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“Hence your willingness to do all the events. Fuck!” He threw his head back, shoving his hands through his hair. “Here I was trying to protect us from the very thing you needed for your company.”
“But I wasn’t thinking only of Mela-Skin. I was thinking about our future.”
“Were you?” he asked, his eyes wide. “Because you just admitted you never trusted me!”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s how you acted. We spent a month working at cross purposes because you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth! Why didn’t you ask if I’d be willing to participate or allow me to be a part of the process?”
“Because I knew how you felt! You hate the press. You resent their intrusion into your life and—”
“Bollocks,” he said, cutting her off, though his voice never rose.
“You’re doing it again. Judging my feelings.”
“No I’m not. I’m saying using them as an explanation for your current behavior is bullshit. After what we’ve been through, do youhonestly believe I wouldn’t move the heavens to satisfy you? That I’d let my disdain for the British tabloid media stop me from taking a few pictures if you needed it for your company?” He flicked his gaze away from her. “Try again.”
She flinched and scrambled to come up with a reply. Because a part of herhadbeen afraid that he would. And then what? A fight? Or a choice to make, being caught between love and a hard place?
Heat flushed through her and she strode over to him.
“But you shouldn’t have to! It’smybusiness!” She pounded her chest. “It shouldn’t have anything to do with you!”
He gripped her shoulders. “I’m not your enemy, Dani.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because everything you’re saying sounds like it’s you against them, instead of us against them.”
“Why can’t you understand that my life was on the line? I did what I had to do.”
He dropped his arms. “You sound just like her.”
That humorless laugh again. She fucking hated it.
“Excuse me?”
“The queen. You both believe that you alone must solve everything. That you’re the only ones who can right the world’s wrongs.”
“Not the world’s,” she said, tilting her chin. “Just our own.”
And then she could’ve kicked herself because she didn’t want to be allied with his grandmother.
“I suppose she already knows about this? Does that explain your transformation?”
“Yes. I didn’t plan on telling her, but she’d disinvited me to the state banquet.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Another instance where you could’ve talked to me.”
Dani knew how it looked. That she’d chosen to confide in the queen instead of him. That she’d picked the queen over him. It wasn’t true, but it’s what she’d done. How could they ever get past that?
“Did you know what she had planned?”
“Not initially, no.”
