A whisper of pain echoed through him, a ghost of that possessiveness, so faint he could hardly feel it.
‘You will be monitored,’ he said. ‘The child will be provided for, whatever happens.’
She remained standing there, her back straight, her chin lifted. ‘I meant what I said. I’ll always love you, Adonis Nikolaides. And if one day you wake up and realise that you do want me after all, I’ll be waiting for you.’
Deep down, where the man lay buried beneath the rock and ice of the king, a tremor shook him.
But he’d made his choice. And he wouldn’t choose again.
‘Don’t wait,’ he said coldly. ‘Never is a long time.’
Then he turned on his heel and walked out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ANNA THOUGHT ABOUT going to bed, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep. It felt as though her heart had broken into a thousand jagged pieces in her chest and she couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks.
But they weren’t tears for herself. They were for him. For the man she’d watched slowly and relentlessly become encased in stone and ice. For the burning flame in his blue eyes that was snuffed out, to be replaced by a cold, jewel-bright glitter.
He was becoming the king. Becoming his father.
And she’d been wrong. He hadn’t come to his senses at all. He’d told her he loved her and, far from that being the thing that brought him to her, it had only driven him away.
He was afraid; she could see that now. Afraid of what he felt for her. And maybe he was afraid of what she felt for him too, because telling him she loved him hadn’t changed things, either. She didn’t know why.
He did love and he loved passionately, but he’d spent so many years fighting it there was clearly nothing she could do to change his mind.
Just like when her mother had cut off all contact, Anna hadn’t been able to change her mind either.
You’re not enough for him. You’ll never be enough and you know it.
The thought was so painful that she eventually took herself into the shower, ending up sitting on the floor weeping for a lonely man who couldn’t acknowledge his own need for comfort and love. A cold and unyielding mountain.
Eventually, she hauled herself out and dressed, just as someone knocked on her door. Her heart leapt and fluttered like a bird inside her chest, but when she pulled it open it wasn’t Adonis, but his brother.
The disappointment was so bitter she could hardly bear it.
She wiped ineffectually at her cheeks, but was too tired to pretend she hadn’t been weeping. ‘What do you want?’ she asked, not bothering with any proper form of address, despite his being a royal prince and she nothing but a banished nun.
Prince Xerxes was tall and ridiculously handsome, his dark eyes glinting with gold as they surveyed her. ‘Are you going to invite me in?’ he asked eventually, his tone neutral. ‘Or are we going to have this conversation in the hallway? I am a prince, you know.’
Anna sighed and gestured for him to enter, since it didn’t look as if he was going to go away.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked, closing the door after him, her voice raw and scratchy.
He gave her a long, considering look, then without a word vanished into the bathroom, coming back a minute later with a box of tissues. ‘Here,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘You look like you need these.’
Not in the mood to argue, Anna took the box and sat down on the edge of the bed, blowing her nose determinedly and wiping her face.
‘So,’ Xerxes said slowly, ‘my brother stormed out of here a little while ago looking like he wanted to chew through a palace wall with his teeth. And, since he told me earlier that apparently you were going to marry him, I thought I’d better come and see what all the fuss was about.’ His gaze settled on her, concern in his dark eyes. ‘What’s happened, Anna?’
Her throat closed at the gentleness in his tone. ‘There is no wedding. He just told me he’s going to send me away.’
Xerxes frowned, muttering something very rude under his breath. ‘I see. Did he say why?’
She could feel her eyes getting sore, more tears beginning to gather. ‘He made the mistake of falling in love with me and apparently that’s a cardinal sin.’
‘Ah,’ Xerxes murmured, as if that explained everything. ‘I expect he mentioned that emotions are bad.’
‘Yes.’ Anna wiped away another tear. ‘I told him it didn’t matter that he couldn’t love me back. That I didn’t need it. I just wanted to love him, because he needs it so badly...’ She stopped, because there was no point going on. ‘It doesn’t matter now. He won’t change his mind; I know that much.’
Xerxes was quiet a long moment. Then he muttered, ‘My brother is a fool. He’s taken on too many of our father’s lessons, that’s the issue. And he’s so damn stubborn.’
‘I know.’ She blew her nose again, debating whether to tell him that she was pregnant and then decided not to, since Adonis obviously hadn’t mentioned it to him. ‘He wants me to leave tomorrow morning.’
Xerxes frowned. ‘Do you want to go?’
She thought about it. She thought about insisting on staying, on fighting for the man she loved, crushed beneath the crown he wore. But she’d tried that before and it hadn’t worked, so why would it work now? She’d thought her love would be enough to move him, but it wasn’t.
Which left her with only one option.
‘Yes,’ she said thickly. ‘I need to go home. Back to the convent.’
The prince’s face was expressionless, but something shifted in his dark eyes. ‘If you would prefer to leave earlier and not at His Majesty’s pleasure, I can arrange that for you.’
Yes, she could go tonight. She didn’t have to wait until he got rid of her.
It wasn’t much of a power move, but it was better than nothing.
Anna took a deep breath, wiping the remaining tears from her face, and met Xerxes’s steady gaze. ‘Yes, I think I’d like that.’
