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Her eyes were green fire. “Of course it matters. It’s a lie. And they deserve to have their noses rubbed in it. I think we should hold a press conference and tell the world what liars they are. I think we need to tell the world the truth.”
Tell the world the truth. She couldn’t be serious.
He said, with slow care, “Y
ou want me to tell the world that I was your sperm donor? That it took me more than two years to get up the nerve to approach you? That when I did, I didn’t tell you I was your child’s father, but instead seduced you and got you to marry me under false pretenses?”
“Yes,” she said hotly. “That’s what I want from you, Rule. I want you to tell the truth.”
For the first time on that awful day, he felt his own anger rising. It was all coming much too clear. “You want to see me humiliated. And it’s not enough for you that The Sun should make me look like a fool. You want to see me make a fool of myself.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and put her hand to her throat. “No. No, that’s not it. That’s not what I meant.”
He told her icily, “Of course it’s what you meant.”
“Oh, Rule,” she said softly after several seconds had passed. “You don’t get it. You don’t get it at all.”
He said nothing. He had nothing to say.
Finally, his mother spoke softly. “Whatever action the two of you decide to take, you have our complete support. I can see this is something the two of you must work out between yourselves.”
Chapter Fourteen
But Rule and Sydney didn’t work it out. They returned to their apartment—together, but not speaking.
That night, Rule slept in the small bedroom off the master suite. He lay alone in bed in the darkness and realized he wasn’t angry anymore.
He missed his anger.
It was a lot easier to be furious than it was to be ashamed.
Now his anger had left him, he could see that for Sydney it was as it had always been; it was about honesty. She saw that insane press conference of hers as a way to clear the air once and for all, to lay the truth bare for everyone to see. She saw it as a way to beat The International Sun at its own game. She was an American, an egalitarian to the core.
She didn’t have generations of proud, aristocratic Calabretti ancestors behind her, staring down their formidable noses, appalled at the very idea that one of their own would even consider getting up in a public forum and explaining his shameful personal shortcomings to the world at large.
Such things were not done.
A Calabretti had more pride than that.
He had more pride than that. Too much pride. He could see that now.
He was not about to tell the world the unvarnished truth about his private life. Even if he’d behaved in an exemplary fashion, that would have been extraordinarily difficult for him.
But his behavior had not been exemplary. Far from it.
He’d been an imbecile. On any number of levels. And it just wasn’t in him, to stand up and confess his own idiocy to the world.
The next day was as bad as the one before it. He and Sydney were polite with each other. Excruciatingly so. But they hardly spoke.
In his office, the phone rang off the hook. Every newspaper, every magazine, every radio and TV station wanted a few brief words with Prince Rule. He declined to speak with any of them.
And he stayed another night in the extra room. And then another after that.
The weekend went by. He spent time with his son. He and Sydney continued to speak to each other only when necessary.
Monday evening they had a meeting with Jacques Fournier, the architect they’d chosen, about the renovations at the villa. Sydney sent Rule an email about that on Monday afternoon.
An email. She was one room away, but she talked to him via email.
