CHAPTER TWELVE
INARAPACKEDAbag that night. She didn’t take much—she’d come with nothing, so that was how she would leave. With nothing. There was nothing she wanted to take with her anyway. If she couldn’t have him, she didn’t want anything else.
Grief tore at her heart. Not so much grief for herself, though that was there too, but grief for him. For how he’d become so stiff and rigid before her eyes, the Prince she’d loved vanishing, becoming the King.
She hated the King.
Is that fair?
She grabbed some dresses at random and flung them into her suitcase. Her glasses were fogging up so she had to pause and take them off, rubbing at the lenses, tears still pouring down her cheeks.
Her heart wasn’t just broken glass in her chest in any more; it felt like barbed wire, cutting at her soul.
Whether it was fair or not, he was right about one thing. She deserved more than he could give her. She did. No one had loved her for her entire life and, now she knew what it felt like to have someone, she didn’t want to do without it. And if it couldn’t be him, then it would be someone else.
You don’t want anyone else.
She ignored that voice as she tossed a T-shirt into her case. Somewhere out there would be someone who’d want her. Someone who wouldn’t shut her out, who wouldn’t blow hot and cold, who’d tell her unequivocally where she stood. Someone who’d love her the way she so desperately wanted to be loved.
It just wouldn’t be him.
You’re being as unfair to him as he is to you, demanding things of him that he doesn’t know how to give. No wonder he thinks love is a burden. You’re demanding he be the person he was back then, but he’ll never be that man again.
‘I thought you were better than that,’ he’d said to her. ‘I thought you’d accept me for who I am.’
Inara’s throat felt tight and sore, the barbed wire in her heart twisting.
Maybe there was some truth in that. But what else could she do? Stand by and accept whatever he had to give her? Try and love the hard, distant man who wouldn’t let himself be loved? Who viewed it as a burden?
Who viewed himself as a burden.
Tears slipped down her cheeks as it slowly became clear to her what she must do. She didn’t want anyone else. She’d never want anyone else.
And she couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t reject the man he was now simply because he wouldn’t give her what she wanted. Would she be any different from his father? From his parents, who’d made him feel that he was unworthy somehow?
And how would he ever learn that love wasn’t a burden, wasn’t a weight, wasn’t an expectation he had to meet, unless she showed him?
Love wasn’t conditional, but sometimes it required sacrifices. Sometimes it required compromises. So if she wanted him, she’d have to be the one to take that first step, because it was clear he couldn’t. Not yet. In fact, he might never be able to take that step. But love wasn’t just sacrifice, it was faith as well, and if you didn’t have faith in love what else could you have faith in?
She had to be the one to set the example this time. And one day, he’d learn. Perhaps not right now, but some day.
She just had to hope that he would.
Cassius organised a helicopter to take Inara to the Queen’s Estate, then stayed in his office to organize having the divorce papers drawn up. He didn’t want her to wait a second longer, as staying married to him was obviously such a trial.
He told himself he felt nothing, that the shell he’d developed after his family had been killed had hardened. That it was part of him now. And he ignored the anger and pain and betrayal at how she’d walked out. Ignored, too, the deeper emotion that went with it. It was a hot, powerful current that couldn’t be allowed to roam free.
Instead, he liaised with his legal team then drew himself up a schedule of what he had to do in the morning. Number one of which would be finding himself a new queen.
But what if Inara is pregnant? What will you do? How can you let her go?
He shoved back his chair, trying to ignore the questions tumbling round in his head. Trying to ignore the strength of the emotion inside him, desperate for release.
He had to let her go. He couldn’t give her what she wanted. She deserved better.
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.
Her voice drifted through his head and he tried to shove it away.