Princess's Nine-Month Secret

And Rico understood that too, because he’d felt the same about his own father for many years, trying to excuse the inexcusable, to give a good reason for cruelty towards a child. Towards him. You could twist the truth into knots to try to make it an acceptable shape, but it all came apart eventually, and he’d had to acknowledge the hard, unvarnished reality. His father just hadn’t cared.

‘So he sent you to the Palace of Forgotten Sands,’ Rico said flatly. ‘He banished you.’

Halina nodded, swallowing hard in an attempt to restore her shaky composure. ‘Yes, I was meant to remain there until the baby was born.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘I...I don’t know.’ Halina bit her lip. ‘My father said he would take my baby away from me, but I hoped... I hoped in time he would change his mind and let me keep him or her.’ She pressed one hand to her belly. ‘I can’t believe he would have been so cruel to me or his own grandchild.’

Rico sat back, his mind whirling with all the revelations Halina had just levelled at him. He’d misjudged her badly, assuming she’d been acting on her own selfish whims, going to a remote location to keep his child from him. It had been a stupid assumption, founded on his own unfortunate experience and the ensuing prejudices he still had about mothers and fathers, about family, about love.

Because he’d never experienced a mother’s love, a father’s trust. Because he’d assumed Halina would act in as selfish and capricious a manner as his own mother had done. He’d been wrong. So very wrong.

‘I’m sorry you went through all that,’ he said finally. ‘And I’m sorry I assumed...’ He paused, realising how much he’d assumed. How much it must have hurt her, considering her true experience. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

Halina nodded, pale-faced and spent now. ‘That’s why I didn’t see an obstetrician,’ she explained quietly. ‘I wasn’t given the chance.’

‘I understand.’ Rico spoke tautly, trying to control the raging anger he felt towards Halina’s father. The man had no right to assume control over Halina’s life, over their child’s life. The thought that Halina might have been forced to terminate her pregnancy—end the life of his child—made Rico grind his teeth together. But his rage served no purpose now, not when Halina was looking at him so warily, as if afraid his anger might be directed at her. And why shouldn’t she be afraid? Since snatching her from the desert palace, he’d assumed the worst of her at nearly every turn. Guilt, an unfamiliar emotion, lanced through him.

From the depths of his soul, a barren landscape until now, Rico summoned a smile. ‘Let’s put such unpleasant things behind us, Halina. The future will be different now—for you and for our baby, who will never know a day without the love of his or her mother and father. That is my promise.’

Halina nodded, but she didn’t look much convinced, something which made guilt rush through Rico all over again. He could see now how arrogant and inconsiderate he’d been—announcing his dictates, never giving her a choice—and he vowed to do better in the future. He would provide for Halina, he would make her smile, he would see her blossom, so she could rediscover her old spirit and joy.

He just would do it without engaging any of his own emotions. Because even now, when his heart was nearly rent in two by Halina’s sorrowful story, Rico steeled himself not to care. That was one place he could not go, and one thing he would never, ever give his bride-to-be. His heart. Even now, having shared and been entrusted with so much, he couldn’t risk that much.

They spent the rest of lunch talking about inconsequential matters, then strolled through the sunshine to the Colosseum.

‘Photographs don’t do it justice!’ Halina exclaimed as they walked through an archway, one of eighty. Although partially ruined, the Colosseum was still a magnificent and awe-inspiring structure with its high walls and many archways, the expanse of the old arena.

They roamed through its many corridors, reading each other bits from the guidebook—how it had been built by three different emperors and then had fallen to ruin a few hundred years later, much of its stone used to build other structures in Rome.

‘It’s horrible and beautiful all at once, isn’t it?’ Halina said as they stood on the viewing platform that overlooked what had once been the main arena. ‘The architecture is so impressive, and yet so many people and animals suffered and died here terribly. It’s awful to think about.’

Ri

co nodded. ‘Beautiful things can be used for evil,’ he said, feeling strangely sombre after their walk around the ancient archways and corridors. He felt as if he was sharing more than a mere tourist attraction with Halina; the way they’d talked together, reflecting on what they’d learned in the guidebook, was something he’d never done with a woman before, or really with anyone.

He didn’t have friends, not beyond business colleagues, and women had been no more than mistresses, mere objects of sexual desire and fulfillment. Strolling in the sunshine on a summer’s afternoon, sharing ideas, talking and listening, was all incredibly novel. And, he realised with a pang of unease, quite pleasant, which he hadn’t expected at all.

He’d been viewing this afternoon as an expedient means to an end, a way to improve Halina’s mood, gain her trust. But somewhere along the way it had turned into something else, something deeper and more meaningful, and he really didn’t know how to feel about that because, the truth was, he didn’t want to feel at all.

Halina glanced down at the guidebook. ‘It says we shouldn’t miss the museum in the inner walls of the top floor,’ she remarked. ‘It’s dedicated to Eros.’

‘Eros?’

‘The god of love.’

‘I know who Eros is,’ Rico returned. ‘I just don’t know why they’d have a museum dedicated to him in a place that was used for torture and death.’

‘Maybe that’s why, to bring some light and hope to a place that has been the stage for so much darkness.’ Halina’s smile was teasing and playful, but her eyes looked serious and Rico felt a twinge of alarm, a deepening sense of unease.

Love did not bring light to the darkness; it wasn’t the hope held out in a broken and damaged world. No, love was nothing but risk and pain, loss and weakness. He knew that because he’d made the grievous mistake of loving his father. A broken childhood might not be the best reason to avoid love, but it was Rico’s, and it had affected him to the depths of his soul. It had made him determined not just to avoid love but revile it and all it meant. Because the alternative was unthinkable. Unbearable.

As he took Halina’s arm and led her towards the stairs, Rico sincerely hoped that she wasn’t holding out for some remnant of love from him. Surely she knew him better than that, even if their acquaintance had been limited so far?

If she didn’t know it, he reflected grimly, he would certainly tell her as soon as possible, gently but firmly. He didn’t want to hurt Halina any more than he already had, but the last thing he needed or wanted was a wife who was looking for that damnable emotion—love.

CHAPTER TEN