He nodded. ‘You’d better start packing, then.’
Then she remembered something. ‘Xerxes, I need Ione to know that I’m not leaving because of her. That I would have stayed if I could.’
‘I’ll tell her.’
Tears threatened again, but she fought them down. ‘She’s a special little girl. Adonis needs her so much.’
‘Oh, I know. And don’t worry.’ There was a fierce glint in Xerxes’s gaze all of a sudden. ‘I’ll make sure he’s made aware of that.’
The next morning, Adonis made preparations to fly Anna back home to England, only to discover that she’d already gone. Apparently, she’d left in the depths of the night in one of the royal jets, courtesy of his brother.
He wasn’t upset. Any pain he’d felt earlier was gone. He felt nothing, only a sense of...heaviness. As if something weighty had descended on his shoulders, something that would be there for ever.
But that was fine. He was carrying the heavy burden of his country anyway, so what was a little more weight?
He adjusted his arrangements, sending one of his aides to England instead to keep him up to date with the progress of her pregnancy. A decision needed to be made about that, but he had a few weeks yet; he’d make it closer to the time.
Right now, though, there was a wedding to be cancelled, not to mention other decisions to make, including finding a new companion for Ione.
He was in the middle of working through a stack of papers that afternoon, when the doors of his office flew open and his daughter came racing in, tears staining her face.
He frowned at her, a pang of something echoing inside him that he reflexively ignored. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, putting his pen down. ‘Where is your—’
‘Where’s Anna?’ Ione demanded. ‘I want Anna!’
Another something in his chest shifted, making it tighten
. ‘She had to go home to England, little one.’
‘No!’ Ione shouted. ‘You told me she was going to be my mama. You said we would be a family.’
A sense of pressure increased in his chest, like someone pressing a hand down directly above his heart. ‘That’s not going to happen now,’ he said firmly. ‘She had to—’
‘I hate you!’ Ione’s bright blue eyes, so like his own, were burning with rage. ‘I hate you, Papa!’ Then she turned and ran out of the room, weeping.
Adonis’s jaw tightened, the pressure on his chest intensifying. He ignored it. She would learn, as he had, what it meant to sacrifice everything for the throne.
‘Don’t become him...if not for my sake, at least for hers.’
Anna’s voice wound through his head, but he had no time to dwell on it, because Xerxes was suddenly strolling in, his dark eyes far too sharp for Adonis’s liking. ‘Ione is not happy with you, apparently,’ he said casually.
‘Get out,’ Adonis ordered. ‘I have work to do.’
‘Or perhaps a high horse to sit on.’ Xerxes ignored him, coming up to his desk. ‘Tell me, is it cold up there, Your Majesty? Is it comfortable? Does it matter that you’ve broken a woman’s heart, not to mention your daughter’s?’
Adonis didn’t think that relentless pressure inside him could get any worse, but apparently that wasn’t the case. It felt as if he was suffocating.
He kept himself very still, because if he moved he would suffocate. Either that or he’d explode and Xerxes would get caught in the fallout. ‘I don’t recall asking for your opinion, Xerxes. What I would like you to do is get out...’
His brother leaned over his desk and casually knocked his stack of papers over, scattering them on the floor. ‘Look up and pay attention,’ he snapped. ‘The best thing to come into your life since Ione has gone and all you can think about is your work? Are you as blind as you are stupid?’
Adonis wasn’t sure if it was the papers that broke him or Xerxes’s insolent tone. Or that after Anna his detachment was irreparably damaged and nothing could fix it.
Whatever it was, right in that moment, fury rose, thick and hot, and he was out of his seat, coming around the side of his desk. He took his brother by the shoulders and flung him up against the wall before slamming an arm across his throat. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that.’ He wanted his voice to be cold, but it wasn’t. It was hot, gravelly, and full of rage. ‘I am the king.’
Xerxes didn’t fight him and didn’t move, but gold gleamed in his eyes. ‘You’re not a king. You’re an idiot. You love her.’
‘I can’t love her,’ Adonis ground out. ‘Love can be used—’
‘Why did you send her away?’ Xerxes interrupted, as if his brother’s arm wasn’t pressing against his throat. ‘She loves you, brother. Her tears broke my heart.’
He’d thought that after facing Anna the night before he’d got rid of his emotions. That he would never feel anything again. Yet here he was with fury eating him up inside and guilt following on behind, along with grief and pain, and all those other emotions he’d been struggling his whole life to ignore.
They were cracks in his detachment, in his soul, fracturing him like veins of magma in a volcano, weaknesses undermining the strength of the whole. And they were getting wider, spidering out, making him feel as though he was going to break apart.
‘I had to send her away,’ he said roughly. ‘A king cannot—’
‘A king can do whatever the hell he pleases.’
‘No.’ He forced his arm harder against his brother’s throat, his heart beating hard in the cage of his ribs. The cracks widened and he tried to stop them, tried to keep himself together. ‘You of all people should know what love does to someone. What it did to me.’ He was breathing faster now, the tangled wave of emotion boiling up inside him making those cracks turn into fissures, great chasms that would swallow him whole. ‘What it did to you, Xerxes. What our father did to you. And all because of me!’
