by Ames, Ilsa
They’d only had a few short years together. Would my mother tell me to follow my heart, as she had done, or would she tell me to be sensible, as Jane would often tell me. Jane was a far more practical woman than my mother and had always tried to steer me down the path that made the most sense, that would create the least waves and ripples that might mar my life.
I smiled at the memory of both women and when Andrej came into my room that night, I took him into my arms without a word. I kissed him deeply, passionately, and with all of my fear. I wanted to give it all to him, so that he could take it all away from me. I ran my fingers over his body, as if it might be the last time. I was almost afraid I’d admit the truth to him, and so I didn’t say anything at all.
I touched him, I made him groan until he begged me to make the ache go away, and only then did I give him respite. When he did the same to me, I bit my lip to stop the words that might flow out. I turned my face into the pillow to smother the admission I might make. He would send me away if he knew about the baby. He might’ve even asked me to get rid of it. Isn’t that what men in his position did?
I held myself apart from him for the very first time, and I could see a slight line between his eyes, a look of confusion that had never been there before. He knew something was wrong. When he asked, I only smiled and shook my head.
“There’s nothing wrong, Andrej, I’m just tired.”
“You need to see a doctor, Cara. You’ve been ill now for far too long.”
“Oh, let me rest, Andrej.” I pouted, and rolled over. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I suppose?”
“Of course you will.” He took my words as dismissal, but I hadn’t meant them to be. He got up and put his clothes back on, and I wanted to take the words back, but knew it was best if I didn’t. Maybe it would be better for both of us if I drove a wedge in now, a wedge that would tear us apart, but would make it easier when it was time to go.
Tears fell from my eyes as he closed the door, and I sobbed into my pillow until I fell asleep. Only there would I find any kind of solace now.
Chapter 12
Andrej
“The queen has sent you a summons, sir.” Viktor called into my office from the doorway. I looked up from a stack of paper and grimaced.
Normally, I would only see my parents at formal functions, hospital openings or weddings, so the fact that my mother had summoned me so soon after my father had wasn’t good news. They were in it together then. I put down my pen and stood up. My back twinged from the crouched pose I’d been in for so long that afternoon. I’d need a long walk to break it up, and the walk to my mother’s quarters should just about do it.
She and my father had ended their relationship years ago, sometime after my birth. The fact that there had been no more children after me was proof enough of that. Mother had made it more noticeable when she’d left father’s quarters of the palace and moved to her own wing, one that hadn’t been used in decades. They were too old-fashioned, too aware of how the public would take it, if my mother officially divorced my father, and had compromised.
She’d have her life and he’d have his. Never the two shall meet. And they didn’t. Even at social gatherings they would avoid taking up the same space and would often be found on opposite sides of the room. There was little wonder I couldn’t have a functional relationship, with these two as parents. I’d been raised by nannies, with the occasional visit from my parents, one at a time.
Father would appear with toy yachts and trains. Mother would come full of admonitions about my position as a future king and what behaviors were expected from me. She wasn’t much of a mother, but she was still better than Ivana. That made me smirk.
No, my parents had never been affectionate or warm to me, but they’d done what they thought was best for Ikrosovnia. That was the most unselfish thing they could do. I respected them for that, at least.
I hadn’t heard from my father since our last confrontation, so I had to assume this demand for a visit came after some kind of communication had taken place. She hadn’t ‘sent for me’ like this since Ivana’s first mishap and she’d upbraided me about my wife’s behavior.
My mother was a statuesque woman, with pure white hair, piercing gray eyes of steel, and a thin frame. She was the epitome of a queen, and could freeze with the slightest sneer of a nostril. That look had stopped more than one bout of bad behavior when I was a child. If she had to raise her eyebrow, I knew I’d be in for some kind of punishment, so I’d learned quickly not to take it that far.
As I strode through the double doors of her salon, confident smile in place, my head held high, and my back ramrod straight, I reminded myself not to let her get to me. Father had goaded me, and I’d lost my temper, and very nearly lost what I’d lived my entire life for. I couldn’t let my mother do the same, queen or not.
“Don’t think you’ll charm me into compliance, my dear.” Fuck, that eyebrow was already higher than it should be. Painted a dark shade of brown, the eyebrow had been, and still was, a source of intimidation.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mother.” I bent to kiss her powdered cheek, and stood up. She was in a recliner, a rather American version of one from the size of it, with her feet up. Her arthritis must be painful again. Otherwise, she’d have been in a straight-backed chair that was as rigid as she was.
“You know perfectly well what I mean, Andrej. Sit down.” That took the wind out of my sails and I took a seat on the couch she pointed out.
“I suspect you’ve talked with Father.” The words came out evenly and smooth, tinged only with a small hint of irony.
“After a fashion. You know I don’t speak to that man.” She sniffed as if some foul odor had entered the room. “Who is this woman who has him so riled up.”
“Cara? She’s nobody to worry about, Mother.”
“Cara? The lovely au pair you brought in for Livia?” She looked shocked and then glared at me. “I might have known. You’re just as much a philanderer as your father is. That man!”
