by Maisey Yates
“Luca,” she whispered. “Why do I get the feeling that it isn’t the secret of Annalise that stands between us?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I DON’T FOLLOW YOU.”
“That’s not your secret. You may not have ever told anyone about it, but I think you never told anyone because it wasn’t important. I think there’s something important. Something you don’t talk about because of the heaviness.”
She rolled to her side, looking at him, her dark gaze much more insightful than he would like. He felt... Well, he felt naked. A ridiculous thing, because he had been naked this entire time. But suddenly, he felt as though she had cut into him and peeled his skin from his bones, giving her a deep look into places that he had been so certain were hidden. And yet, she had seen. Easily and with accuracy.
“I’m not talking about this now.”
“Then when? It’s a wonderful thing, a beautiful thing, to have you out of control when we are together like this. But what about the rest of the time? What about what comes after? When we have to live a life together.”
He growled, rolling over, pinning her to the bed, pressing his palms into her shoulders. “The dark things that live in me... It will do you no good to know about them.” He felt a sick kind of shame roll over his skin like an oily film, as if he had not just been made clean by the water in the bathtub. As if he had not just been made clean by joining to her.
He realized, with a sharp sort of shock, that there was an element of fear buried in his deep reluctance to never speak of his past. Luca was an attractive man, and he well knew it. Not just physically; the women responded to his looks, to his expertly sculpted body and to his sexual prowess. But also, he was a man with money, a man with a title. It would be disingenuous for him to pretend he presented absolutely no attraction to women.
But he realized that the words his mother had spoken to him after that night had taken root deeper than he had imagined. That it would make people think things about him. That it would repulse and appall Sophia if she knew the truth. If she knew the things that had been done to his body, would she want him at all? Or would she find him damaged in some way?
It was an unacceptable weakness. To worry about these things. To care at all.
And that was the real problem. He wanted to pretend that it didn’t matter. That he didn’t think about it. That it only shaped him in good ways. In ways that he had chosen. But these feelings, this moment, made it impossible. An illusion he could no longer cling to. If he resented Sophia for anything, it was this, most of all.
“Do you want to know why reputation is so important to me?” The words scraped his throat raw on their exit. He didn’t want to speak of this, but the very fact that it had become such a leaden weight inside him that it had become something insurmountable, meant it was time for him to speak of it. Because if there was one thing he couldn’t stand more than the memory, it was giving it power.
It was acknowledging all that it meant to him.
He wanted it to be nothing. Which meant speaking of it should be nothing. But the ugly turn of that was if it meant something to Sophia... If he had to see disgust or pity in her eyes...
But suddenly, that luminous gaze of hers was far too much for him to withstand. And he thought that perhaps, as long as she wanted him in the end, a little bit of distance was not the worst thing.
“My mother had lovers,” he said. “I imagine you didn’t know that.”
Sophia frowned. “I’ve never heard my mother or your father speak of his first wife.”
“Yes. Well. It is not because he was mired in grief. Though I think he felt some measure of it, they were no longer in love by the time she died, if they ever were. I think...” Suddenly, a thought occurred to him that never had before. “I think your mother was his first experience of love. I think perhaps that is why the connection was so powerful there was no care given to propriety. Not when he already knew what could happen when you married someone who was supposed to be suitable.”
“You... You knew that she had lovers. But you must have been...a boy.”
“I was. Very young. At first, I did not question the presence of men in the palace and my father’s absence. We had many people stay there at many different times. But it was clear, after a fashion, that they were...special to my mother. It could not be ignored. Mostly, they ignored me. But there was one... He often tried to speak to me. Attempted to cultivate a relationship with me. I was sixteen.”
“That was just before she died,” Sophia said softly.
“Yes. Giovanni was the last one. It was as if everything came to a head at that point.” He hesitated. “Remember that ball I told you about?”
“The one with Annalise.”
“Yes. I think perhaps the reason that my memory of her is so sharp is because... Sometimes my life feels as if it’s divided into before and after. I know that many people would think I mean my mother’s death. But that is not the case. Before and after the night of that ball. I was a different person then. A boy. Protected from the world. That is the function of palace walls, after all. They keep you insulated. And I was, for certain.”
He didn’t want Sophia to touch him while he spoke of this. Didn’t want there to have been any contact between them. He rolled to the side, putting a solid expanse of bedspread between them. She seemed to understand. Because she didn’t move. She stayed rooted to the spot he had pinned her in a moment ago.
“That night, after the ball ended...Giovanni had gotten me a drink. It was slightly unusual as he took pains in public to pretend he didn’t know me. Why hint at a relationship with my mother? But still. I took the drink. I felt...very tired. And I remember I left early. I assume he then took advantage of the fact that people were moving around. The fact that people were walking through the halls... It was all normal. And anyone who was in attendance had certainly been vetted and approved by the royal family.”
