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And then it was just him and Alessia.
Huge, painful thumps in his chest made it suddenly hard to breathe but he fought through it to try and read the beautiful face of the woman he’d shared the best night of his life with.
Gabriel was excellent at reading body language. While they’d waited in tense silence for Alessia to arrive, he’d read the body language of all the Berrutis. Both princes were mountains of barely concealed rage. He sensed Amadeo’s fury was at the situation as a whole. Marcelo’s, he suspected, was directed entirely at him, Gabriel. The queen was steely concerned only with damage limitation. The king’s body language told him that he would, once again, be the family peacemaker. It was a role Gabriel understood all too well—it was the role within his own family that had propelled him into a making a career out of peace negotiations. The reasons for needing those peace negotiations were the same reasons he kept such tight control of his emotions and had always selected his lovers from a pool of reserved, emotionally austere women. That he was on the cusp of marrying a woman who had passion embedded in her DNA and who guaranteed the press intrusion he so despised were things he must learn to handle, and quickly.
Alessia was the only Berruti who’d kept her feelings in check during their talk. Other than that flicker of surprise when he’d informed the family in no uncertain terms that they would raise their child astheysaw fit, she’d revealed nothing of her inner feelings. Even now, when it was just the two of them at opposing ends of the large, teak table, she simply sat in her chair, back straight, hands folded neatly on the table, eyes on him, giving nothing away other than haughty disdain.
He knew though, that her haughty façade was just that—a façade.
Born princess she might be, but it wasn’t possible that the woman who’d sobbed in his arms and then come undone in them, who’d exploded with a passion so strong it had to be a fundamental part of her nature, could be as cold on the inside as she was showing on the outside. And he shouldn’t be wishing her to reveal it.
Alessia willed herself to hold Gabriel’s hard stare. The vast space between them had shrunk to nothing and it was a struggle to think over the blood rushing through her head to console herself that he was too far away to see the thuds of her heart beating so hard and fast through her chest.
She willed even harder for the tears to stay away.
She would not let the hurt he’d put her through leech out. He would never know how his early-morning disappearing act had devastated her.
‘I have to say, this feels a rather extreme method of forcing you to see me again,’ she said with airy nonchalance when the silence finally became too much, and was gratified to see his jaw clench. Allowing herself a tight smile, she got down to business. ‘I am grateful that you have agreed to marry me and save my family from further scandal, and grateful for your concern about whether I consent freely to us marrying. As I’m sure you remember from the night we conceived our child, when we spoke of Amadeo’s marriage, consent and free will are important to me. You have my assurance that I do consent.’
One of the thick black eyebrows that had so fascinated her that night rose. ‘You consent to a loveless marriage?’
‘Of course.’ She smiled and added with a touch of sarcastic bite, ‘After all, I’m from a family that puts duty before personal feelings. In that respect, I think it can only be a good thing to marry a man who will put our child’s emotional needs first because I, like the rest of my family, am far too repressed to know how to do that. What a great example you’ll be able to set to him or her.’ Her smile widened. ‘Agreatexample. One day in the future, I must remember to tell them of the time when Daddy sneaked out of the castle after spending the night having sex with Mummy and then cold-shouldered her until he came riding in to rescue the conceived child from the horrors of a family without any mercy in them.’ She mock shuddered before bestowing him with another, even brighter smile. ‘Let me know when it’s your birthday—I’ll buy you a superhero cape withSVfor Super Virtuous emblazoned on it.’
Fearing her charade was on the verge of cracking, Alessia rose and strode to the door, opened it and invited her anxious, waiting family back inside before Gabriel could find a response.
Alessia entered ‘the zone,’ a place she inhabited during certain interminably boring royal engagements. Being in the zone enabled her to put her happy face on and speak brightly and clearly while a pre-marriage contract was drawn up, read through, redrafted, read through again, more clauses removed, others added... And so it went on, and on, and on, the monotony broken by a regular supply of refreshment that she made sure to consume even though her stomach was so tightly cramped she had to force the food down her throat and into it.
Occasionally a stunned voice played in her ear:You’re planning a marriage to Gabriel Serres, but she ignored it. Everything was too fantastical and happening too fast for it to actually feel real.
She was going to have to live with him and she couldn’t even begin to dissect the swell of emotions that rose in her to think of what this would mean.
Time passed in a strange alchemy of speed and slowness. Though Alessia kept strictly to her side of the table, her awareness of Gabriel’s presence within these four walls was as acute as if he were standing right beside her. He was too far from her to be able to smell him but she kept catching whiffs of cologne that made her abdomen clench and her pulses soar. She fought not to gaze at him. She also fought to not march over and slap his face, which frightened her as much as the yearning to stare.
Only when Gabriel was satisfied that it protected him from actually having to be a royal did he sign the contract, and then it was her turn. She wanted to fix him with another icy stare, prove her indifferent disdain, but by then her emotions were so heightened that it was all she could do to hold the pen. She added her signature to the document without the flourish she’d so wanted to make it with. Their respective lawyers acted as witnesses and made their marks too, and then it was done.
Her composure in severe danger of unravelling, Alessia left immediately, using the excuse that she wished to rest before dinner. Leaving before anyone else, she hurried out of the room avoiding Gabriel’s attempt to catch her eye.
Her nausea had returned with a vengeance and she hurried along the wide corridors to her private quarters. She climbed the stairs, closed her bedroom door and ran into the bathroom, where she threw up straight into the toilet.
It seemed to take for ever before her stomach felt settled enough for her to crawl off the floor and brush her teeth, and then she staggered back into the bedroom and collapsed on her bed.
Closing her eyes, she pressed a hand to her belly and breathed deeply, in and out. Having inherited her mother’s petite figure and danced for exercise and enjoyment most days of her life, her stomach had always been flat. Early though the pregnancy was, there was a noticeable swelling, just as her breasts had swollen. As dream-like as everything had felt these last few days, one thing had made itself felt with concrete certainty. She was pregnant. Her body was doing what it needed to do to bring her baby safely into this world. And Alessia would do what was needed too, and that meant marrying Gabriel.
She’d expected coming face to face with him to be hard but she hadn’t expected it to be that hard. She hadn’t expected to feel somuch.
Being a good, dutiful princess...that was Alessia’s role in this world, her purpose, her reason for being.
Her comments about Dominic had been one unguarded moment but her night with Gabriel was a different matter entirely. That night, she had broken free from the bonds of duty and freed the real woman inside, and it was terrifying how strongly seeing Gabriel again relit that passionate fire inside her.
She was aprincess.
There was a rap on her door.
Wishing the world would leave her alone, she sighed and closed her eyes tightly before calling out. ‘I’m resting. Please come back in thirty minutes.’
The door opened.
Surprised, she lifted her head, but any mild rebuke to whoever had taken it on themselves to disturb her solitude fell from her lips when Gabriel marched into her bedroom.
