Page 66 of Crowning His Innocent Assistant

“It only makes me feel sorry for her.”

“She did not ask for your pity. I believe she asked for your love.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Think of your life with her. I do not know your relationship with Livia. But I do know love. You share things. You carry each other’s burdens. It is more than sex, though that is part of it. She completes you. She is your other half.”

And he thought back, to these nine years that he had spent with Livia, and he knew that what his brother said was right. That it was true.

Livia was the one woman who had listened as he talked about his scars. She had seen him have nightmares and held him while he was in pain. He had taught her to dance and she had taught him to be human. She was the one he went to with all of his most pressing problems. She was the only person that he could see completing the way that he ruled the country. For she was his other half.

The one who made strength from all of his weaknesses.

His Livia.

He understood now, the manner in which she would allow him to approach. Not to claim her. But to make an offer. A real offer. For all he had done was make demands.

It was all his arrogance had allowed for.

But his love, which he realized had been there all along, hidden beneath the wall of rock... His love could humble itself. And it could ask—no, it would beg—for Livia.

“I must go.”

“Of course.”

“I can only hope she will still have me.”

“There are some things,” Javier said. “Some people that I believe are destined to be together. You and Livia are destined. Now you just have to go and claim it.”

“I think I had better... I think I had better go and ask instead.”

Livia was exhausted. She had walked around Paris all day and tried to feel something other than the crushing heartbreak that rolled through her chest in unending waves. She tried to enjoy the little magazine and art stands that were piled atop each other along the banks of the Seine. She tried to take comfort in the Arc de Triomphe and the glowing pyramid in front of the Louvre. She wandered the Musée d’Orsay aimlessly, expecting to find answers in the artwork and finding only echoes of her own sadness. She was utterly sick of herself by the time she got back to her sparsely furnished apartment. An apartment she had been surprised was still there waiting for her when she returned.

But it had been. Matteo had not taken it from her, and in fact, had bought it outright. She would have to leave, or buy it from him, or something.

But you’re still hoping he’ll come after you.

Yes, but not as he had done before...

You would take that. Admit it. You are weak for him...

No. She was trying to be strong for them both. Because they both deserved better than a lifetime spent beholden to the past. Than allowing Matteo’s father to determine how much happiness they might have.

She took out the baguette she had brought in from the boulangerie downstairs, and simply took a bite out of the end. It was uncivilized, and she didn’t care. Her apartment. Her bread.

There was a knock on the door, and her heart stilled.

Matteo did not knock.

“Yes?”

“Mouse.”

It was him. She jumped up from her chair and flung the door open, and she didn’t care if she had crumbs on her black top, or if she looked half so desperate as she felt. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to speak to you. I came to see you.”

“Please do not tease me.”

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