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“I am doing the best I can,” he said in a low voice. “By letting you go.”
It was a civilized ending to their engagement. They could both go forward as partners raising their baby, telling friends that the breakup had been “mutual” and their engagement had ended “amicably.”
But Belle couldn’t end it like that.
She couldn’t just leave quietly, with dignity. Her heart rebelled. She couldn’t hold back her real feelings. Not anymore.
“I know I can’t compete with Nadia,” she choked out, “not in a million years. I’m not beautiful like her. I can’t offer you the dukedom you’ve craved all your life. There’s only one thing I can give you better than anyone else. My love. Love that will last for the rest of my life.” She looked up at him through her tears. “Choose me, Santiago,” she whispered. “Love me.”
For a moment, blood rushed in her ears. She felt like she was going to faint in the moonlit garden. The image of the looming castle swirled above her. She swayed on her feet, holding her breath.
Then she saw his answer, by the grim tightening of his jaw.
“That’s why I’m ending this, Belle,” he said in a low, rough voice. “I care for you too much to let you stay and waste your life—your light—on me.”
The brief hope in her heart died. Her shoulders sagged. “All right,” she said, feeling like she’d aged fifty years. “I’ll go pack.”
But as she started to turn, he grabbed her wrist. “Unless...”
“Unless?” she breathed.
“You tell me you don’t love me after all. Tell me you were lying. We could still be married, like we planned. If you don’t ask for more than I can give.”
He was willing to still marry her?
For a moment, desperate hope pounded through her.
Then she went still.
Seven years ago, when Justin had first proposed to her, she’d known even then, deep down, that he didn’t love her. When he’d demanded Belle have the medical procedure to permanently prevent pregnancy—a monstrous demand, when she’d been only a twenty-one-year-old virgin—barely more than a kid herself—Belle had deluded herself into thinking she had to accept any sacrifice as the price of her love for him.
No longer. She looked up at Santiago in the moonlit garden.
“No,” she said quietly.
He looked incredulous. “No?”
Belle lifted her chin. “I might not be a movie star, I might not have a title or fortune, but I’ve realized I’m worth something too. Just as I am.” She took a deep breath. “I want to be loved. And I will be, someday.” She gave him a wistful smile. “I just wish it could have been by you.”
“Belle...”
Her belly suddenly became taut. Her lower back was hurting. She was still weeks from her due date so she knew it couldn’t be labor. It was her body reacting, she thought, to her heart breaking.
“I will always love you, Santiago,” she whispered. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she reached up to cradle his rough chin with her hand one last time. “And think that we could have been happy together. Really happy.”
Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed one cheek, then the other, then finally his lips. She kissed him truly, tenderly, with all her love, to try to keep this last memory of him locked forever in her heart.
Then, with desperate grief, she pulled away at last.
“Goodbye,” she choked, and fled into the castle, blinded by tears. She went up to her room in the tower and packed quickly. It was easy, since she left all of the expensive, uncomfortable new clothes behind. When she came downstairs, she saw a limo in the courtyard waiting for her.
“I’ll take your bag, miss,” the driver said.
Belle climbed in to the limo, looking back at the castle one last time. She had a glimpse of Santiago in the library window, alone in the cold castle, the future Duke of Sangovia, the future husband of a marquesa, a self-made billionaire, sleek and handsome with cold, dead eyes staring after her.
Then, like a dream, he was gone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
