‘Don’t leave, Elsie.’ The softest breath. ‘Please don’t leave me.’
At the precise moment every citizen and guest in Silvabon was looking skyward, King Felipe was looking in the middle distance. He was beyond tense and couldn’t even count. Then he caught it—the slow progression of a sleek black car through the back streets where the crowds weren’t gathered. It made its way towards the tunnel that would take it to the palace’s underground entrance. Another ten minutes and she would be within the room.
He lifted his gaze and finally breathed. The aerial display was impressive. Their pilots were few in number but elite in skill. Streams of colour flowed from the planes—the navy and gold of Silvabon. He raised his hand. Braved a smile.
The fact was he was more nervous than he’d never been in his life.
Ten minutes later he swept along the corridor. He’d inwardly debated where he’d wanted Ortiz to bring her. His bedroom was the first place that sprang to mind. Then the cave. Neither were appropriate. They needed privacy but she also needed to know she wasn’t a prisoner. That was him.
He’d settled on his private library. No guests would see her and the windows gave the room a light and airy feel and she’d not been in there. They had no history in that room.
She was already there, still wearing the blue and white, sweet and sexy dress. Her face was pale and her gaze wide and his heart stopped. It took everything not to take her into his arms and dispense with words altogether. But she needed words. He needed to figure them out.
‘I’m sorry.’ Simple. True.
She was so still.
He took a step forward. Then stopped.
‘Do you know what I want?’ He shook his head, starting the wrong way already. ‘You said I was spoilt. I’m worse than spoilt. I’m possessive and selfish. I want you for me. You’re mine. No one else’s. Not even Amalia’s. I want you in my bed, waiting for me. My secret pleasure. I don’t want to share you at all. And I don’t ever want this—’ he gestured around the room and all its gilded features ‘—to change what we have. It changed my mother. My father. Amalia even maybe. It changes everyone. Never for the better. I don’t want this,this joy between us, to end. Ever.’
Her whole body shook. ‘This joy?’ A whisper, an echo.
His heart burst and his secrets spilled. ‘So I have this fantasy about keeping you in the palace in secret. But I can’t. You deserve so much more than that. I didn’t want kids because I thought I shouldn’t and then today I’m desperate to hold onto you and I forget...and then I imagine your children—our children—and suddenly I’ve never wanted anything more and I want to change things up all differently so we can keep them safe and happy and free and I don’t know who I am any more,’ he growled. ‘And it terrifies me. And what you said to me earlier? I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t stand to listen.’
And he couldn’t stand now because he was tired—tired of fighting it, tired of holding back, tired of being strong, of being afraid. He was so damn tired he sank right where he was. And then he was just a man on his knees—all but hopeless as he tried to make her understand the things he could hardly make sense of himself.
‘But at the same time it’s the only thing I want to hear,’ he mumbled. ‘And I want to hear it again and again because it will never be enough.’ The yawning void in him couldn’t ever be filled and how had he handled the delight of her? By pushing her away. He was the master of his own devastation and he was furious with himself. ‘I lied to you. And I hurt you and I am so sorry. And too late I realised that what terrifies me more than anything is the thought of you leaving me. I don’t want you to leave me. Ever. So if you stay, know that I couldn’t...that for me it’s for ever. That’s what I want. For ever. With you.’
Helpless, he watched a tear trickle down her cheek and his own throat choked up.
‘You just appeared and you lit everything up,’ he admitted, so sad to see her so upset. ‘You made me laugh. You make me want to play. You gave me a sense of freedom to the point that I didn’t care about the crown and that scares me too.’
Everything scared him. But mostly this. Mostly seeing her pale and silent and wiping away her tears. But then she moved. She walked towards him.
‘Of course you still care about it.’ Compassion shone from those blue eyes and he really didn’t deserve it. ‘You just stood through three hours of pomp and ceremony. You can be both things, Felipe—king and man. You can be all the things. Lover and tease,’ she whispered softly. ‘Maybe husband and father even.’
His breathing roughened and he still couldn’t steady his own heart. ‘I don’t know how to work it out. I don’t know how to...’
‘Maybe you don’t have to. Not alone, not any more,’ she said. ‘Maybe we can figure it out together.’
He paused and his insides twisted. So did his lips in the slightest of smiles. ‘Right. Together.’
‘I don’t expect you to have all the answers, Felipe. You might be a king, but you’re not some kind of god.’
He’d have chuckled if he weren’t still so terrified.
‘You’re just a man to me.’ She stepped closer. ‘But I do want you to be my man.’
‘I am. You know I am.’
Elsie was beginning to know that, yes. Suddenly his arms snaked out and he pulled her close. For a long moment he crushed her to him. His face hard against her belly, his arms shaking with the strength to hold her as tight, as close as he could.
And feeling his surging emotion? She braced, her hands on his shoulders as a tumult of relief tore the loneliness apart. She was home and he was never letting her go.
‘Elsie...’
‘Can I help you with this?’ She took hold of his crown and tugged it up.