She smacked a delicate, thinly skinned hand against the plush cushion of her chair. The veins stood out darkly against her pale skin and it struck me for the first time that Mother had aged as well. There were more lines around her eyes than the last time I saw her, and the lines around her mouth had grown deeper. Had it really been that long since I’d seen my mother?
“At least he had the decency not to bring his paramours back to the palace. You can’t even manage that! What has the world come to!” She threw her hands up in the air, her thin wrist glinted with an accent of gold and sapphire gemstones.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t understand, Mother.” I interrupted her diatribe to sneer. “You and Father taught me well, but the world has changed. We don’t use words like paramour anymore, unless it’s a band.”
I said the words flippantly, something about her always put me on edge, even more than Father did. “Now you listen to me son…”
She started, a finger crooked with age came up, not quite pointed at me, but at a wall it was so bent with arthritis. I felt pity for her, that kind of destruction must be painful. Her next words wiped it out.
“As your father said to you, Andrej, we don’t fuck the help. You’re to stop this nonsense at once, do you hear me?” She glared at me as if the world hadn’t just flow apart.
My mother had said the word fuck. And used it properly too! My shock knew no bounds. I’ve never heard her use that word in my entire life. Now, she sat there and dropped it from wrinkled dry lips as if it was used with every other word in her vocabulary.
“Pardon?” I gaped at her, my mouth open and my eyes wide.
“You can find someone to satisfy your”—she groped around in her brain for a word and then settled on one. One she used air quotes for. I think the world may have just ended—“needs.”
“I’m sorry, Mother, but it’s really none of your business what I do, or who I do it with.”
“Whom.” She corrected me acidly, her
nose tipping up in disapproval as she turned her face away slightly.
“I’m not sure that’s correct either.” I stiffened a little myself and looked away. I’d never been so stubborn with my mother. Normally, she would cow me with that eyebrow and that would be the end of it all. I’d defied my father, and now my mother.
Over Cara.
Maybe the world really was about to end.
“Andrej.” She sounded as if she’d lose her patience if I didn’t soon shut my trap, so I sat back and let her have her say. She was my mother after all. “For the first time in that child’s life, Livia is happy. I will not have that ruined. Not for some silly little game you’re playing.”
Her words fell over me like ice water. She wasn’t finished.
“She’s become outgoing, she laughs, and she doesn’t stare at me like I’m some nightmare grandmother dreamed up by some American writer. She actually speaks to me now. If you find this Cara attractive fine, but don’t break her heart. Because if you do, she will leave here, and she will leave Livia, and for that I may not ever forgive you. It’s bad enough you’re using the poor girl, but you will damage far more than Cara with your little game. I simply will not have it.”
Her words became softer as she spoke, until they were little more than a very deadly hiss. Her eyes were hard and angry, and I knew she meant business. I could be as arrogant as I wanted to be, this was the queen, and her word was the law.
I felt a pang in my chest somewhere. Guilt maybe? I couldn’t say anything to my mother about it, we didn’t talk about how we felt or love; we rarely spoke at all actually. This was the most candid conversation I’d had with her. She’d known about father’s affairs all this time. No wonder she’d distanced herself from him.
She was right too, I thought as I squirmed in place. I had used Cara. That was all different now, but I couldn’t say that to my mother. I stood up stiffly, gave her a polite nod, and left. There was little else I could do.
I might have been selfish when I began this affair with Cara. I hadn’t cared if she fell in love with me, or what she might want for the future. Selfishly, I’d assumed she wouldn’t want anything more than a fling with a prince. I couldn’t even use the excuse of past history as an example. I’d simply not even thought about it any further than the shallow outlook I’d come to take on most things regarding the opposite sex. I could blame Ivana for that, but it wouldn’t be entirely true.
It was just who I’d become over time. I didn’t honestly know how to love someone, not my daughter, and not Cara. How did you show a woman that you loved her? With Livia, it was easy; I went to see her, I played with her and gave her affection. Far more affection than I’d ever had out of my parents or my nannies. A woman would want more than that, wouldn’t she?
I pondered it all as I went back to my office.
“Viktor, please follow me.”
Cara had been quite ill lately, and I decided it was time she found out what the problem was. I would take care of the matter for her, and call the doctor to come and see her.
“Call the family physician and set up an appointment for Livia’s au pair tomorrow. Have him come here. We want to respect Ms. Anderson’s privacy. After that, I’m leaving for the day. I need to take care of a few things.”
And by take care of, I meant I needed to think things over. My mother’s attempts to upbraid me had gotten under my skin in a way my father’s hadn’t. Yeah, I’d had to rearrange my thoughts after I talked with my father, but my mother?
Viktor nodded quietly and walked out of the office. He closed the door behind him, and left me with my thoughts. He knew to leave me alone now and would not disturb me.
My mother’s words were on repeat in my head, but they were jumbled up now. She’d known about Father’s affairs and that must have hurt her deeply. But then, his affairs were so legendary that even I’d known about them, even as a child. So it was stupid that I’d never thought about it before. How it must have hurt her, with each new scandal he caused. There was the American actress, a British princess, a Russian mafia boss’s wife, that king’s daughter from Saudi Arabia. On and on, the list had grown with each year that passed. My father was an infamous lover, and my mother had endured every bit of that without a batted eyelid.
