d mistaken his affection and amusement for a growing genuine attachment, but the support he offered her was probably the kind he’d give any of his cool employees.
‘I have to leave,’ Eleni said dully. There was no way she could stay here with him now.
‘You’re going to run away?’ he asked coldly. ‘Because that’s always worked so well for you in the past.’
No. She wasn’t going to run away. In that one thing he was right. Running away never worked.
‘This child is a Nicolaides.’ She drew herself up tall. ‘She or he will be royalty. And until Giorgos finally has a family of his own, she or he will be next in line to the throne after me. It seems there’s no getting away from that. So I’m going to return to Palisades.’ She was suddenly certain. And determined. ‘That is where I belong.’
He stood very still. ‘You won’t see out these few months?’
If she hadn’t believed that he didn’t love her before, she did now. He had no emotion at all—no understanding of just how cruel that question was.
‘I’ve just laid myself bare for you, Damon,’ she choked. ‘And you don’t accept it. You don’t accept me. You don’t believe in me.’ Her heart tore as she accepted his truth. ‘You want me, but you don’t love me. That’s okay, you don’t have to.’ But bitterness choked her. ‘One day, though, you are going to feel about someone the way I feel about you. And then you’ll know. Because no one is immune, Damon. You’re human and we’re all built to feel.’
She stared hard at him as she realised what she’d failed to see before—and she hit him with it now. ‘But what you feel most of is fear. That’s why you hide away on your island paradise. Controlling every one of your interactions, having those brief affairs when you go to some city every so often. Keeping yourself safe because you’re a coward. I get that your parents were less than average. I get that they hurt you. But don’t use them as your excuse to back out of anything remotely complicated emotionally.’
She drew in a desperately needed breath. ‘You don’t think what I do has value—that I deserve more? Well, you’re right, but not in the way you think. I help people. It may not be much, it may appear superficial, but in my role as Princess of Palisades I can make people smile. And I do deserve more. As a person. How can you possibly think I could stay here with you like this but not get all I need from you?’ It would destroy her slowly and utterly.
The irony was he was the one to have shown her what she could have. What she’d hoped to have with him.
‘You can’t give me what I need, but I can’t settle for less,’ she said. ‘So no, I won’t “see out these few months”. I can’t stay a second longer than I have to.’ Even though it was just about going to kill her to leave.
Eleni might never be loved personally. But as a princess she was. And that would have to do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DAMON PACED ALONG the beach, waiting for her to finish packing. She couldn’t leave soon enough. He’d spoken the truth. She didn’t ‘love’ him. She was in ‘lust’—with him a little, but mostly with the freedom he’d provided for her. It wasn’t him personally. It was the situation. Any other man and she’d feel the same about him. It was only fate that had made Damon the one.
He clenched his fists, because she offered such temptation. She made him want to believe in that impossible dream. In her.
But it was better to end it now. The pain in her eyes had been so unbearable he’d almost had to turn away. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. But she was inexperienced and naive and he realised now their divorce might hurt her more if they didn’t part now. He didn’t want to lead her confused emotions on.
She didn’t look at him as she climbed into the helicopter that would take her back to his jet, and then to Palisades.
‘I’ll have rooms set aside for you,’ she said regally. ‘You may visit at the weekends, so we maintain the illusion of a happy marriage until after the baby is born.’
He ‘may’? His brewing anger prickled at her tone. ‘And after?’
‘You may visit whenever you want. I won’t stop you from seeing the baby.’
Even now she was generous. His anger mounted more, but he contained it. She would care for their child better than he ever could. He understood that now. Because his father had been right—they were alike. Damaged. Incapable and frankly undeserving of love.
He couldn’t damage Eleni or his child any more than he already had.
* * *
The sun and the sand mocked him. His team were abnormally quiet and left him alone. He stood it for only two days before summoning the jet. He needed to get further away. San Francisco. London. Berlin. Paris.
He wanted her. He missed her. But he did not love her. He did not know how to love. It was easy to stay busy in cities—to arrange endless, pointless meetings that filled his head with fluff. But people asked about the Princess and he had to smile and pretend.
She was better off without him.
His head hurt. His body hurt. His chest—where his heart should be if he had one—that hurt too. But he didn’t have a heart, right?
