As if it was precious to her when really, she wanted to burn it. She had worn it twice in six weeks’ time. She would never wear it again.
And when she sank down in the bath, and lost herself in the silken embrace of hot water, lavender, and steam, she let the tears fall until they stopped of their own volition. Pia didn’t know who she cried for. The mother who had never loved her the way Pia had wished so desperately she would. The father who had viewed her as something to barter, or an amusement, but never a real person.
Or this new life she’d stumbled into, whether she wanted it or not. The babies she carried, the prince who had fathered them, and the terrifying, unknown future that loomed ahead of them all.
She cried herself dry, and only then did she rise up from the tub, towel herself off, and take herself into the vast, airy confection of a four-poster bed that waited in the bedroom. She crawled into the center of the bed, turned over onto her side to find the only position where she could be remotely comfortable, and wrapped one arm around her belly.
“I promise you this,” she murmured out loud to the twin lives inside of her. “I will never barter you away. I will tell you I love you every single day of your lives. And you will never, ever find yourself wondering on the day of my death if you grieve because you miss me—or because you don’t.”
And still murmuring vows to the sons she would bear within a few short months, but treat better if it killed her, Pia finally fell asleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ARES HAD NO idea what was happening to him as each day bled into the next, then a week slipped by. Then another.
And he and Pia stayed suspended in the same waiting game.
It was easy enough to make the Southern Palace his base of operations. So easy, in fact, that he couldn’t quite remember why it had been so important to him to live apart from Atilia in the first place.
He flew in and out, from one royal engagement to another. And despite the barrage of scandalmongering headlines about him and Matteo Combe—and the expectant state of the Combe heiress the world had ignored until the funeral—his actual life was the same as it had been before. Did it matter what he called his base when he flew everywhere anyway?
Ares assured himself that nothing had changed. Nothing but his location.
Except he noticed that he found himself almost eager to return to the palace at the end of each engagement.
Almost as if he couldn’t truly be easy until he’d seen Pia again.
If she had cried again after that first night, she never showed it. Nor did she make further attempts to break out of the castle, which was a relief if only because it prevented Ares from sharing parts of himself when he never, ever did such things.
The reports Ares received about her in his absence were always glowing. She was unfailingly polite and kind to all members of the staff. She went on walks, around and around the many courtyards, and at low tide, down to the beach, where she was known to spend time on the rocks, staring out toward the horizon. She never tried to lose her security detail. She seemed perfectly happy to have regular checkups with the doctor.
Her only request had been a laptop computer, which Ares had been more than happy to provide, particularly as it gave him leave to monitor what she did.
After all, he had never promised her privacy.
And that was how he discovered that what Pia did with her time was write an online column for one of those internet magazines that Ares had always personally believed were the scourge of the earth. He found this discovery so astounding that he sat with it for nearly a full week before it occurred to him to do anything about it.
One night, after he’d flown back from some or other formal charity event in mainland Europe, he found her curled up in what the staff had informed him was her favorite room of the palace. It was known as the Queen’s Sitting Room, in the ancient wing, and had been built to accommodate a queen who had loved the ocean, her books and needlework, and liked to sit where she could look out all day while the business of the court carried on elsewhere. During the day the light cascaded in through the arched windows. At night, light made to look like candles blazed from every surface while the waves surged against the rocks outside.
Ares moved soundlessly into the room, not sure what to do with the wall of sensation and something perilously close to longing that slammed into him the moment he saw her.
Every moment he saw her, if he was honest.
Pia sat cross-legged on the chaise pointed toward the windows, a pillow over her lap—or what lap she had, with her huge, pregnant belly in the way. She was frowning down as she typed, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, and Ares was only a man.
And it had been a long time indeed since he had taken a woman, now that he thought about it. Too long. Months.