As far as I knew, anyway. We never talked about that sort of thing, and maybe it had hurt her deeply. Perhaps it had made her the cold woman I had known as I grew up. What must it have been like to be married to a man who couldn’t stop his obsession with women who weren’t his wife? And to do it so openly? He was a king, it was his prerogative, just as it was mine to do the same as the crown prince. But to do that to the woman he married?
Their marriage had been arranged too, as mine had been with Ivana. My mother didn’t have that selfish, mean streak that Ivana had though. Ivana had wanted the title, and eventually the crown, until she grew bored with the life of a princess. Then she wanted more excitement, the elusive high of drugs and parties and sex. She’d dumped Livia off on whoever would take her and had never intended to be a proper mother to her. For a time, I felt sorry for her, she’d had to marry me, after all, but she didn’t have to be so mean.
She’d seemed to take pleasure in the way she’d hurt me, the family, and Livia. She’d tried to sell pictures of Livia soon after the birth, not for the money, but because it went against protocol. She’d gone around to her friends and told them I beat her, when I’d never laid a finger on her in anger. She’d even tried to tell the papers that I had got her addicted to drugs; that I, the playboy prince, had given her that first hit of a drug she still couldn’t shake.
None of it had been true, and my innocence proven, but her actions had tainted my view of women. I could say it all was to blame for the callous way I’d treated Cara, but I’d known from the first that Cara was different. So why had I treated her the same way I’d treat a one-night stand?
I had to talk to her.
I found her in her bedroom, in her bathroom actually, asleep with her head against the cold metal of the antique bath tub. I picked her up, which woke her, and carried her to the bed.
“The doctor will be around to see you tomorrow, Cara.”
“I went today, it’s fine. It will pass soon enough. No need for another doctor.” She spoke through a sleepy haze. She sat up, though, and pushed her hair out of her face. She wouldn’t look me in the eye, and she always did that. “It’s just stress. He gave me some medicine. I’ll be fine soon enough.”
“Stress? Are you sure?” I felt her head. There was no fever or sweating. She’d been ill though, or she wouldn’t have fallen asleep in the bathroom.
“Yes, it’s fine, really.” She picked at a chip of nail polish and swallowed before she spoke again. “It will be alright.”
She looked up with a brave smile and I had to wonder what I’d done to the poor woman. She was so stressed out about the whole thing she was ill. I had to fix this, somehow. No wonder she wouldn’t look at me, I thought as I pressed her back down to the bed before I left to find her something soothing to drink. I had torn her world apart, why should she look at me?
Chapter 13
Cara
“I’m just so tired.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. Andrej had stopped with the doctor talk from the night before, but he looked at me more closely now.
“Are you sure you don’t want a second opinion?” His green eyes watched me with intense scrutiny.
“I’m sure.” I forced a smile and traced the outline of his face with a finger. “You can make me forget how tired I am, though.”
My clear invitation was all he needed to distract him. I’d tried to go to sleep early, to see if I could sleep my way through the nausea, but he’d come to me late that night. I couldn’t turn him away, and knew he hoped that my sickness was gone now.
The waves of nausea had stopped in the mornings, now it came late at night, when I needed to sleep. Usually after he left, but sometimes it would start before he left me. I didn
’t know how I was supposed to survive this. I’d starve to death if it kept up, surely? I wondered if I should head back home and see a doctor. Not that the medical care here would be subpar. I just didn’t want anybody here to know I was pregnant.
Perhaps it was a little paranoid of me, but I couldn’t help my caution. Andrej had already been through a marriage where his wife used him and then moved on to her next victim. A pregnancy so quickly, despite the birth control methods I’d used, looked suspicious didn’t it? I’ve seen the tabloid shows, the articles in the paper about women who got pregnant deliberately to trap a man. Even honest, but anonymous, confessions of women online. I hadn’t done this on purpose, it was totally an accident, but I knew Andrej wouldn’t see it that way.
His concern gave me hope that he saw our relationship as something more long term than a fling, but I wasn’t so sure about that. I wasn’t about to hold my breath and hope, however. I knew words like pregnant could turn a man from a gentle lover to a cold stranger in an instant.
His fingers played along my arm now, a moment of peace that soothed me and changed the directions of my thoughts.
“You know, I’ve never felt so peaceful as I do when I’m with you.” He said it as if he was surprised to find it true.
“I bore you, you mean?” I joked, a smile on my face. I searched out his features for the lie but couldn’t find one.
“No, I mean I feel calm around you. Around other people I feel like I have to be the man in charge, always on top of things. With you, I know I don’t have to worry about what I might say, or what I do. I can relax.” His fingers moved from my arm to my collarbone. The soft touch tickled, but it felt nice too.
It was such an intimate place to be touched, the collarbone. Not like a touch of your hand, or even your face. The collarbone was a private area, that only a parent, child, or lover could touch. I watched his face, the way his eyes went dark as his desire grew. I felt him hard against my hip, where he pressed into my side.