Strangely, the look in his brother’s eyes softened. ‘I know, Adonis.’
‘I could have saved you.’ The failure of it choked him, guilt strangling him. ‘If only I’d stood up to him. But I didn’t. Because I wanted his approval. I was desperate for it.’ He could hardly breathe. ‘I put my need ahead of your pain, ahead—’
‘Adonis,’ Xerxes said quietly. ‘Let it go.’
‘How can I do that? After what you suffered? After how I failed you?’
‘You were just as much a victim as I was.’ Xerxes’s gaze was very direct, very steady. ‘And my suffering led me to Calista. Believe me, brother, I would go through it all again, every second twice over, if it meant I got to have her in my life.’
His jaw was tight, his body ached. ‘I can’t let it go. It’s not that easy.’
‘I know it’s not,’ Xerxes said. ‘But if I found the strength to step away from Xenophon’s shadow, then so can you.’
‘How?’ He searched his brother’s face. ‘I don’t understand how it’s possible.’
‘Look into your heart, Adonis. That’s where your answer is. That’s where your true strength lies.’ A fierce light burned suddenly in Xerxes’s eyes. ‘That’s where I found mine. In my wife and in my daughter. In my love for them.’
Every muscle in his body was tense. He felt as if he was in the middle of a battlefield.
How could love be a strength when it had been nothing but failure and pain for him?
Anna knows how.
Something surged through him, something that felt like rage and yet wasn’t.
His little nun. His brave little nun. Who loved without fear and without reservation. Who didn’t cut herself off or detach herself. Who threw herself passionately into everything she did, including caring for his daughter.
Including loving him.
She is so strong. How could you think she would fail you?
He went utterly still, frozen rigid where he stood as the thought hit him. She’d told him she loved him and he’d ignored it. Dismissed it. All the important people in his life had failed him, so why wouldn’t she?
‘That’s not strength. That’s fear...’
He’d dismissed that too, because he wasn’t afraid.
Or was he? Was that the real truth? That deep down he was afraid? Afraid of all those emotions burning inside him. Afraid to let himself feel. Afraid to let himself trust. ‘How do you know?’ he asked in a voice that didn’t sound like his. ‘How can you ever believe someone when they tell you they love you?’
Xerxes stared at him a moment longer. Then he shrugged. ‘It’s called trust, Adonis. You can only trust them.’
‘I don’t know...’ His voice was cracked and broken. ‘I don’t know if I can ever trust anyone.’
‘You can trust her, though,’ his brother said quietly. ‘Her heart is big enough for both of you.’
And he was right, wasn’t he? His little brother was wiser than he was. Because if there was one person in all the world he could trust, it was his indomitable little nun who’d told him she would wait for ever for him.
She won’t fail you. You cannot fail her.
He could feel it then, the cracks running through him, but they weren’t fissures or chasms after all. They weren’t going to swallow him. They were letting the light in, pouring all over him, engulfing him in warmth. In strength. In certainty. A certainty he hadn’t felt for years. And this time he didn’t fight it, he embraced it.
It didn’t matter if one day she might feel differently. It didn’t matter if one day she changed her mind or found someone else more important to her than he was.
What mattered was that she was important to him. She was more important than anything in his entire life, except possibly Ione.
She was certainly more important than his throne.
And this was a choice, his last
choice.
So Adonis Nikolaides chose.
‘You’re right.’ He looked at his little brother, his heart thundering in his chest. ‘I need her back, Xerxes. I need her back right now.’
‘Of course you do.’ Xerxes smiled. ‘And I have a very good idea how to go about it.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FLIGHT TO England was interminable, the journey back to the convent deep in the rolling green hills of the English countryside even longer.
But Anna didn’t care. She found she didn’t care about much at all.
It was late and the Reverend Mother received her with little fanfare, apparently not requiring much of an explanation. She showed Anna back to her little room without comment, which was good because Anna didn’t want to talk and was pathetically grateful she didn’t have to, falling into a restless sleep the moment her head touched the pillow.
The next day she didn’t feel any better, gritty-eyed and hollow inside. Some of the other nuns wanted to hear about Axios, but she didn’t have the heart for conversation, staying in her room instead, lying on the bed with her arms wrapped around herself, trying not to think of Adonis or Ione.
Trying not to think of what she’d left behind.
She didn’t know what time it was when there was a quiet knock on her door and it opened to reveal the Reverend Mother. She looked at Anna for a moment, then said quietly, ‘You have a visitor.’
Anna shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Mother. I’m not up for visitors today.’
‘Nevertheless, I think you’ll want to see this one.’ The Reverend Mother’s lined face softened. ‘He’s waiting in the garden and he said he’d wait there all day if he had to.’
Everything inside Anna went still.
No. It couldn’t be...
She didn’t want to hold on to hope, so she tried not to as she walked the convent’s echoing halls and out into the tiny walled garden with the roses climbing up the walls.
Yet hope burst out of her all the same, opening its wings and flying straight into the sky when she saw the tall, powerful figure waiting beside the fountain.
The Most Powerful Of Kings (Mills & Boon Modern) (The Royal House of Axios, Book 2) Page 16
