only pictures onscreen were of guests arriving at the cathedral. The announcers said they had a reporter on the ground trying to find out what had gone on, except Lena was distracted by the clatter of hooves becoming louder on the roadway outside her apartment. The rhythm and the sound suggesting horses working in unison, rather than individually.
She went to her window overlooking the cobbled street below as the announcers mentioned something about a residential area and a carriage. In the distance she saw movement, and the reason for the sound became clear. Horses. Six. Black. Carrying three riders in full livery of red and gold and pulling a gleaming open carriage.
Her heart leapt to her throat, beating a quick and thready rhythm. She stood there gripping the window frame. The wood cool and hard under her fingertips as the carriage came closer and closer. Two men sitting in it. The broad back of one with unruly brown hair and another, whose hair was gold like the sun.
Lena gasped and pulled back. Slamming shut the windows as if trying to lock herself in. She turned to the television as they talked about members of the public calling in saying the landau carriage carrying Aston Lane and Prince Gabriel of Halrovia was travelling through the back streets of the capital to an unknown destination.
It wasn’t unknown at all. They were inhersuburb, on her street.
Lena didn’t know what to do, where to go. Her thoughts whirled but none of them made sense. The sound of the hooves echoing off the buildings either side of the narrow street below became louder and louder. Lena wanted to put her fingers in her ears and pretend that this wasn’t happening as the hooves clattered, slowed and came to a stop what sounded like right outside her building.
She refused to look out. She stood in the middle of the lounge area of her apartment. Waiting. For what? The building had security. No one could get in. But, she knew, no one would keep out aprince. Perspiration beaded on her brow. A trickle ran down the back of her neck as she tried to breathe. The television droning in the background supposing what the Crown Prince of Halrovia was doing. The whole scenario so bizarre and dissonant because sheknewwhat he had to be doing.
He was coming to see her.
A knock sounded at the door. She jumped, the sound sharp and urgent. Without her thinking much, her feet took her to the door. Her hands trembling as she undid the chain. Methodically working the locks and opening it.
She gripped the door jamb to keep her upright as the man who had haunted too many of her dreams came into view, in a rush that pushed the breath from her lungs. Her Gabe.
No,nothers.
She might have liked to pretend but Prince Gabriel was his country’s, and always would be. He’d made it clear that he hadn’t considered a future with her. She’d done the right thing and set him free by leaving, as much as he’d freed her in the time they’d been together.
She couldn’t look at his face. Not yet. His clothes were easier. He was as perfectly, formally attired as she’d always remembered. More so today in his morning dress. The dark coat, paler grey striped trousers. Cream waistcoat. Soft pink tie…
Oh.
Her lips almost broke into a smile because Pieter would havehatedit with the power of a thousand suns.
She focussed on the tie of that offending colour for a while, almost afraid to look anywhere else. But she had nothing to fear, not any more. In walking away from him she had shown just how brave she could really be.
‘Lena.’
Her name sounded like a benediction. She couldn’t help herself. She looked up. To his full lips that had kissed and pleasured her till she’d wept. Heat crept up her throat at the memories. His eyes, the pale blue of melting snow in spring. But even though the colour might have appeared cool, it was only an illusion. Something about them, the lookinthem, blazed like the hottest of summer suns. She didn’t know what to say, she could hardly remember how to breathe, so she blurted out the only thing that came to mind.
‘Th-they said you might have left something behind—what?’
Gabe’s Adam’s apple bobbed as his throat convulsed in a swallow.
‘You, Lena. Nothing else but you.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Seeing Lena againwas like a knock to the head. She stood before him, a vision in a silky dress of the softest pink, like the first hint of sunrise. A picture of such perfection that his words had failed. He’d forgotten the effect she had on him. His tongue was tied. She was inside him, had burrowed in deep into his marrow and taken up residence. One look at her in the flesh, rather than the distant and painful memories from the glorious and devastating time together, entrenched Gabe’s view. There was no letting her go. He couldn’t.
Every official function before Cilla’s wedding, he’d known a part of him was missing. Seeing Priscilla, Caspar, Ana and Aston had solidified something he’d resolved weeks before with his press release. Marrying a princess because it was expected of him,notmarrying for love, was something he could never do. His feelings for Lena would always come first. Even if she refused him today, he’d love her. Which was why he needed to make it up to her with everything he had. Because his life would be meaningless without her.
Lena’s eyes widened as she gripped the door jamb till her fingertips paled.
‘How did you find me?’
He’d always known where she’d gone. In the time since she’d left Halrovia he’d been driven to ensure she and her family had a home and weren’t out on the streets. That there was food onthe table, and she wasn’t being forced into a situation she didn’t want, like marrying. His discreet enquiries had satisfied him that she was okay, giving him time to plan.
‘Finding you was the easy part. As for the rest…’
None of that had been easy, but anything was simpler than the days since she’d walked out of Halrovia’s palace. Being flayed alive would have been easier than that. Yet for now he had some more pressing matters to deal with. As he stood on her stoop, some doors in the hall of her apartment building had opened. Gabriel accepted that a royal postillion landau carriage parking in the street below would cause a stir, but a few people had begun to peer out at them both. Whilst he could have a conversation with Lena in the hall if that was what she wanted, he preferred a little privacy, where he could try to say the things he needed to get her back in his arms and in his life again.
To let her know how much he loved her.
