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Galen stared down at her, aware of his own growing curiosity. Her file had given him, as she’d said, knowledge of her background, but nothing else. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know where she’d found her backbone of steel and the flames of her anger, and the drive he could sense in her.
She hadn’t let her background crush her and he wanted to know why not.
‘Then why?’ He searched her face. ‘Is it because you and I don’t know each other?’
‘No.’ She let out a slow breath. ‘I’ve told you already. I told you last week. I’m a nobody, Galen. I don’t know who my parents were, yet you have a whole line of portraits of your ancestors that go back hundreds of years.’
If only she knew. Luckily, she didn’t. Yet he didn’t think that her unknown parentage was the issue here, or not the main issue. There was something else going on.
He studied the shifting emotional currents in her gaze. ‘What are you afraid of?’
Instantly she scowled. ‘I am not afraid, I’m just not the type—’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ he interrupted. ‘I can see the fear in your eyes.’
She looked away, her lashes sweeping down, her body tensing beneath him. It was clear she did not want to talk about this and maybe, at a different time, he wouldn’t have pursued it.
But she was going to be his queen, which meant he needed to know. He needed to know everything about her, her dreams and her hopes, and, yes, her fears too.
‘If you think I’m going to let this go, you’re mistaken,’ he said.
‘I don’t have to tell you if I don’t want to.’
He released one of her wrists and took her chin in his hand, turning her to face him and holding her there. ‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘You do.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Remember what I told you in the nightclub? About being able to trust me?’
Her gaze sharpened like a spear. ‘You took my baby, Galen. You took him away from me. And that hurt. Ithurt.How can I ever trust you after that?’
That spear slid beneath his skin, a sharp pain stabbing deep.
There had been many misunderstandings in the aftermath of Leo’s birth, but, ultimately, he was the one who’d made the mistakes, starting with the fact that he hadn’t worn a condom. Then he’d taken Leo away, thinking the worst of her, that she’d given him up in favour of money. Then he’d lost track of her so that she’d had to spend six months desperately trying to get her son back, all the while suffering postnatal depression.
She had lost everything because of him.
You took a crown that wasn’t yours to take and then you took a child...
The spear slid deeper, into his heart.
She was right not to trust him. In her place, he wouldn’t trust him either.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. And you have every right not to trust me. But...’ He paused and held her gaze, letting the intensity of his regret blaze in his. ‘I’m sorry for what I did, Solace. You will never know how sorry. I shouldn’t have taken him from you, and I shouldn’t have assumed the worst of you. I shouldn’t have let you fall through the cracks and be forgotten. And I can promise you now, my word as a king, that I willnevertake Leo from you or you from him, not ever again.’
Her silver gaze cut him into shreds and he let her. He’d never let anyone study him so completely before and it wasn’t comfortable, but he let her. He had the sense that if he didn’t, she might not ever give him her trust and, if this was going to work between them, he needed it. And that a clear demonstration was required.
‘People say things,’ she said. ‘People say things all the time about how they can be trusted, and they always lie.’
The tight feeling in his chest tightened even more. ‘What people?’
‘Foster parents. Social workers. Government officials. I...’ She broke off as if afraid of saying too much.
‘You what?’ He could feel the tension in her jaw, as if she was trying to pull away from his fingers, so he tightened his grip. He didn’t want her to pull away. That would only delay this conversation and he didn’t want to delay it. He was hungry for knowledge, everything about her, everything her background report hadn’t said.
The look in her eyes now was pure defiance, her defensive anger leaping. ‘I don’t know you, yet you want to marry me, and I don’t understand it. I don’t trust it. No one has ever wanted me before so what makes you any different?’
Galen was conscious of a small, bright ache behind his ribs. As if part of him knew exactly what that felt like. Because even though he hadn’t known the reason until later, he’d never forgotten the way Alexandros used to look at him. There had been no love there, only fury. Galen had never been a son to Alexandros, only a cuckoo in the nest.
