Princess from the Shadows Maisey Yates (17 page)

“It doesn’t,” she said. She sat in the chair that was positioned by his desk. She felt cold. “I can’t stop shaking. I don’t know why. It was like this when I was pregnant with Luca. The horrible questions. Constant photos. Headlines. They followed me everywhere. Nothing was mine anymore, not even my own image. They distorted it to make a story. To make money.”

Rodriguez looked at Carlotta, at her pale features, her lips chalky white, her eyes dull. He wanted to touch her, to offer her comfort. Something. But he didn’t know how. Didn’t know what to do, not when he was the one who’d caused her pain.

He shouldn’t have had her attend the press conference. He should have anticipated the firestorm. But his decision about Luca had been made suddenly, just before he was preparing to speak.

It had hit him right then, what he had to do. To truly make Luca a part of him. A part of the family. To protect him from rumors, from labels. There would still be rumors, but he had the kind of reputation that would make it easy for his people to believe that he’d fathered a child he hadn’t known about.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered. “Sometimes I think it was easier when I was in Italy.”

Something in his chest broke. Splintered into a million pieces at the soft, sad admission. Still he stood, frozen, unsure of what to do. Unsure if anything he did would ever be enough. If he was the one who was meant to comfort her in this moment.

There was no real way he could ever know. She was here because she’d been manipulated into it. And he hadn’t cared. He’d known that she didn’t want to marry him, that she was only doing it out of a misguided sense of duty, and he had gone along with it anyway.

Was he truly any better than his father?

She stood, the fatigue etched into her face. “Thank you, Rodriguez. For what you did. I am grateful. I’m sorry about … this. The emotional stuff. I just hate being in the public eye like that. It’s not for me. I guess I have to get used to it though, don’t I?”

“You should get some rest.”

She needed it, after what those animals had done to her. The image of her, surrounded by the crowd of reporters, the gut-tearing rage he’d felt when that man had grabbed her arm, it threatened to choke him.

“Thank you,” she said. She turned and walked out of his office, her shoulders stiff, stress evident in every line of her beautiful body.

He simply stood there, suddenly aware that she was being held prisoner. And that he held the keys to her chains. He was forcing her to stay here. Keeping her with him for what? To make himself happier? No matter the cost to her?

His father had done that. Had tried to hold his mother captive with threats, with power.

But unlike his mother, Carlotta wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t abandon her son or her duty to slip out of a situation that made her miserable.

The knowledge cut into his chest like a knife, wounding him, making him bleed. It was a new, strange kind of grief. One that flayed him from the inside out. One that made his body like a stranger’s.

Carlotta
.

She would stay with him forever, ignore her own comfort, her own desire to do what she felt she had to do. And she would grow to hate him for it.

And he would never be able to bear it.

“I’m not sleepy!” Luca protested, the whine in his tone proving that statement to be a lie.

“Yes, you are,” Carlotta said.

“Nope,” Luca insisted.

“Luca,” Rodriguez said, his tone firm. “Don’t argue.”

Luca’s eyes rounded as he looked at Rodriguez. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Rodriguez said, trying to ignore the crushing weight in his chest.

He’d spent the afternoon thinking of what he must do. What he had to do for Carlotta’s happiness. For Luca’s.

“Can you carry me?” Luca asked, stretching his arms out to him, the trust in his eyes implicit. Humbling and undeserved.

“Of course,” Rodriguez said, lifting him, surprised at the comfort it gave him.

“Rodriguez?”

“What, Luca?” he asked.

“Are you going to be my dad?”

Luca’s question cut straight through him. Would he ever be a father to him? Really? Would he be worthy of it? “Yes, Luca,” he said. Because he would do all he could. He would be Luca’s father, no matter what happened between him and Carlotta. He would see to that.

Luca patted Rodriguez’s face. “Good.”

Rodriguez’s throat felt tight. Too tight. He carried Luca down the hall and put him in his bed, pulling the covers up around him. It was nice, for one moment, to have the kind of domesticity he’d always wondered about. To know it was real.

To know, even as it tore him to pieces, that love was real.

“Can I have Sherbie and Sherbet?”

Rodriguez reached over to Luca’s side table and took the stuffed owls from their perch, placing them in Luca’s arms. “Anything else?”

“No. Thank you for tucking me in.”

“Good night, Luca.”

Rodriguez closed the door behind him and walked down the hall to where Carlotta was standing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt fear. He felt it now.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

She nodded. “Of course. After today it’s probably a good idea.”

He wanted to touch her. He knew he shouldn’t. If he touched her, he would be lost. He would kiss her if he laid one finger on her silken skin, and once his lips met hers, he would be on fire, inside and out, with the need to join his body to hers.

And no matter how much he wanted to be with her, no matter how badly he wanted to make love, he wouldn’t use that to manipulate her. And he wouldn’t use it to put a Band-Aid on a situation that was mortally wounded.

