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“I should have asked. About the condom.”
“No. It’s all right.” They didn’t need barriers between them.
He nodded, his expression somber as he moved to lie beside her. “I would like to spend the night. May I?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure why he felt the need to ask, but then maybe it was that kind of moment.
So much, it deserved proper consideration.
Gillian woke wrapped in Maks’s strong arms. She could tell by his breathing that he was already awake.
Suddenly the words that had been impossible to utter were on the tip of her tongue. She sat up and looked at him in the morning light diffused by her bedroom curtains. “I love you, Maks.”
How easy had that been? The words had practically said themselves, but she found she wasn’t comfortable maintaining eye contact. Particularly when his were showing evidence of shock at her announcement.
How could he not have known? How could her words possibly come as a surprise to him after everything? Or was it her timing?
She’d never uttered those words to another man, didn’t know if there were protocols in Maks’s world that dictated they get said after morning greetings.
That sounded ridiculous, but it wouldn’t be the first aspect to the life of a royal that she found so. It was a good thing she did love him, or she’d never consider spending her life in that kind of weirdly orchestrated fishbowl.
She tucked back down into bed, snuggling against him. “I could get used to this.”
“It is too bad we cannot.”
She heard the words, but they didn’t make sense, so they didn’t register.
Her mind was still on the night before and how unburdened she felt after making her confession this morning. Even if it had been awkwardly done.
At least he hadn’t laughed at her.
That was one of the nice things about Maks. He never mocked another person’s lack of aplomb, even though he never seemed short of suaveness.
“Last night was amazing,” she offered.
“Yes.” His tone was so serious and almost unhappy.
She didn’t understand why.
Maybe he was tired. He had been very energetic throughout the night. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she’d survive if every night was as passionate as the one before, wonderful as it had been.
They hadn’t gone to sleep after the first time making love, but had come together three more times throughout the night. Maks had never been so insatiable. She’d never felt such freedom to respond.
He’d been voracious, both for touching her and being inside of her. And she’d loved every second of it.
Her body twinged delightfully at the reminders of how hungry he had been.
“I am sorry.” If anything, Maks’s tone had grown heavier.
As much as she’d prefer to pretend she didn’t know why he’d apologized, she could not.
But she could tell him that it didn’t matter. She didn’t need Maks to admit love for her so long as he needed her like he’d shown he did the night before.
“It’s all right.” Gingerly, keeping a lid on her own disappointment, Gillian sat up and met Maks’s gaze.
His expression was stoic, like a man trying to pretend something didn’t bother him. “No. Last night was a mistake, I think.”
Then he winced as if he realized he should not have said that.
And well he might wince, the idiot. She wasn’t going to demand words of love, but downplaying the night before wasn’t going to fly with her, either.
Suddenly she had a thought that might explain his odd attitude. “You want to pretend we don’t have sex?”
And did that bother him as much as she thought it did? As much as it absolutely appalled her?
“As wonderful as we are together, it will not be a pretense. It cannot. It would not be fair to you, or to me, if I am honest.”
Her brows drew together. “I don’t understand. You want to stop having sex?”
Until they were married? A royal wedding required at least a year, often two to prepare for. No wonder he’d been so hungry the night before.
But why forego condoms? Did he hope to have gotten her pregnant so they were forced to marry more quickly?
That just didn’t seem like something Maks would do. He was not a master of passive aggressive. Full-on aggression was more his style.
“Continuing to have sex together will only make our eventual breakup all the harder, not to mention increasing the chances of the media picking up on our relationship. We’ve been lucky so far, they’ve left us alone.”
Gillian thought that had something to do with her father’s influence as much as how circumspect she and Maks had been. But that wasn’t the most important thing right now.
“Break up?” she asked, completely at a loss. “Why would we break up?”
They were getting married. Weren’t they? A cold spike of dread pierced her heart. Weren’t they?
His expression was not hope producing. “A breakup between us is inevitable. Surely you understand this.”
CHAPTER THREE
“NO. PRETEND MY IQ is in the low digits and explain it to me.” Gillian’s throat felt tight, the words hard to get out.
“I cannot marry a woman incapable of providing heirs to the throne. It’s draconian, I know, but nevertheless, it is the way things must be.”
“I can’t provide heirs to the throne?” she asked, still very confused, but with a growing sense of apprehension that was making her current circumstances—naked and in bed with him—increasingly uncomfortable.
He frowned, sitting up, seemingly unconcerned by his nudity as he made no effort to cover himself. “You said you’d read the results of your physical.”
