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A flare of anger crossed his features. ‘That is ridiculous.’
‘Your mother always put you second, didn’t she, until you gave her that final ultimatum.’ Strangely, the more she spoke, the calmer she was feeling and the clearer she was seeing. ‘Is that what I can expect from you as the next step? An ultimatum that you’ll divorce me or take our child from me if I don’t agree to step back from the world I was born into?’
‘Absolutely not!’ he refuted angrily.
‘Maybe not consciously,’ she accepted with a shrug. No, she didn’t believe this had been done at a conscious level any more than she’d not told him of her virginity at the time. ‘What you engineered with your conditions, intentionally or not, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy for you and an excellent excuse to keep me at a distance.’
‘Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?’ he sneered. But the pulse throbbing on his jaw told a different story.
‘Is it? Do you realise this is the first time I’ve heard you raise your voice or lose your temper? You always have to be in control, don’t you? The only time you let your emotions out is in the bedroom. What are you afraid of, Gabriel? That the toxicity of your parents’ marriage will somehow be ours? Well, I guess that’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy for us too. I don’t think you’re afraid of the press or that you even hate them. I think your refusal to engage with them is your way of punishing your mother because you ended the war between your parents but never dealt with its casualties—you and Mariella. You never dealt with the neglect you were put through, and you were neglected, Gabriel. You and Mariella both. So you punish your mother by refusing to play the game you hate her for but you can’t hate her, can you? Not when you love her. So you punish me instead, only committing part of yourself to me, and condemning me to a life with a husband who refuses to be my husband in public, and then you dress it up to salve your conscience by trying to convince yourself that our marriage will be happy once we separate the woman from the princess...’
Alessia took another breath for the strength to continue. ‘But the woman and the princess cannot be separated. The woman and the princess are one and the same thing. We cannot be separated because we are one. Ironically, you’re the one who brought that woman out in me and it’s through our time together that I’ve learned Icanembrace both those sides of me. Maybe one day my mother will learn to embrace them too and start accepting my human side. I don’t know. I don’t think it even matters any more. If she loves me then she must love all of me. I am a princess. I was born a princess. I will die a princess. A princess. Woman. Human. All I have done my entire life is put everyone else’s needs and feelings above my own. But for once, today, I will put myself above duty. I will not live with a man who wants to split me in two. I deserve someone who can love all of me... And that someone isn’t you.’
Feeling herself in danger of crumbling, needing to keep a tight hold of her falling strength, Alessia moved her folded arms up so they covered her chest, and held his now ashen stare. ‘Do you know who you remind me of? My grandmother. She hated the royal game and that twisted her and turned into hate for everyone associated with it, so let me save you a life of misery and free you from the trappings of a marriage you detest. Get in your jet and fly back to Madrid, and never come back.’
The last bit of colour in his face drained away.
‘You don’t need to be here any more. You know perfectly well that I will put our baby’s emotional needs first even without your influence. I’m sure we can come up with a good “compromise” about custody but that’s in the future. Right now, I’m going to Marcelo’s quarters so you can pack your things and go.’
Marcelo, his domestic staff dismissed for the evening, opened the door to his quarters. Alessia looked into the eyes of the only member of her blood family who’d even tried to understand her and collapsed onto the floor in tears.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HISBUTLER’SVOICEtelling him that his sister had turned up at his home unannounced made Gabriel close his eyes and breathe deeply. He returned the phone receiver to the cradle and refocused on the documents sent by his lawyer for him to read through.
Mariella let herself into his office without bothering to knock.
‘I did tell you I was too busy to see you,’ he said, pre-empting her.
‘You did,’ she agreed cheerfully, draping herself on his office armchair. ‘But seeing as it’s Friday evening and you’re here in Madrid and not in Ceres, and you’ve been avoiding me all week, I decided to put off my dinner date and ignore your edict. Going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘There is nothing going on.’ He dropped his gaze back to his paperwork and made a point of crossing a line out in heavy black marker pen.
‘Then why aren’t you in Ceres? The wedding’s tomorrow.’
‘Yes, and as I told you and everyone else, I will not be attending.’
She was silent for such a long time that Gabriel felt compelled to look back up at her. Hunched forwards, elbows on her thighs, chin in the palms of her hands, her stare was speculative.
‘What?’ he asked tersely.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I know you’re a stubborn thing, but I did think on this one occasion you would change your mind.’
‘Then you thought wrong.’
‘And what about Alessia?’
‘What about her?’
‘Don’t play dumb, Gabriel. It doesn’t suit you.’
He struck another black line through the document. He didn’t even know what clause he’d just struck out. ‘Alessia and I have agreed to part ways,’ he told her, and blacked out another line.
His sister’s unnatural silence made him look at her again.
‘It’s for the best,’ he told her. ‘Our lives are not compatible. We will agree to custody arrangements for our child nearer the—’
His words were cut off when Mariella jumped up from her seat and snatched the documents off his desk. Seconds later, she’d thrown them out of the window.
