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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CLARATURNEDHERface to him with an expression Marcelo had never seen before.
Contempt.
‘So you don’t think scheming to keep me out of public life is important?’
So many curses flew through his head accompanied by such a wave of nausea that for a moment he was incapable of speech.
Since Amadeo had left, Clara had been holding herself together by the skin of her teeth and reminding herself not to jump to conclusions. Just because someone said something was true did not make it so. That was a life lesson she’d learned at far too young an age.
Marcelo’s face told her perfectly well that Amadeo had been telling the truth.
‘Come on, Bob,’ she said. ‘Time to go.’
Then, with her only friend in this whole horrid island by her side, she marched into the house and raced up the stairs to her bedroom. She’d barely passed the threshold before Marcelo followed her in.
She wished she hadn’t been looking at his face when he caught sight of her suitcases, bought for their intended honeymoon and now open on her bed, one half closed, the other open, both rammed with clothes, or she wouldn’t have seen him visibly blanch.
‘You’re not planning to leave?’ he said hoarsely. ‘We’re getting married on Saturday.’
‘Were getting married,’ she corrected, ‘and yes, I am leaving. I gave you a chance to tell me the truth and you blew it.’
But he was still staring with horror at her packed cases. ‘You can’t leave!’
‘Watch me.’
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he took a long, deep breath. ‘Bella, I understand why you’re upset—’
‘Do you?’
‘You feel lied to.’
‘No, I don’t feel lied to, I was lied to. By you. A subtle but distinct difference.’
‘Bella—’
‘You no longer have the right to call me that any more. You can address me as Clara if you feel the need to address me as anything.’
‘I want to address you as my wife. Dio, Clara, I wasn’t scheming—’
‘Don’t bother trying to defend yourself. I won’t believe a word of it and whatever you say to me, I can’t stay and I certainly can’t marry you. You lied to me when you promised—promised—to always tell me the truth. You told me I was perfect as I am when it turns out you doubt my ability to fit in with your family and my ability to carry off the role of Princess and want to limit my royal engagements because of it. You told me you were having meetings with your staff when it was a family conference to discuss me.’
He threw his head back and closed his eyes. ‘I assume it was Amadeo who fed you this poison?’
‘At least he doesn’t shy from the truth.’
‘A version of the truth twisted to suit his own purposes. I have no doubts at all about your ability to carry off the role of Princess and I told him that, just as I told him that I will not put you through official outside functions until you’ve learned to relax into the role.’
‘That’s not how he put it across to me.’
‘That’s because he doesn’t want our marriage to be permanent,’ he said with a dose of Clara’s own bluntness even though it made his heart rip to say it. ‘For Amadeo, duty isn’t something to be endured, it’s something to live and breathe. You threaten his sense of what being a royal is. The rest of us can see you’re too special for us to allow your spirit to be crushed under the weight of pure protocol. I saw what it cost you the other night before you found yourself on the dance floor and lit the place up, and I will not watch you put yourself through that again. I want you to thrive and that can only happen if you’re allowed to be yourself, an alchemy of Clara and the Princess.’
‘Actually, the only way I can thrive is far away from liars like you.’
Something cold and sharp was scratching at Marcelo’s throat. It had risen from his chest, a strengthening cloud of ice shards penetrating through him. He was losing her, and all he could do was scramble for words to make her stay.
‘Goddammit, Clara, you talk about breaking trust—what about the promise you made to me? You gave your word that you would marry me. You can’t just change your mind.’
