скачать книгу бесплатно
“Oh, I think not, agape. I think we will have to see each other a great many times after today. A royal divorce is going to be complicated. There will be press. There will be many days in court—”
“We signed a prenuptial agreement. I remember the terms well. I don’t get anything. That’s fine. I’ve had quite enough from you.”
He made no move to dress, made no move to collect her clothes. And he didn’t look away as she bent to gather them, pulling them on as quickly as possible, internally shrinking away from his gaze. Finally, she was dressed. It was done. It was over.
She made her way toward the door on unsteady legs, everything inside her unsteady, rolling like the sea.
“Tabitha,” he said, his voice rough, “I want you to know that I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t?” She turned to face him, her eyes meeting with his unreadable face. As immovable as stone.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. “No. I feel...” He paused for a moment. “I feel nothing.”
She felt as though he had stabbed her directly in the heart. Anguish replaced any of the pleasure, any of the satisfaction that had been there before. He felt nothing. Even in this moment he felt nothing.
The rage was back then, spurring her on, keeping her from falling over. “You just screwed me on your desk,” she said, “I would have thought that might have made you feel something.”
She was all false bravado. It was either that or burst into tears.
His expression remained bland. “You’re hardly the first woman I’ve had on a desk.”
She swallowed hard, blinking back more tears. She had made the right choice. She knew she had. Had he yelled at her, had he screamed, had he said that he hated her too, she might have wondered. But those black, flat, soulless eyes didn’t lie. He felt nothing. He was indifferent, even in this moment.
Tabitha had heard it said that hate was like murder. But she knew differently. It was indifference that killed. And with his, Kairos had left her mortally wounded.
“I wish you luck in your search for a more suitable wife, Your Highness,” she said.
Then she walked out of the door, out of his life.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_5310809b-6652-52de-afdb-7602294d2ce9)
“WHERE IS YOUR WIFE, Kairos?”
Prince Andres, Kairos’s younger reformed rake of a brother, walked into Kairos’s office. There was still glass on the floor from where Tabitha had shattered it two days ago. Still a dark stain where the scotch had splashed itself over the wallpaper.
All of it shouted the story of what had happened the night Tabitha had left. At least, it shouted at Kairos. Every time he walked in.
It was nearly as loud as his damned conscience.
I feel nothing.
A lie. Of course it was a lie. She had stripped him down. Reduced him to nothing more than need, desperate, clawing need.
Another woman walking away from him. Threatening to leave him there alone. Empty. While his pride bled out of him, leaving him with nothing.
He couldn’t allow that, not again. So he’d said he felt nothing. And now she was gone.
“Why? What have you heard?” Kairos asked, not bothering to explain the glass, even when Andres’s eyes connected with the mess.
“Nothing much. Zara tells me Tabitha called to see if I could find out if you were using your penthouse anytime soon. I wondered why on earth my brother’s wife would be stooping to subterfuge to find out the actions of her own husband.”
Kairos ground his teeth together, his eyes on the shards of glass.
I feel nothing for you.
If only that were true. He was...he didn’t even know what to call the emotions rioting through him. Emotions were...weak and soft in his estimation, and that was not what he felt.
He was beyond rage. Beyond betrayal. She was his wife. He had brought her up from the lowest of positions, made her a queen, and she had the audacity to betray him.
“No explanation, Kairos?”
Kairos looked up at his brother. “She probably wants to go shopping without fear of retribution.”
“Right. Are the coffers of Petras so empty she has to worry about your wrath? Or is her shoe closet merely so full.”
Kairos had no idea what her closet looked like. He never looked farther than her bed when he was in her room. “She left me,” he said, his tone hard, the words like acid on his tongue.
Andres had the decency to look shocked. Surprising, because Andres was rarely shocked and he was never decent. “Tabitha left you?”
“Yes,” he ground out.
“Tabitha, who barely frowns in public for fear it might ignite a scandal?”
Kairos dragged his hand over his face. “That is the only Tabitha I know of.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Neither do I,” Kairos said, his voice a growl.
He paced across the office, to the place where the remains of that glass of scotch rested. It reminded him of the remnants left behind after an accident on the highway. One of the many similarities the past few days bore to a car crash.
I hate you.
He closed his eyes against the pain that lashed at him. What had he done to make his wife hate him? Had he not given her everything?
A baby. She wanted a baby.
Yes, he had failed her there. But dammit all, he’d given her a palace. Some women couldn’t be pleased.
“What the hell did you do?”
“I was perhaps too generous,” Kairos said, his tone hard. “I gave her too much freedom. Perhaps the weight of her diamond-encrusted crown was a bit heavy.”
“You don’t know,” Andres said, his tone incredulous.
“Of course I bloody don’t. I had no idea she was unhappy.” The lie was heavy on his chest.
You knew. You didn’t know how to fix it.
“I know I haven’t been married very long...”
“A week, Andres. If you begin handing out marital advice before the ink is dry on your license, I will reopen the dungeons just for you.”
“Perhaps if you’d opened the dungeons for Tabitha she wouldn’t have left you.”
“I am not going to keep my own wife prisoner.” But dear God, it was tempting.