“I said I’d received it. I had.”
“I saw the envelope. It was opened.”
“Nana called before I skimmed the results.”
“One would think on something so important, one might do more than skim.” His speech only grew so formal when he was very annoyed.
What did he have to be angry about?
“I’ve been healthy since my appendicitis at sixteen.”
“The surgery to keep you alive left your fallopian tubes compromised,” Maks said with the air of a man who did not like having to explain himself.
Compromised fallopian tubes? What the heck did that mean?
Unable to stand the false sense of intimacy their situation provided once second longer, she jumped out of the bed. Grabbing her robe, she yanked it on so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised if the sleeve ripped right off.
Gillian stepped back from the bed, putting as much distance as possible between herself and Maks while staying in the same room. “What are you talking about?”
Once again, Maks looked pained. “The likelihood of you getting pregnant is very low.”
“What about fertility treatments?” Or had he not even considered them?
She was defective and therefore not worthy to be his bride. Oh, God. The silent prayer was filled with anguish, but received no heavenly reply.
Last night had not been about hunger or passion. It had been about saying good-bye. Everything she’d taken to mean they belonged together was in fact supposed to indicate the opposite.
“Fertility treatment could be an option for you with someone else,” he said, like he was offering her good news.
“But not you.”
“Marrying you knowing we would have to use them would not be an intelligent or well thought out move on the part of our House.”
“I would not be marrying your House,” she practically shouted.
She wouldn’t be marrying anyone. Pain at that realization nearly took her to her knees.
What all this talk meant was that she was losing Maks.
“That is not true. I am a prince who will one day be king. I was born to a burden of duty none but elected officials in country can begin to understand. And even they live in their roles only temporarily whereas I will never know a day when my small country does not have to come first and foremost in my thinking.”
She knew that. One of the few truly ruling monarchies left in the world, as Crown Prince of Volyarus, Maks’s life was not his own. But his choices were.
“You do not love me.” It was the only thing that really mattered and incidentally made absolute sense of his unwillingness to pursue fertility options.
He liked her, he desired her, he might even be as sad as he appeared at first over breaking up with her, but he did not love her.
“Love is not an emotion I have the freedom or inclination to pursue.”
“Love either is, or is not. You don’t have to pursue it.” She’d learned as a small child, no matter how hard you tried, you could not make someone love you.
No. Love could not be forced. Nor could it be denied. Though she would give up her next visit with her grandparents and any hope of ever seeing either of her biological parents again if she could deny the tidal wave of emotions threatening to drown her now.
“You said you love me. I am sorry.” Genuine regret reflected in the espresso depths of his eyes.
That regret hurt her as much as the words that came with it because the remorse proved their sincerity. Pain was a vise around her heart, radiating through her body in an unexpected and equally undeniable physical reaction to the emotional blow.
She could barely breathe for the agony. It was by sheer will she remained on her feet.
He was sorry.
She wanted to cry, felt like screaming, but she held it all in along with the pain building toward nuclear meltdown.
“Get out.” She spoke quietly, but she knew he heard her.
“You are not thinking rationally.”
“Since our first date, you’ve been very careful to keep us out of the eyes of the media.”
“Yes.”
She didn’t ask, “Why?” Didn’t really care about his reasoning anymore.
She just wanted him gone so she could let the pain out. He didn’t get to see it.
“Do you think me calling the building’s security to have you removed from my apartment would blow all those efforts to hell?”
His eyes widened at her oblique threat. “You’re not going to call security.”
He really didn’t know her as well as he thought he did.
She spun around and pressed the panic button on her bedroom’s security box.
“You have about a minute, maybe two, before they arrive. If you want to be caught here, by all means, stay.” She didn’t turn to face him as she spoke and she didn’t raise her voice, either.
If she did, she’d end up screaming. She just knew it. And Gillian had never screamed a day in her life. She wasn’t going to start now.
Not with him.
Not when the anguish inside her was already so close to imploding and taking her heart with it.
Ukrainian curses sounded along with the brush of clothing being yanked over naked limbs.
He paused at the doorway. She could sense it, though hadn’t turned to watch his departure.
“I am sorry.” Then he was gone.
And she was alone. Unable to stand under the onslaught of emotional agony ripping through her, Gillian sank to the floor.
Every dream she’d nursed in the past months shattered, every hope she’d let herself entertain despite her past and present life that in no way matched his for brilliance ripped violently from her still bleeding heart.
Nine weeks later, dazed and disbelieving, Gillian sat on the park bench outside her doctor’s offices.
