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“It’s obvious to you?”
“Well. Not necessarily to me. But my mouse may have said something to the effect.”
“Livia said something about it?”
“Only that she thought Violet seemed quite taken with you. And that it was probably a good thing she hadn’t married me, all things considered.”
“She’s a fool.”
“Livia? She’s the least foolish woman I have ever known.”
“No. Violet. She’s a fool to love me. Anyone would be a fool to love either of us.”
“It’s true,” Matteo said. “I don’t disagree with you.”
“So you understand that I told her I could not esteem her over the fate of the country.”
“Is it a choice that must be made?”
“Yes. Because if the choice for Monte Blanco’s well-being is not my ultimate motivation, then something else will replace it. And that makes me vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable to what?”
He spread his arms wide. “To this,” Javier said. “This. To being just like our father. A man with a favorite dungeon. A man who harms others.”
“Is that what you think? That a mere distraction could turn you from the man that you are into the man that he was?”
“Haven’t we always said that we must be careful to turn away from anything that might make us like him?”
“We must. I agree. But I suspect that you loving this woman will not bring it about. I think it is loving yourself above all else that opens you up to such concerns. Do you think that sounds right? Because our father never loved anybody. None of his corruption came from loving us so much. Or our mother, who we never even knew because she was dead before you ever took your first steps. No. Love did not cause what our father did.”
“But I have to be vigilant...”
“Against what?”
“As we discussed, it would be far too easy to fall into another life. After all, wasn’t it so easy to believe that our father was good because we thought we loved him?”
“What’s the book?”
“Something that Violet was reading. A beauty and the beast story.”
“What do you suppose you’ll find in there?”
“An answer. Magic. I don’t know. Some way to change myself, because I don’t know how else I might. To be a man for her rather than a beast.”
“Maybe you don’t need to change it all. Doesn’t the Princess in the story love him without changing?”
“But she deserves better. She deserves more.”
“What did she ask for?”
“Nothing,” he said, his voice rough.
“Then why not offer nothing but yourself?”
“Because that is something our father would do.”
“No, our father would take the choice away from her. Which is what... Well, that’s what I did, in the beginning, isn’t it? Our father would do whatever he wanted regardless of what she asked for. So why don’t you go back to her? And find out what it is she truly wants. Listen. Don’t simply follow your own heart. That’s what men like our father did. Consider another person. See where it gets you.”
