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Sometimes it still puzzled him why Alexandros hadn’t tested his paternity the moment Galen had been born, but Alexandros had always been a proud man. Perhaps he’d never wanted anyone to know that he’d been cuckolded.
Or perhaps he just wanted a reason for his hate. Perhaps you were really his son after all, and he hated you anyway...
Galen stopped that thought dead in its tracks. No, hewasn’tAlexandros’s son. It was the only logical reason for his father’s loathing.
Regardless, he didn’t want Solace to feel unwanted the way he had, because it wasn’t her fault. Just as it hadn’t been his fault his mother had found pleasure with someone else. His parents’ disastrous marriage wasn’t something he wanted to repeat himself. Not when he knew intimately how it could affect a child.
As he looked at her, at the anger in her eyes and the fear beneath it, he realised that her feelings about this mattered very much. She mattered. She was Leo’s mother and the woman he’d chosen to be his queen and he wouldn’t have her feeling somehow less due to something that had happened in her past. Because whatever it had been, she hadn’t let it crush her. He’d genuinely never seen anyone so strong.
‘Listen to me,’ he said, and it was a command, with all the weight of his authority. ‘You are the woman who left behind everything she knew to blackmail a king for the sake of her child.’
‘I was naive. I should have—’
‘Yes, you were naive. But you were also brave and fierce and resourceful.’
‘I gave away my child!’ Her voice shook, real distress in her eyes. ‘My own mother gave me away without a thought and I just did the same thing. What kind of mother does that? What kind of person does—?’
Galen lowered his head and stopped her words with his mouth, a kiss to take away her pain. He could feel her trembling against him, but he didn’t move. He let the warmth and weight of his body hold her fast. He remembered how she’d relaxed in his hold that night in the club, when he’d put his hand around her throat, and sure enough, after a long moment, he felt the trembles shaking her lessen gradually, until she was completely relaxed beneath him.
Her mouth grew soft under his and he lifted his head. She’d closed her eyes, her breathing a little too quick.
Of course, that was what scared her, her own self-doubt, and he knew all about that, didn’t he? But she didn’t need to doubt herself. She was a testament to her own strength and courage, and she needed to believe that.
‘You weren’t well,’ he said, his voice flat and certain. ‘You’d just had a baby that you’d had no idea you were going to have. And you thought that what you were doing was best for him. And when you realised you wanted him back, you went out and did exactly that.’ He brushed his mouth across hers in a feather-light kiss. ‘You were on your own, with no support. You did the best you could with what you had, and you put him first. Every decision you made was for him. That’s the best kind of mother, silver girl. You’re a tigress. And a tigress is exactly what a queen should be.’
She let out a long breath, and then, finally, her eyes opened again. ‘I don’t...’ Her voice was soft and hoarse. ‘What if you change your mind?’
This was a very real fear, he could see it in her eyes, and it puzzled him, because once he made a decision, he stuck to it. But...perhaps she didn’t know that? And perhaps, at some point in her life, someone had changed their mind and it had hurt her?
‘I won’t change my mind,’ he said with utter certainty. ‘Kings generally don’t. Why would you think I would?’
She stared at him for a long moment, the shifting emotional currents in her eyes unreadable. Then she said softly, ‘It doesn’t matter. Not now.’
‘Solace—’
But this time it was her turn to interrupt. ‘Kiss me, Galen.’ Her hands lifted to his hair, her touch gentle. ‘Make me feel good. Please.’
Her honesty laid him open. How could he refuse? Perhaps he didn’t need to know everything now. The rest could wait.
So, he kissed her and then he made them both feel so good they forgot the rest of the world even existed for the rest of the night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOLACESATONthe hand-knotted silk rug and stared at the open folder she’d set on the floor in front of her. There was a neat stack of papers in the folder, the apparent life story Galen’s PR team had given her that she was supposed to memorise.
Leo was kicking on a blanket beside her, the living area full of the happy sounds he was making.
She’d much rather have been playing with him, but Galen had been very clear that she was to know all the facts that were given in that stack of papers. She was supposed to know this woman’s backstory backwards, so it was instinctive. So it was hers.
It wasn’t hers, of course. It was a lie.
Galen had told her not to worry about her origins, that his PR department would ‘put together’ something for her that would explain where she came from and how they met. How the news of her apparent death had been a cover for something tragic that had happened in her past, but now she was happy and healthy, and she and Galen were to be married.
He’d said such an elaborate backstory was necessary to spare her and Leo as much of the ensuing media circus as possible, as well as to protect the palace. His office could hardly admit to lying about Leo’s mother death and so another explanation needed to be constructed.
Solace accepted that, but she didn’t fully buy into it. Galen’s commitment to his reputation seemed excessive in her opinion, so she’d busied herself with research on his rule, since now she was going to be his queen.
She hadn’t known what to expect, perhaps a distant king, a bit too rigid, a bit too staid, and one out of touch with his subjects, but that wasn’t what she’d found.
