Page 40 of Crowned For The King's Secret

‘They would be proud of the way I returned to be King. That in the end I didn’t give up the hope, or my drive to take the throne. However, they wouldn’t be proud of the way I treated the mother of their grandchild.’

What could she say? She’d never expected an admission of guilt from this man and what he said was so close to it she didn’t know where to begin.

‘Fear is a good motivator, and a terrible one. You can’t imagine the fear I suffered when I discovered I had a child. When I believed you and my cousin had hidden him from me. I was furious, terrified. It made me rash.’

He stroked his hand up and down her arm and goose-pimples bloomed over her skin. ‘Believe me when I say this: if I could take it back, I would. My desire to protect was ingrained from birth. My whole life has been about returning to the throne, protecting my people. No matter whether or not I believed you were in league with my cousin, the fact you didn’t accept the danger you were in drove me to act. I should have talked to you, told you.’

‘But you didn’t trust me.’

Though, she supposed, how could he? People had tried to assassinate him as a child, as an adult. How could he trustanyonewhen his life had been one lived with the certainty that there was someone out there who wanted to end you? How could she understand a life where someone wanted to snuff out your existence for simply having the temerity to have been born?

She couldn’t.

She might have judged him harshly, but that judgement came from a place where she hadn’t understood him. Not at all.

‘I was trained to think the worst,’ he said.

‘That’s no way to live.’

‘It kept me alive.’

He cupped her cheek, the look on his face as tender as she could imagine him ever giving her. She shouldn’t trust it, rolled up in the post-coital haze, her body still humming. Yet she couldn’t stop the overwhelming feeling of wanting to give him...everything.

‘You need to realise,’ he went on, ‘that the protection I’ll give to Nic as my son is yours as well. It’s what you deserve. It’s what you should always have had in your life, someone to care for you and your generous heart.’

She tried to stop the tears pricking at the backs of her eyes because no one had ever truly offered her something so encompassing. His touch was tender, his words carried weight. She wanted to believe them, to believe someone. Victoria also knew what he’d ask of her, the question from earlier that day hovering between them.

He stroked moisture that dripped to her cheeks. Tears that she shouldn’t allow to fall. How did this man have the ability to shred her the way he did?

‘With you as my queen, there will be a whole country behind you. The protection of Santa Fiorina. Nic will have the future he was born to.’

What about love?she wanted to ask. Whilst she’d never wanted to tie herself to a man ever again, she’d still held on to some dreams that love might find its way to her.

‘I’ve been in one marriage of convenience.’

‘You know what our marriage will be like. There are no illusions. I can tell you what I can promise: that you’ll have my unending respect as my queen. You’ll carry the care and hope of a country for a bountiful future. I can look after you both as you should be looked after. As Nic’s parents, we’ll be together, for him.’

Common sense told her that he was right. But nothing about their situation made sense.

‘You might find someone one day you want to be with.’

Someone he loved. Where would that leave her and Nic? Although if she didn’t marry him, they’d be faced with that as a certainty, not a possibility. The whole of her rebelled at that idea. She wanted to claw the sheets to ribbons at the thought of him marrying anyone other than her.

His fingers gently traced down the side of her body and she shivered with the pleasure of it. This man had woken her body from some kind of dormancy with a touch.

He leaned over her, kissed the side of her neck. Her shoulder, her collarbone. ‘I can’t get enough of you. What we have is something rare and special. An attraction I want to explore.’

Her body went up in flames. A marriage based on sex was a terrible idea but this, between them, obliterated all common sense. And in truth she had to think of more than herself. Of Nic. Of the life and stability that marriage could give him.

She now understood so much more about Sandro than she had this morning. What drove him, the kind of man he was. A good man. In the end, her needs were entirely unimportant. Was it enough? The promises that he made? They had to be. Nic’s safety and happiness were more important than her own. Yet she had some demands she wouldn’t allow to go unvoiced.

‘I don’t think I’d do well, sharing you with anyone.’

His eyes darkened, his gaze narrow, yet blazing with heat. ‘If we married, there’d be no one else. For either of us. It would be a true marriage in every way.’

Except, there wouldn’t be any love. This would have to be enough.

‘I have one condition.’ Sandro’s face smoothed out, as if waiting. ‘I need to tell my brother first, before any press announcements.’

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