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‘Yes, but you’re not. So why are you acting as though they’re still alive?’
His patience began to thin. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I know they’re not alive. Do you think I’m stupid?’
She paid no attention to his tone. ‘No, of course not. But you do know what I’m talking about, Rafael. You’re so cold, so detached. And that’s not who you are.’
‘I’m not detached. I’m simply in control of my emotions.’
‘In control,’ she echoed. ‘Was that what kidnapping me from the cathedral was all about? You being in control of yourself?’
He could feel all his muscles tighten yet again, the tension excruciating. ‘We have been over this. You’re pregnant with my child and I had to do something—’
‘You stopped a royal wedding. In the middle of the ceremony. And then you—’
‘What is your point?’ He’d taken a step toward her before he knew what he was doing. Adrenaline coursed inside him, making him feel hot, making him feel the need to do something intensely physical just to get rid of it. ‘You want a fight,princesa? Is that what you’re trying to do?’
Lia took a step toward him, in no way cowed by him. Her eyes were glowing with that intense blue light that always filled them when they were challenging each other.
You’re fiery and hot, the pair of you.
No, maybe she was, but he wasn’t. He was the master of himself. He had to be.
‘What I’m trying to do,’ she said fiercely, ‘is to get to know my husband. You told me months ago that you didn’t want to discuss anything private or personal and I agreed. But things have changed.’ She took another step. ‘We’re going to be married, Rafael, and you are going to be a father. I think the time for that embargo on private conversation is over.’
He could feel his temper fray, responding to the glint in her eyes and wanting to answer it. But he couldn’t.
His mother, crouching down in the ruins of his bedroom, looking at him with fear in her eyes. Her grip on his shoulders was so hard it was painful. ‘Rafael, do you really want to be like your father? Violent and horrible? Hurting people the way he hurt me? Is that who you’re trying to be?’
His rage had burned out, leaving him hollow and empty, and he couldn’t remember any longer what he’d even been angry about. Now all he felt was fear.
‘No, Mama,’ he said, his throat sore from shouting. ‘I would never hurt you. I want to be a good boy.’
Her mouth was a hard line, her eyes full of a terrible ferocity he didn’t understand. ‘Then you have to control yourself. Youmust.You cannot get angry like this any more. Because one of these days you will hurt someone. Youwillhurt me.’
‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ he said, because at seven years old, all he wanted was not to hurt his mother. ‘I’ll try hard not to, I promise.’
She stared at him. ‘You can’t escape who you are, Rafael. You were born with your father’s flaws, so you will have to do this all your life. Understand?’
Oh, he’d understood. At first control was his lord and master, but over the years, he’d mastered it. He would not let that temper get the better of him, especially not now, with this woman in his keeping.
A woman he’d promised to himself never to hurt.
‘Please, Lia. Do not push me.’ He put everything he had into keeping his tone level, to not letting the pressure of the heat inside, the hard, violent emotion he knew he couldn’t let off the leash, not ever. ‘We need to have this conversation at a later time. First, there is dinner—’
‘Stop talking about dinner!’ She was close to him now, all soft and warm in his T-shirt. She smelled like the bath oil she’d used, something sweet that set all his senses alight, no matter that he’d spent hours sating himself on her body already. ‘I don’t want this conversation at a later time. I want it now. Because if you can’t have it now, you never will. And I’ll never break through all the ice you’re surrounding yourself with.’
His patience thinned to snapping point. ‘You think you can order me around? Tell me to talk to you and I will? Like a good little lapdog? Is that what you think?’ He closed the remaining distance between them, inches away from her, burning up from the inside. ‘Who gave you the right to demand anything you want from me?’ He could hear the anger in his voice, the heat bleeding through. ‘Why do you think you deserve to know?’
She didn’t look away from him, her own special brand of ferocity burning in her eyes. ‘Because I’m going to be your wife, Rafael.’ Her cheeks were pink, the blue of her gaze as deep and dark as a midnight sky. ‘And...because I love you.’
It felt as though she’d slipped a knife between his ribs.
You can’t have love. You don’t deserve it.
‘You don’t love me,’ he snapped, not acknowledging it because if he did perhaps it would go away. ‘You just love the pleasure I give you.’
She went white. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You’re a good girl, sheltered. Cosseted. You’ve never known sexual pleasure until I gave it to you.’ The words spilled out of his mouth, harsh and sharp and cutting. ‘It’s very common for virgins to confuse love with passion and I’m sorry, but that’s what happened to you.’
