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The fierce look in her eyes didn’t change, she only looked at him and he could hear his own words coming back to him, tinny and cruel and wrong.
Then her hand came out unexpectedly and touched his cheek and he felt that knife twist beneath his ribs, pain radiating out. ‘You want to believe that, don’t you? You want to believe that very badly. Why?’
He reached for her hand, pulling it away from his face. ‘This isn’t about me.’
‘Of course it’s about you. I know what I feel, Rafael. I know my own heart and I’ve loved you for years. Before I even knew what love was. It’s you that doesn’t know, I think.’ Gently she pulled her hand out of his hold and touched him again, just a brush of those cool fingers. ‘Tell me, has anyone said that to you before? Has anyone told you that they loved you?’
His stomach dropped away, every part of him in agony. ‘Why would they?’ he heard himself say. ‘Why would anyone?’
A terrible sympathy crossed her face. ‘No one? Not even your mother?’
‘Let me tell you what I was to my mother,’ he said, the words coming out before he could stop himself, even though it was a truth that wasn’t his to give. ‘I was the living reminder of what my father did to her. Of how he hurt her.’
Lia frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She was a hotel chambermaid,’ he said, because now he’d started down this path he had no other option but to keep going. ‘My father regularly stayed at the hotel where she worked and he decided he wanted her. She was very strong willed, however, and she wouldn’t sleep with him, so he courted her. He couldn’t marry her, because he was a king, but my mother disapproved of sex outside of marriage and so refused him. She loved him and he told her that he loved her, but still she refused.’
He bared his teeth. ‘So, he got her drunk one night and raped her. Afterwards he held her and told her she was beautiful and that he loved her and that it would all be okay. He manipulated her into thinking nothing had happened. She thought it was all fine because she loved him and he loved her, but when she told him that she’d conceived, he gave her some money to make her go away. And that’s when she realised she’d been used.’
Lia went pale, her expression horrified. ‘Oh, Rafael...’
‘So, no, no one ever told me that they loved me. Why would they? Why would anyone love a child that came from that?’
CHAPTER TEN
LIASTAREDINshock at him, that deep, vast emotion pressing against her heart, making it ache, making it hurt. Making her want to put her arms around him and hold him, keep him close.
‘Oh, Rafael... Oh... I’m so sorry...’
The look on his face was terrible. ‘I was the living reminder of what had happened to her, of why her life was ruined. She knew how I was conceived, could see the flaws in me, the same flaws my father had, and she taught me that I had to be better. That I had to learn how to control them otherwise I’d turn into him. And I tried. I did my best never to get angry, never to hurt her. She looked after me dutifully but I could understand why she never loved me. Why would she?’
There were tears in Lia’s eyes, his tall figure wavering. Her chest felt as though it was full of barbed wire, the sharp points digging into her heart, pressing hard enough to draw blood.
No wonder he’d had no reaction to her telling him she loved him. And no wonder he’d told her that it was just physical passion.
He didn’t believe in it because he’d never experienced it.
After what had happened to his mother, love for him was nothing but hurt.
Her throat felt tight and sore, but she forced the words out. ‘You were a child, Rafael. You were blameless and your mother had been hurt very badly. It wasn’t your fault.’
His mouth twisted. ‘I ruined her life, Lia. Every day she looked at me, she could see my father. She could see what he did to her. And when she saw the same traits in me that he had, it terrified her.Iterrified her.’ His eyes had gone dark. ‘I promised I would make our marriage work. I promised that I wouldn’t give you a moment’s regret, that I would make you happy, but... I’ve never made anyone happy. I don’t know how.’
Her throat closed. She knew where he was going with this, she could sense it. ‘You do,’ she said forcefully. ‘Youdomake me happy. You told me I was enough for you, that I was an asset. You accepted me as I was when even my own parents didn’t.’
‘It’s not enough though, is it?’ His voice was harsh. ‘You love me, Lia. But I do not have the first idea of how to love you in return.’
‘I don’t need you to—’
‘Yes,’ he cut her off roughly. ‘Yes, you do and you want it, too. Why do you think you did everything your father asked? Why do you think you went to the altar to be married? You want to be loved,mi princesa, and you deserve it. You deserve it so much. But I am not the man to give it to you.’ He paused. ‘I can’t marry you, Lia. I’m sorry.’
The pressure in her chest became crushing. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, even though she had a horrible feeling that she did. ‘I thought... I thought you wanted to marry me. I thought that I was yours.’
Slowly, he shook his head. ‘I am poison. I hurt people the way I hurt my mother. I swore never to hurt you, but I will. One day I will and I cannot have that. This is the only way.’
Her throat had gone tight, her heart scraped raw. ‘So, what? This is all about protecting me?’
His hands had curled into fists at his sides. ‘You are so young. You have a life ahead of you and years to find someone else. I am flawed. Too flawed.’ His eyes had darkened ever further, all that blazing silver doused. ‘If I take you now, how am I any better than my father? Giving in to his emotions, giving in to his own lusts. Taking without asking and not giving anything in return. And you need that,princesa.You will suffocate without it.’