“Luca,” she whispered, “what happened?” He could hear both confusion and dawning horror in her voice. And he knew that she had not guessed, but that she felt a strong sense of disquiet. Of fear.
He took a breath, closed his eyes. “He violated me.”
The words were metallic on his tongue. There were uglier words for what had happened to him. More apparent. But they were still too difficult to speak, because victim lay on the other side of them, and that was something he could not admit. Something he could not speak.
“He...”
He did not allow her to speak. “I think you know the answer.”
She said nothing for a moment, silence settling heavy around them as flashes of memory replayed themselves in his mind. Flashes were all he had. A blessing of sorts, he supposed. A strange, surreal state brought about by whatever drug he’d been given.
“Why wasn’t he arrested? Why weren’t you protected?”
“It never happened again,” he said gravely. No. He had gone straight to his mother. Because there had been no one else to speak to about it. How could he tell his father what had happened, at the hands of his mother’s lover? To do so would mean to uncover her. But surely, she would protect her son.
She had not.
Not really.
Her version of protection had been to ensure that Giovanni didn’t come to the palace anymore. She had cut off her association with him, but she did not, would not, push punishing him. For her own reputation.
“The reputation of the nation,” he said, his throat tightening. “It was the most important thing.”
“How can you say that? Of course it wasn’t. Your safety was the most important thing. Justice for what had been done to you.”
Her lip was curled upward, an expression of disgust. Likely directed at what had been done to him, and not at him. But still, somehow it felt all the same.
“What does that mean in context with an entire nation of people?”
“You were raped,” she said.
The words hit him like the lash of a whip. “And how is a
nation supposed to contend with that? A future king who has been...victimized. Who was held down in his own bedchamber... It could not be. My mother explained why.”
“Your mother?”
“There is no point having this discussion. She was correct. It would follow me, Sophia. It would be the story of who I was. Something like that cannot be forgotten. Admitting a weakness on that score...”
“You are not weak,” she protested. “There is nothing weak about... You were drugged.”
“So easy it would be to destroy the throne then. To attack the kingdom. See how vulnerable I am?”
“No,” she protested.
“I don’t believe that,” he said. “To be clear. I was there, and I’m well aware of what I would have been able to fight and what I could not. But that would be the speculation, Sophia. And there is a reason that this does not get spoken of.”
“Luca...”
“I have trusted you with it. You asked for this. You pushed for it. Don’t you dare betray me.”
He felt some guilt at saying that. As if she would. Of course she wouldn’t. She was looking at him with the truest emotion he had ever seen. His mother certainly hadn’t looked at him like that. She had been horrified, too. But not about what had been done to him half as much as what the fallout could be. The fallout for her.
He hated this. He hated thinking of it. It was best left buried deep, with the lesson carried forward. There was no point to this. Because there was nothing that could be done. It was dragging out dead bodies and beating them. And there was simply no reason for that.
You could not spend your life punching at ghosts. That much he knew.
“Am I a strong king, Sophia?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Would I be so strong in the eyes of the people if they knew?”
“You should be,” she said.
“But would I be? We cannot deal in what should be. If what should have happened had happened I would not have been violated. But I was. I can only deal in reality as it is. And I cannot take chances. Why do you think I did my very best to stay away from you? I have a reputation. Our country has a reputation. And what exists now? It has been built on the back of my silence. And now I’ve blown it all to hell.”
“Luca, you cannot carry all of that. You’re a man. You cannot control what people think of you. You’re a good man, that’s what matters. Not what people think. But what you do for the country.”
“So you say. But our standing in the world would greatly be affected by the way the people perceived me. By the headlines. And when it came to my child... There was no choice. In that I would choose him.”
“You should have chosen yourself,” she said softly. He bit back the fact that it was his mother who hadn’t chosen him. So why the hell should he?
He had already stripped his soul bare, had already confessed to the kind of weakness and shame that made his skin crawl to even consider. The last thing he was going to do was go further into mommy issues.
“I chose San Gennaro,” he said instead.
“Luca...”
He got out of bed. “I have some more work to see to.”
“It’s late.”
“Yes,” he said. “But it will not wait.”
There was no work. But he needed distance. Feeling like he did, he could not allow her to touch him. He needed a chance to get distance from this moment. To forget this conversation had ever happened.
He had expected... He had expected her to pull back, and she wouldn’t. Damn her. She surprised him at every turn.
He collected his clothing and pulled it on, walking out of the bedroom, ignoring Sophia’s protests. He pushed his hands through his hair and paused for a moment, only just now realizing how quickly his heart was beating. But he had done it. He had spoken the words. Maybe now... Maybe now it wouldn’t matter.