Andres arched a brow. “That isn’t what I meant.”
Heat streaked along Kairos’s veins, and he thought again of that last night here in his office. Of the way she’d felt in his arms. His cool ice queen suddenly transformed into a living flame...
I hate you.
“We do not have that sort of relationship,” Kairos said, his voice stiff.
Andres chuckled, the sound grating against Kairos’s nerves. “Maybe that’s your problem.”
“Everything is not about sex.”
Andres shrugged. “It absolutely is. But you may cling to your illusions if you must.”
“What do you want, Andres?”
“To see if you’re okay.”
He spread his arms wide. “Am I dead and buried?”
His brother arched a brow. “No. But your wife is gone.”
Kairos gritted his teeth. “And?”
“Do you intend to get a new one?”
He would have to. There was no other alternative. Though the prospect filled him with nothing but dread. Still, even now, he wanted no one else. No one but Tabitha.
And now that he’d tasted the heat that had always shimmered between them as a tantalizing promise, never before fulfilled...
Forgetting her would not be so easy.
“I do not want a new one,” he said.
“Then you have to go and claim the old one, I suppose.”
Kairos offered his brother a glare. “Worry about your life, I’ll worry about mine.” He paused for a moment, staring again at that pile of broken glass. The only thing that remained of his marriage. “I will not hold her prisoner. If Tabitha wants a divorce, she can have her damn divorce.”
* * *
Tabitha hadn’t seen Kairos in four weeks. Four weeks of staring at blank spaces, eyes dry, unable to find any tears. She hadn’t cried. Not since that single tear had fallen in his office. Not since she’d told him how much she hated him—and meant it—with every piece of herself. She had not cried.
Why would you cry for a husband that you hated? Why would you cry for a husband who felt nothing for you?
It made no sense. And so, she hadn’t cried. Tabitha was nothing if not sensible. Even when she came to divorce, it seemed.
She was slightly less sensible when it came to other things. Which was why it had taken her a full week of being late for her to make her way to the doctor. She had no choice but to use the doctor she had always used. She didn’t want to, didn’t want to be at risk by going to a doctor who was employed by the royal family. But her only other alternative was going to one she had no relationship with. One she had no trust in at all. News of her and Kairos’s divorce had already hit the papers, and it was headline news. If she went to an ob-gyn now, everything would explode. She couldn’t risk it. So she was risking this. She swallowed hard, her hands shaking as she sat on the exam table. Her blood had already been drawn, and now she was just waiting for the results.
She had waited so long to come to the doctor because she was often late. Her period never started on time. For years upon years every time she had been late she’d held out hope. Hope that this time it wasn’t just her cycle being fickle. Hope that it might actually be a baby.
It was never a baby. Never.
But it had been a full week, and still nothing. And she couldn’t overlook the fact that she and Kairos had had unprotected sex.
Nothing unusual there, though. They always had. For five years they’d had unprotected sex, and there had been no baby. The universe was not that cruel. How could God ignore her prayers for five long years, and answer them at the worst possible moment?
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
For the first time, when the doctor walked back into the room, her expression unreadable, Tabitha hoped for the no. She needed it. Needed to hear that the test was negative.
She knew now that she couldn’t live with Kairos. It was confirmed. She couldn’t make it work with him. He didn’t care for her. And she...she felt far too much for him. She could not live like that. She simply couldn’t.
“Queen Tabitha,” Dr. Anderson said, her words slow. “I had hoped that King Kairos might have accompanied you today.”
“If you read the paper at all, then you know that he and I are going through a divorce. I saw no reason to include him in this visit.” The doctor looked down and Tabitha’s stomach sank. A no was an easy answer to give. A no certainly didn’t require Kairos’s presence.
“Yes, I do know about the divorce,” the doctor said. “All members of royal staff had been briefed, of course.”
“Then you know why he isn’t here.”
“Forgive me for asking, my queen,” the doctor said. “But if you are in fact carrying a child, is it his?”
“If I am? You’ve seen the test results. Don’t play this game with me. Do not play games with me. I’ve had enough.”
“It’s just that...”
“This is my test. It has nothing to do with him. My entire life does not revolve around him.” Tabitha knew she was beginning to get a bit hysterical. “I left him. I left him so that he wasn’t at the center of everything I did. We don’t need to bring him into this.”
“The test is positive, my queen. I feel that under other circumstances congratulations would be in order,” Dr. Anderson said, her tone void of expression.
Before this, before the divorce proceedings, Dr. Anderson had always been friendly, warm. She was decidedly cool now.
A King Kairos loyalist, clearly. But Dr. Anderson didn’t have to live with him.
“Oh.” Tabitha felt light-headed. She felt like she was going to collapse. She was thankful for the table she was seated on. Had she been standing, she would have slipped from consciousness immediately.
“Based on the dates you have given me I would estimate that you are...”
“I know exactly how far along I am,” Tabitha said.
Flashes of that night burst into her mind’s eye. Kairos putting her up on the desk, thrusting into her hard and fast. Spilling himself inside of her as they both lost themselves to their pleasure. Yes, there was no doubt in her mind as to when she had conceived. January 1.
