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Chapter 13
Aleki stormed up the stairs and threw open Stella’s door. The knob bounced off the drywall and the entire thing ricocheted back at him until the flat of his hand settled it back against the wall. Every ounce of frustration he’d wrestled on the long, lonely car ride home swarmed under his skin, his hand practically vibrating against the smooth wood.
“What the hell?” Stella’s bedside light flipped on as she turned towards him.
“Oh. It’s you.” Her unenthusiastic announcement enraged him further.
“What are you playing at Stella? I was very clear that we needed to make a good impression tonight. How do you think it looks to have me wandering around trying to find my fiancée?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped, her gaze narrowing on him from across the room. “Why don’t you ask the President of Kiribati? He seemed to have a lot of thoughts.”
Frustration propelled him forward until he was standing at the side of the bed he’d come to think of as theirs. “Is that what this is about? You’re mad I didn’t pay enough attention to you, so you left?”
She lifted her chin and the full brunt of her glare hit him. It was the first time she’d ever aimed her fighting eyes directly at him and his stomach curdled, even as he noted the reddened rims and swollen skin around them.
“Enough attention?” she scoffed. “I could have been a fucking wall hanging for all you noticed. Tell me, Aleki, how long did it take you to realise I was gone? An hour? Two?”
He wrested away the seed of guilt that sprung up at her accusation, because truthfully it had been close to the latter, and focused on his anger.
“That’s not the point! We were supposed to be a united front.”
“How united could we be if we barely actually spoke to one another once we walked in? Do you think people didn’t notice that before I left, Aleki? Don’t blame me for not putting on a show of shining coupledom if all you wanted was someone to follow you around like a silent puppy.”
“All I wanted,” he stressed through gritted teeth, “was to complete the business I needed to. ”
“And you did or you wouldn’t be here, so good for you. But your needs don’t get to be more important than mine through an accident of birth, Aleki. You might be a prince, but you’re still a person, the same as me. And as a person, I needed my fiancé to take care of me in a new and strange social setting. You know, the way you promised you would on our way in.”
“You can take care of yourself.” He waved a hand as if to dismiss her complaint. Stella was the most capable woman he knew, except for perhaps Lani.
Stella blinked up at him, the slow, heavy struggle of her lashes belying the tears that swam in her eyes.
“Of course I can take care of myself.” Her voice cracked and she winced at the show of weakness. “But I don’t want to just slot into your life when it’s convenient for you, Aleki. I don’t want that for our child, either. And I’m terrified that will happen. You’ll get so caught up in your own life that we’ll become an afterthought.”
“How can you think that?”
“It happens all the time, Aleki.” Stella’s voice was small, pleading. “Women and children left at home, waiting for their partners and parents to come home. Waiting to feel like they matter. Like spending time with them takes priority over deals and parties and God-knows-what.”
Intellectually Aleki knew she was speaking from experience - from the little girl inside her who never felt like her father had loved her enough, but the fire born of Pacific pride burned within him at the suggestion that he might be found lacking. The flames of his ego licked high within him, almost blocking out the haze of fear that she might be right. That maybe he couldn’t do this role justice. That perhaps he might fail as a father as spectacularly as he was failing at being a prince.
“I will be the best father,” he declared, putting enough force behind the words to convince anyone listening. “I am not Graham. I will not forget birthdays and leave our baby at a damn racetrack.” The tidbits of information he’d learned from Luke about Stella’s father flowed out on a tide of resentment.
Stella visibly flinched at his words, tugging the blanket tighter around her like a protective cocoon.
“Maybe not,” she conceded softly. “But will you make sure they feel important? Will you make sure I feel important to you? You told me this would be a real marriage and I’ve worked hard to believe you. It’s not easy for me to think about giving up my business, my dreams to come here and live when I know nobody else. But partners in a real marriage support each other. They care about each other. And I thought we could have that together.”
“We can.”Aleki cried. “But tonight was not the night to test that, Stella. You have no idea what kind of pressure I’m under.”
“How can I, if you won’t tell me?” She lowered her eyes to the quilt, picking at a corner, her voice a violent mix of frustration and despair. “For God’s sake Aleki, talk to me. We’re supposed to be a team, but all you’ve done tonight is shut me out.”
“You wouldn’t understand.” He spat the words, watching as each one hit her like a barb. “My entire life, everything I’ve worked for is on the line now. If I can’t make this one deal happen, Manu will become the heir to Avali. I won’t have a kingdom. I won’t even have a job.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“Because the only thing I needed from you tonight was to stand beside me and smile. I thought you’d be able to manage that, but apparently not.”
He knew immediately that he’d crossed the line. Stella’s perfect, tear-streaked face iced over as his words registered, a terrible coldness radiating out from her like an arctic wave. He took another step closer to the bed but she stopped him, her palm stretched out to ward him off. Fear twisted his gut, pushing air from his lungs that coiled up his windpipe, knotting in the back of his throat. She raised her eyes to his and his anxiety cemented itself at the glacial remoteness in her gaze. He knew that look. He’d seen it before, whenever she talked about her father. The man who had constantly let her down.
His mouth dry, he tried to scramble the words back. “Stel-”
“Leave.” Hard. Dispassionate. Her tone matched her features, carved in stone, divorced from the funny, spirited woman he’d licked to orgasm mere hours ago.
And because he was a coward, he did.
* * *