“The announcement today changed things,” he said, working at detaching emotion from his voice, working at detaching himself from his body. Trying to find that place that was free of everything but the necessary numbness he needed to get through life. To get through this.

“Did it?”

He worked at forcing the words out, his body unwilling to say them. “We no longer have to get married.”

She said nothing for a moment, her expression blank, her body frozen. “We don’t?”

“No. I have claimed Luca as my biological son. As my heir. That negates the need for us to have any more children.” Saying that was like driving a knife into his own stomach. It was the death of elusive dreams he had let himself have for brief, fleeting moments. But he would do it a thousand times to avoid the pain a forced marriage would cause Carlotta.

“And the marriage …”

“The unity came from children. The benefits to the nations from the solid bond that us sharing a child would bring. We share that bond. I … I do think of Luca as my son and I didn’t name him as my heir lightly.”

“But you don’t want to get married?”

Carlotta felt like the world had tilted on its axis and she had remained standing where she was, trying to adjust her perspective in a world that didn’t look the same anymore.

Rodriguez’s words, words that seemed like they were from another lifetime, came back to her.

I prefer not to marry. But I need an heir
.

He’d found a way to get his heir without getting the wife. A way to have what he needed without having to take on the extra baggage a wife would supply.

“What do you … what do you want to do with Luca? With … me?”

“He’s my heir and he needs to be in Santa Christobel. If you like, you could live in an apartment on the grounds, or remain in the palace. But somewhere you will both be safe. Be kept away from the public eye.”

In the palace? Where she’d have to watch Rodriguez with other women? Where she would have to endure knowing, night after night, that he was down the hall giving them what he had given to her? Something she had thought was special. Different.

What a fool she was.

Because this hadn’t been a simple affair. She had given all of herself. Everything, with no reservation. She had stripped off every inhibition, every bit of protection. She had shown Rodriguez who she was. He had shown her who she was. Had taught her things about herself she had never imagined might be true.

He had changed her. And now he was just. leaving her. How could he not want their life together? The one they had planned. How could he have given her the picture of the perfect, domestic family life and then take it back from her? How dare he make her dream again? Make her want and desire and need. And how dare he take those new dreams and tear them into pieces, scattering them in the wind.

“So you have what you want now? And that’s … it?”

He looked at her, his eyes flat. Frighteningly dark. This was the man she’d glimpsed beneath the cool, playboy exterior, this was him exposed, stripped of the veneer. He was terrifying, beautiful and utterly heartbreaking.

She wanted to touch him, but she was afraid it might break her. To touch him again and have him reject her.

“I will never have what I want. That’s the nature of this life, Carlotta. We live, we try and survive the abuse that is hurled at us, and we either crumble beneath it or we become stronger. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just surviving.”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe that. I want more than that.” She swallowed hard, taking a step away from him. “And I’ll have that some day. Because I’m not afraid to chase it now. To be me. To grab life with both hands. That’s one good thing you did for me, Rodriguez. You showed me that I could be who I am. That I’m happier when I’m not trying to hide. Maybe you should try that. The not-hiding thing.”

She turned away from him, because if she looked at him, even for one more second, she would crumble completely. And she couldn’t do that. She was going to stay strong. For Luca. For herself. For the new her that Rodriguez had helped her become.

“Where will you go, Carlotta?” he asked, his voice rough.

“Tonight? Just my room. Tomorrow. I don’t know.”

“And you will take Luca?”

Her stomach tightened. Luca, who loved Rodriguez.

“We will be here, in Santa Christobel. I won’t hurt Luca like that.” She turned to face him again. “I won’t allow you to hurt him.”

Rodriguez met her eyes. “I won’t.”

She believed that. Utterly. Completely. But he would hurt her. He had. He had taken her world and destroyed it. Taken every new and wonderful thing she felt she’d discovered about life and twisted it, handed it back to her a mangled mass of nothing.

She turned again and walked from the room, leaving bits of herself behind. Pieces of herself she didn’t think she could ever reclaim.

CARLOTTA hadn’t left the palace. But she had left him in every way that mattered. She wasn’t in his bed. She didn’t share meals with him. She hardly spoke to him.

He felt like there was a hole torn through him, raw and bleeding. It made it painful to breathe. He couldn’t find solace in retreating from emotions because it had bled into every part of him. It was in his bones.

But he had given her a choice, had told her they didn’t have to marry, and she had taken it. It was right. But it was killing him slowly.

To have her so close that all he would have to do was walk down the corridor to be in her arms again, and yet so far that he was certain of her rejection, was torment.

He’d imagined he had known enough pain that he would be dead to it now. He’d been wrong. Laughably wrong.

What he wanted to do was get drunk and forget. Find some artificial happiness and pretend, for a few hours, that it was his reality.

It was what he had done all his life.

But it wasn’t enough anymore. It would never be enough again. Carlotta had shown him true happiness. And she had revealed the rest of his life as the shallow counterfeit it was.

