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For a moment anger burned in the air between them, made even worse by the seething sexual chemistry that the past week of abstinence had only built to fever pitch.
She looked stunning today in her casual, light blue skirt, and plain white T-shirt. Pretty and virginal and delicious, making him want to chase her, tear those clothes from her and take her on the floor. Uncover the passion that lurked just under the surface of her skin. That was what he wanted, not her naming all those doubts he’d firmly shoved to the back of his mind.
But she wasn’t wrong about marriage or setting examples, and he knew all about that. He’d never witnessed Alexandros’s marriage to his mother, but he could guess.
Once he’d asked Alexandros about his mother, but his father had cuffed him and told him never to speak her name in his presence again. Galen had only learned about her from his nannies, and they’d told him that Queen Katerina had been too young, too wild and too passionate for Alexandros, and he’d been too cold and proud for her. It hadn’t been a love match. What it had been was a disaster from start to finish, they’d said.
Galen didn’t want a marriage like that.
Dysfunctional, Solace had said, and she wasn’t wrong. His family—though could he even call one father who’d loathed him a family?—had been extremely dysfunctional.
Is that what you want for Leo?
No, of course it wasn’t what he wanted for Leo. But while he’d been able to mention having to rebuild his reputation after his time at Oxford, he hadn’t been able to tell her the real truth. He couldn’t tell a woman who wanted only safety and stability how precarious his throne was, and how all it would take was one test to bring it down.
You are so certain of what that test will say.
Yes, he was certain. The answer lay in the fury he felt hammering away inside him, in the insatiable need for her that pulsed in his blood. All the base, toxic emotions, anger and jealousy and lust. The emotions that his father had hated, that Galen had tried so hard to get rid of. And all because he’d hoped for one kind word, one smile. One sign that Alexandros hadn’t really hated him as much as Galen had feared he did. But he’d never got that sign and he knew why: he was never Alexandros’s son.
But what if you are? What if you’re his biological son and he hated you anyway?
No, Galen didn’t believe that. He couldn’t. Alexandros was all ice, while Galen seemed to be only fire. Plus, his father had made it sound so easy, all the things Galen had to do, all the rules he had to obey. Yet none of it had been easy and he’d never seemed to do it right. ‘One would think you were someone else’s child,’ Alexandros had told him coldly once, after he’d got the line of kings wrong, ‘not mine.’
Galen turned away before he said something he’d regret. Leo was fussing, picking up on his parents’ tension, so Galen bent and scooped him up, shamelessly using him as a distraction. ‘Leo’s tired,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ll put him down.’
‘He’s not quite—’
‘I know his schedule.’ He was already heading for the door. ‘I know what he needs.’
He looked down at his son as he stalked upstairs. All of this was for Leo, that was what he had to remember. Yes, he had to protect his country from Kostas, but Leo was the future.
And a legacy of lies that he’ll be forced to continue when he grows up.
Ice settled inside him. What a throne he would leave his son... Mistake upon mistake, lie upon lie, and Leo would have to carry the burden, despite none of it being his fault. But what else could Galen do? The truth would expose Kalithera to Kostas and he wasn’t prepared to risk that.
You could tell her. It’s not a solution, but at least you won’t be bearing this alone.
No, he couldn’t share this. It wasn’t a burden he’d ever sought, but it was his, nonetheless. She’d been through too much. He couldn’t ask her to carry this too.
She is strong, though, you know her strength. And she deserves to know what’s at stake.
Taking Leo into his bedroom, Galen prepared him for a nap, laying him down in his cot. Then he stood there a moment, stroking his son’s downy forehead a couple of times to settle him.
Perhaps she did deserve to know. So many people had let her down in her life and she had reason to question him. And he couldn’t in good conscience keep refusing to answer, not if he wanted their marriage to be successful. He’d just have to consider what answer he could give, because the bare truth wasn’t it.
Leo was blinking sleepily and looking as if he was ready for his nap, so Galen turned silently and went out, stalking down the hall and down the stairs, trying to wrestle his recalcitrant emotions into submission before he saw her again.
Yet the moment he stepped back into the living area and saw her standing by the window, the sun shining on her pale hair, his desire and his anger and his possessiveness roared back into life.
He didn’t know what it was about her that made him feel this way. It was more than a physical response and it always had been, and whether it was her strength or her passion, or courage, or even the way she relaxed in his hold, trusting him completely, he didn’t know. What he was sure was that he felt it and it seemed that no amount of trying to control it worked.
He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them occupied, his fingers closing automatically around the box that contained the Star of Kalithera, the diamond ring that had graced the finger of many a Kalitheran queen.
Solace had drawn herself up, her chin lifted, looking as if she were Queen already.
‘You’re right, I’m not telling you everything,’ he said, carrying on their conversation as if he hadn’t left the room. ‘But it’s a secret that has the highest of stakes and it affects the throne. It affects Kalithera. It affects our son. And the fewer people who know about it, the better.’ There, that was as much as he was prepared to give her.
‘But I’m our son’s mother, in case you’d forgotten, and you can’t tell me?’ She folded her arms, her grey eyes uncomfortably direct. ‘I gave you my trust, Galen. Why can’t you give me yours?’