He walked down the hall toward his office, and when he entered the room his phone was lighting up, vibrating on his desk.
It was his stepmother. He picked up the phone. “It’s late,” he said.
“You need to come home,” she said.
“I’m busy at the moment.”
“Luca,” she said, “I would not tell you to come home if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. This is all getting out of hand. And you cannot simply leave the country to take care of itself.”
“What about Sophia? This is for her benefit, not mine.”
“Then leave her there alone. Wherever you’ve spirited her off to, leave her in peace while you come here to deal with the fallout of your actions.”
“I assure you that your daughter has culpability in the situation.”
“Oh, I have no doubt, but if your only view is to protect her, then leave her behind and come back and address your people.”
“You know I can’t do that. If we step out, we must do so together.”
“That is likely true. But... Luca, I beg you, don’t hurt Sophia. She is not from your world. No matter how long she has lived in it... It is not ingrained in her the way that it is in you. That duty must come first. For her, love will always come first.”
Yes, and he knew that. Because for her, what his mother had done was unfathomable. While to him... He might resent it, but... In the end, could he truly be angry about it? What he had said to her was true. He would be defined by that experience if the world knew of it. It was difficult to be angry about the fact that he was not.
“I won’t,” he said.
“I wish I believed you.”
“I will marry her. I will not abandon her.”
“That’s my concern. But you seem to think that is all that is required of you. There is so much more, Luca.”
“What else is there?”
She said nothing for a moment. “Come home.”
“I will ready a plane for an early morning departure.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN SOPHIA AWOKE to see Luca standing at the side of the bed, wearing nothing but a pair of dark slacks, his arms crossed over his bare chest, his expression forbidding, she knew something was wrong.
“What?” She scrambled into a sitting position and pulled her sheet up to her chest.
Suddenly, last night came flooding back to her. His confession. What had happened to him at the hands of his mother’s lover. He had left after that. And it had hurt that he had pulled away, but she had understood that it had been required.
Still. She wanted to hold him. She wanted to...offer him something.
She knew that he wouldn’t let her.
“We need to leave,” he said, his voice stern.
He walked over to the closet and took out a crisp white shirt, pulling it over his broad shoulders and beginning to button it slowly.
“Why?” She shook her head, trying to clear the webs of cotton from her brain. “I thought we were going to stay here until everything died down.”
“We were. But your mother called. She convinced me otherwise.” His jaw firmed, his expression like iron. “It is not going to be easy. But she is correct. I have left the country to burn in my absence, and I cannot do that. She suggested...that I leave you here.”
“I don’t want to stay here. I want to go with you.”
He seemed to relax slightly at that. But only slightly. “I feel it would be best for you to come with me. It would be good for us to present a united front. However...”
“There is no however,” she said, pushing herself up so that she was sitting straighter. “You’re right. If you return without me the rumors will only get worse. Whatever you say. I need to be there. I need to be there, speaking for myself. There is no other alternative that is acceptable.”
“You are very brave, Sophia.”
Was she? She had never felt particularly brave. A girl who had tried once to gain the attention of her father, only to fail. Who had then spent a life infatuated with a stepbrother who didn’t even like her.
Suddenly, it all became clear, as if the clouds had rolled bac
k, revealing a clear sky and full sun. She had spent those years infatuated with Luca to protect herself. If she had ever fancied herself in love with him, she had been wrong. Because she had not known him.
He had never even been kind to her. Had never demonstrated any softness toward her. Had taken no pains to make her feel welcome in the palace.
He had been the safest.
Until the moment he had touched her in the garden, and it all became painfully real.
But until last night, she had never really known him.
She had been attracted to the untouchable quality he had. To the safety that represented. And more than that, to his strength. The integrity that he exuded.
She had admired that, because she had known men without it. Her own father being one of them.
But that wasn’t enough to be love.
Suddenly, as he stood there, putting himself back together, after making himself so vulnerable the night before, putting the king back on over the top of the wounded boy, she fully appreciated what that integrity meant. What that strength cost.
That the granite in his voice, the hardness in his eyes, the straightness in his stance, the way he held his head high, had all come with great difficulty.
Anyone who knew his public story would think he was a man who was exactly as he had been raised to be. A man who had never faced any real adversity, beyond the loss of his mother. And what famous, handsome prince these days had not experienced such a thing?
But they didn’t know. Not really.
Until last night she hadn’t, either.
Suddenly, it felt as if someone had reached inside her chest and grabbed hold of her heart, squeezing it hard. Feeling overwhelmed her. There was no safety here. There was no careful divide created by his disdain, no distance at all. This wasn’t simple attraction, wasn’t fascination. It was more. It was deeper.
It was something she had not imagined possible. Something she hadn’t wanted.
