A muscle flicked in his jaw. ‘What is it exactly that you want from me, Inara? You want the freedom to come to my bed whenever it suits you? Is that it?’
‘No, you idiot man.’ She was now only inches away. ‘What I want is a real marriage. I want to be your wife in reality, all the time, not only when it suits you. And I want you to love me the way I love you—because no one ever has, Cassius. Not even my parents.’
His gaze flickered, but there was no softening in his expression. ‘You want the truth? You really want an answer? Fine. I don’t love you, Inara, and I never will. I’ll never love anyone. It’s all I can do to carry the weight of the crown, to love my country and my people.’
Inara felt something die a little inside her, the fragile tendril of her hope crushed utterly. Because looking at the hard, set lines of his face and the anger burning in his eyes, it was worse than she’d thought.
Love was a burden to him, an extra weight he didn’t need, not with all the expectations he’d heaped on himself already. And why would he expect love to be anything else? After the way he’d been brought up and the standards he’d been measured against by his own family?
Her own had been no different. It was just...her love for him had brought her confidence and freedom. But it was clear that lesson hadn’t gone both ways.
You failed. Again.
Inara swallowed past the lump in her throat, trying to find the right words, the right thing, that would help him see. ‘Love isn’t a weight,’ she said thickly. ‘It’s not a burden to bear. It sets you free. How can you not see that?’
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Free? I loved my parents and my brother, but do I look free to you? Do I look unburdened?’
Tears pricked at her eyes. ‘No. You look like a man beating himself to death over something that wasn’t his fault in the first place.’
His expression twisted, anger flaring across it. ‘Of course it was my fault. I was expected to at least act like a prince of the realm and I couldn’t even do that much. I was too selfish, too angry. Too caught up in—’
‘You were a boy who’d been measured all his life against standards he could never possibly live up to,’ she interrupted, suddenly and completely furious. ‘You’re just like me. Exactly like me. We both had parents who wanted us to be something different, who couldn’t accept us for who we were, and I understand how that hurts. But there comes a point where you have to decide whether to let that be a stick you keep beating yourself with. Or you choose to let it go and accept who you are. Like I did. Like you taught me to.’
A light flared in his eyes and for a second she thought she might have got through to him. But then it vanished, forced away beneath that blank mask once again as he took a step back from her, putting distance between them.
‘I’m sorry, Inara,’ he said, hard and cold. ‘But, whether you like it or not, those standards are part of my world now. And I have met them. And I’ll continue to meet them for the good of my country and my people.’
Her anger drained away just as quickly as it had come, leaving her empty and hollow. It was becoming more and more obvious with every passing moment that there was nothing she could say that would help him.
Nothing she could do.
He was committed to his own punishment and eventually it would crush him.
Her heart broke, that piece of jagged glass splintering, knowing that there was only one choice left for her.
She could stay in this precarious marriage, suffering quietly every day, in the hope that one day his feelings would change, that one day he’d turn around and tell her that he loved her. Or she could leave him, leave this marriage, accepting that change wasn’t possible and would never be possible for him.
Everything she’d done since she’d got here had been for him, but she couldn’t keep on doing it. She couldn’t keep on giving pieces of herself away, getting smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker, every day.
She had to keep something for herself.
‘Okay,’ Inara said thickly ‘If that’s the way it has to be, then that’s what it has to be. But I’m afraid I’m not going to stay being your wife, Cassius. I can’t. I don’t want to be banished to the Queen’s apartments, or wherever you think I need to be, summoned whenever you need me then forgotten about when you don’t. I don’t want to be that child bride you visit whenever you’re bored. And I can’t stay here and watch you tear yourself apart.’
‘Inara—’
‘Cassius, I want a divorce.’
He couldn’t believe it. His beautiful wife, his lovely queen, the woman who’d showed him that there was a different way, a better way, was asking him for a divorce.
And all because he wouldn’t tell her he loved her when she demanded it.
That was love, though, wasn’t it? A demand. An expectation. Something that was only given when certain conditions were met. You were worthy only if you acted in a certain way, behaved with dignity and propriety. When you were perfect.
Like Caspian. He was worthy, but you never were.
His father’s chilly distance had always made that very clear. The opportunity to earn that love was gone now, along with his father, but that didn’t mean he should stop trying. That was what he’d dedicated his life to. Trying to be worthy of the title he’d inherited.
He’d fashioned himself into a king his country would be proud of, and that had taken nearly everything he had. How could he also fashion himself into a good husband? A man worthy of Inara’s love? Being a king was a heavy enough burden. He didn’t need to add to it.