“Awful.”
He nodded in grim agreement.
“Why are you angry? Xavier—”
“I’m not angry.” He shot to his feet, though, and paced a few steps only to turn back abruptly. “I am angry. I respected your wishes because fine, I accept that you had to feel you could get through an attack alone. But I have issues, too. Because of you. You ignored my texts for months before you admitted you were pregnant. Then you locked me out of a delivery room while you flatlined. We’ve been apart more than we’ve been together. You damned well need to stay accessible to me. I need to know you’re alive, even if you’re not at your best.”
That was the problem. Sometimes she was at her absolute worst.
And she really wasn’t up for a scolding over it. Or facing how she was supposed to be accessible from across the city. Much as she had given his grandmother a show of bravado, that’s all it had been. She couldn’t be his wife. She knew that now and it hurt so badly; she had to escape to hide how anguished she was.
“I want to shower. Can you take him and order breakfast?”
He said nothing as she handed him Tyrol again.
Swallowing, heavy with a melancholy that would never lift, she went back to her room and started the shower, blinking hot eyes as she did. She wasn’t ready. If she hadn’t had that stupid attack, if they hadn’t had that big fight yesterday, they could still play alternate universe a few more days. Why had she shortchanged them like that?
She stepped under the spray and turned to see Xavier had come in behind her.
“Where’s Tyrol?”
“Nursery.” He peeled off his clothes, dropping them to the floor as the glass walls gathered steam.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” He opened the door and came in, crowding beneath the head that rained from the ceiling.
They’d showered together before, daily, but that was before.
“Xavier, I can’t.” Her heart was too tender, still pulling at all its old fractured lines and itching from fresh stitches.
“What did I just say about locking me out?” He cupped her wet head and planted a single kiss on her mouth, hot and possessive. Oddly tender.
She moaned and ducked her face as soon as he let her, tucking her forehead into his collarbone. Her vision filled with the golden skin she loved, taut and smooth over hard muscles. He was growing aroused, which always excited her.
“You know we’re just putting off the inevitable. You were right all along,” she muttered.
“You’re staying here. We’re staying married.”
For a couple of heartbeats, she thought she’d imagined it, then she jerked back her head and looked at his implacable expression. The wetness in her clenched eyes wasn’t from the water raining on her face.
“The future king decrees it? We both know I’m not a suitable queen.”
“You are.”
“You saw me last night!”
“And I see you this morning, having survived it. That’s who and what you are, bella. You survive. You push through hardship to come out the other side, bruised maybe, but you make it. You don’t give up on yourself, you would never give up on Tyrol and I won’t let you give up on us.”
Her mouth trembled. “If you loved me—”
He made a noise of imprecation. “If? If?” His hands cupped her face again. “You put a spell on me the first time we met. You gave me a son and helped me kick-start my heart so I could give him the love he deserves. Of course I love you, you infernal woman. How the hell else are we here?”
“You don’t have to yell about it. What about Patrizia?”
“Are you seriously worried about a woman you have never met? You’ve ruined her life, bella. Just as you have ruined mine. But you won’t feel bad about it because you’ve saved us both from a terrible mistake.”
“Tyrol did. Lay the blame where it belongs.”
“I thought I just did. God, I love you.” He kissed her and this time he meant it, fusing his mouth to hers and letting her taste his desperation.
She grasped his wrists and pulled away, gasping, trying to speak from soul to soul. “Do you mean it? Because I don’t think you understand how much it means to me that you can accept me, with all my breaks and imperfections. Don’t say it unless it’s true.”
“You are flawed. You’re unpredictable and defiant and shameless. You’re also brave and creative and you love with everything in you. If you can rise out of your past and risk your heart, what kind of coward would I be if I refused to do the same? I’m privileged to be one of the people you love, Trella. I know what an exclusive club it is.”