Yet all he could think about was Eleni. He spent every moment wondering what she was doing. Whether she was okay. If she was smiling that beautiful smile at all.
She’d given, not taken. She’d offered him the one thing that was truly her own—her heart. He knew she’d never done that before. She’d been at her most vulnerable. And he’d rejected her.
But he’d had to, for her. Because he didn’t deserve her love. He had no idea how to become the man who did. If she was freed from the marriage to him, she might find some other man to treat her the way she deserved. That would be the right thing to do.
Hot, vicious, selfish anger consumed him at the thought of someone else holding her. Of someone else touching her. Of someone else making her smile.
He didn’t want that. He never wanted that.
He clenched his fist, emotions boiling into a frenzy. He had no freaking idea how to manage this. And that was when he realised—so painfully—how much he didn’t want to let her go. He never wanted to let her go.
He logged into his computer, searching for somewhere to go and sort himself out for good. Far from Palisades. Far from his own island that was now too tainted with the memories of her presence. He had to escape everything and pull himself together. But as he scrolled through varying destinations, his emails landed in his inbox.
There was one from the palace secretary.
Damon paused. It would probably be another schedule of engagements that they wanted him to approve or something. Unable to resist, he clicked to the email and opened it. But it wasn’t a list. It was a concise couple of sentences informing him that Princess Eleni had seen the obstetric specialist of her choosing who’d written a brief report, the contents of which had been inserted into the email. In one paragraph it explained that the baby was growing at a normal rate. That the condition that had taken Eleni’s mother was not hereditary. That the pregnancy posed no abnormal risk to her. That everything was progressing as it ought for both mother and baby.
His breath and blood froze. There was an image file attached to the email. Dazed, Damon opened it on auto. A mass of grey appeared. He looked at the arrow and markers pointing out a particular blob set in a darker patch in the middle of the picture. It was an ultrasound scan. It was his baby.
He tried to breathe but he just stared at that tiny, little treasure in the centre of his screen. It was there. It was real. It was happening. Heat swept through him in a burning drive to claim what was—
Mine.
Both hands clenched into fists.
Eleni.
The thought of her consumed him—her strength, her decisions, her role in all this. She was well. She was strong. She was safe. He ached to reach for her, ached to see her smile as she saw this picture—he just knew she’d smile at this picture. And the realisation rocked him.
Ours.
They had made this beautiful child together. That
night she’d come with him and he’d claimed her and somehow in that insanely wonderful moment they’d created this miracle. It never should have happened—but it had. And Eleni was taking it on. She was doing her bit and she was doing it so damn well. And if he wanted to be part of that, he was the one who had to shape up. Seeing this now, reading Eleni’s results, he realised just how much he wanted in and he burned with acidic shame. He’d missed so much already. He wished like hell he’d been there with her when she’d seen this doctor and when she’d had this scan. He should have been holding her hand for every damn second.
* * *
He bent his head, squeezing his eyes shut so he could no longer see the image on that screen. But the truth snuck in and stabbed him anyway. The fact was he had a heart. He really, truly had a heart and it hurt like hell. Because it was no longer his.
Eleni had it. It was all hers. He had to tell her. He had to apologise. He had to get her back. Groaning, he closed the picture file and read the doctor’s report again. And again. Sucking in the reassurance that Eleni was healthy. Strong. Safe.
She’d asked if he was scared of love and at the time he’d refused to answer. He’d been utterly unable to. But now he faced the stark facts. He was terrified. Like a freaking deer in the headlights he’d simply frozen.
Frozen her out.
Where she’d been brave, proudly standing up to him, he’d been unable to admit, even to himself, how much he wanted her in his life. And when she’d unconditionally offered him everything she had, he couldn’t believe her. No one had ever offered him that before.
Eleni had been right. He was a coward. He hid because it was easier. But in truth he was no better than his parents—putting all emotion aside for work. But she’d got under his skin and he’d been unable to resist—he’d taken everything she’d offered. He’d even convinced himself he was doing her a favour. He’d encouraged her to blossom and let all that sweet enthusiasm and hot passion out. He’d thought she’d needed freedom away from the palace. Freedom to take what she wanted—to ask for what she wanted.