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CHAPTER TEN
THISWASFOLLY. It was disastrous. And she couldn’t stop herself. Because what he had said, so ragged and raw, was the first thing that had actually resonated within her.
Oh, yes, it had been very tempting when he asked her about her mother. When he had asked if she would enjoy it if the woman knew that Livia was now her Queen. She was only human. And it was an enticement to a girl who had spent a great many nights dreaming about all the ways she might show her mother she had never needed her.
And he’d known that. Had known of a way to cut down deep into her soul.
He was good at that. Unfortunately.
But this.
Raw and honest, this was what she could not deny.
She had thought that she could make love with him once and walk away?
She had been a fool.
And not because she had imagined he would pick her up and fling her over his shoulder and kidnap her, but because she was bound to him. Whether he had done it or not.
She hadn’t made a very good sport of trying to escape him. And in truth... He could’ve taken her hand and led her down to that car, led her onto the plane, and she probably would’ve gone.
Because she was only human.
She was only a woman. A woman who had loved one man for a very long time. Who’d had to flee a country in order to keep herself from capitulating to him too easily.
But he had come after her. She had run away, and he had been right there behind her. And she had given in. Folded herself into him with no great resistance at all.
And she had told herself all kinds of lies.
But now, with him holding her like this, she could see them for what they were.
It was all such a farce.
As if she could ever refuse him. She loved him too much. And this was far too close to a perfect dream than anything else Livia had ever had.
She had never been able to find her people again. She had never seen her mother. She had never known her father. She had spent nine years in fear, yearning, and then...
He was offering her a chance to be Queen. He was offering her his hand, even though he was not offering her his heart. So she kissed him. Like she might be drowning, and he was there to save her. Kissed him as if her life depended on it, and in the moment, it felt like it did.
Kissed him until his hands created all manner of pleasure and fire that consumed the uncertainty inside of her.
She had known this man for years, loved him. But there were still dark places in him she could sense but could not see.
And she wanted to see them. Wanted to see him.
For better or worse.
“Say yes,” he growled.
“Yes,” she said, tears pouring down her cheeks.
She had lost. She had lost the battle inside of herself but she had won him, so wasn’t that fine? Wasn’t it okay?
What she was tired of was fighting. Pure and simple. Of wanting and not having. Of being in a constant state of deprivation.
So yes, the idea of being Queen, of being his wife who would never have his heart, had notes of exhaustion buried inside of it, but so did this. A life spent without Matteo. The nine years that she had carried wanting him, needing him, and never having him... It was not less exhausting. And if she could not have him now, then it would all have been for nothing. So she had lost at some things. And perhaps it was not so bad to surrender.
She thought of him reaching out his hand when she had been a girl. Seventeen years old and alone on the streets. Refusing him then would have been foolish. Was refusing him now any better? Sometimes you had to take the offered hand, even not knowing where it might lead. Because otherwise you would simply stay in the same spot, and that wasn’t always good either.