Because she had torn the walls around his heart down to the ground. She’d made him love. Had shown him the love a father should have for a son with Luca. Had shown him true love between a man and woman.

He loved her. With every piece of ruined soul, he loved her.

And he had pushed her away because he’d had to. Because if he didn’t she would have been unhappy. Because if she stayed he would have to tell her. And she might reject him. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask her to stay. He had never believed she would.

He curled his hand into a fist and slammed it down on his desk.

He had never believed he deserved love. Never believed he could have it. He had endless confidence in his skills as a ruler, as a lover. But he had learned to despise who he was deep down. Learned to hate the man that no one could love.

But Carlotta had made him feel differently. Seeing her with Luca had changed the way he saw being a parent. Had made him look at it from the side of the adult, rather than the child. Had made him see that anyone who didn’t care for Luca was wrong.

That it was the adult and not the child who was at fault.

He stood from his desk, his heart raging in his chest. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the hope that was surging through him was for nothing.

But he was going to take a chance. If he laid everything down and was left with nothing, not even a shard of pride, it would be worth it.

Pride he could live without. But he didn’t want to live without Carlotta.

“Carlotta. Please let me in.”

Carlotta sat up in bed, her chest tightening. She hadn’t been sleeping. But she’d done what she’d done every night for the past week. Gone to bed at the same time as Luca, lying there, awake and bleeding emotion until sheer exhaustion forced her into a sleep filled with nightmares.

And she’d imagined Rodriguez coming to her. And in her mind she’d been weak. She’d taken him into her arms with no promises of love, or marriage or anything. Because it seemed like having a piece of him would be better than having nothing of him at all. That was when she had to try to remember that she wanted more. More than what though? More than loving a man with every shred of her being? That was a tall order.

“It’s open,” she said. Because she wanted to see who would win. Weak Carlotta, or Strong Carlotta. She was rooting for her weaker half.

Rodriguez walked in looking disheveled and more handsome than any man had a right to. More than that, looking at him made her feel sated and starving at the same time. She’d been trying not to look at him if they happened to pass each other. And it was pretty easy to avoid someone in a gigantic palace.

He exhaled and crossed the room in two easy strides, sitting on the bed. She wasn’t sure who moved first, only that one moment she was determined to be resolute, and the next she was kissing him. Kissing him like she was starving for him, her fingernails digging into his shoulders, tears streaming down her face.

When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers, his breathing labored. “I am a fool, Carlotta.”

“I’m listening,” she said.

“You don’t have to be my wife. I told you that a few days ago. But I shouldn’t have left it there. I should have finished with a question.”

“What question?”

“Will you marry me? Because you want to. Because I love you. Not because it’s your duty, or because you want Luca to have my name. All of that is covered, and marrying me won’t give it to you again. But it will make me the happiest man on earth.”

She wiped tears from her cheeks with shaking hands. “What did you just say?”

“I asked you to marry me.”

“The other part.”

“That I love you?”

“Yes. Say it again.”

“I love you, Carlotta. I should have told you this before, but I was too afraid. I was numb for so long, and you brought feeling back. Color. Light. I didn’t want to admit how much I needed it. You showed me what life really was, and I didn’t think I could live if I lost it. If I confessed it and you didn’t feel the same. Somehow, I thought if I could just keep it all inside, I wouldn’t have to face it. But I can’t deny it. I love you, Carlotta Santina. No woman has ever had my heart. But you do. You have my heart, my mind. My body and my soul.”

He cupped her face with his hands. “I cannot deny it. I don’t want to. You … you have cast the fear from me with your love. There is no room for it now. I am filled. I am complete.”

“I love you too,” she said. “I love you so much.”

He pulled her to him again, holding her in his arms, just holding her. His breathing ragged, his heartbeat steady and hard against her cheek. “You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that. How much I need your love. I do. I need it. I spent my whole life searching for some kind of happiness, for family. I finally have it. You gave it to me.”

“And you gave me freedom. I’m not afraid of myself. Of passion. You accept me as who I am. And you’ve helped me do the same.”

“That’s love, Carlotta,” he said, as though he was suddenly the expert. “Love has no conditions. No bounds. I didn’t realize that until I met you. Thank you,” he said, his voice rough. “Thank you for finding me. I was buried underneath a facade I hated. You found me.”

Tears slid down her face, matching his. “I have loved every piece of you, Rodriguez. The man you showed the world, the father you are to our son, the man you are just for me. And I always will.”

Rodriguez didn’t bother to fight the emotion that was rushing through him, emotion he had kept shut off for so long. Emotion unlocked by Carlotta. By her love.

“I believe you.”

“Good, because I’ll always tell you the truth,” she said.

“I know.”

“I love you. And I want to marry you. Not to atone for anything, but because with you I’m free. With you I finally know who I am.”

“That’s good, Carlotta,” he said, taking her face in his hands, wiping her tears away. “Because you are exactly who I needed.”