Gillian jumped, startled by Maks’s comment. He’d been mostly silent since they began eating dinner.
“I thought you were mulling over business.” She laughed more at herself than the situation. “I should have known better. You have a one-track mind.”
A single-minded determination that had led him back to her.
Maybe Gillian would have gotten over Maks, eventually. She’d certainly been doing her best to master the unrequited love that tore at her decimated heart every day he’d been gone.
But one short visit had set her back to the beginning, her heart hurting so much it was almost numb with it.
She knew that at some point that numbness would have become a protective blanket over her emotions. Just like it had done sometime in her childhood.
Maks made it clear he wasn’t going to let that happen.
“I assure you, my mind is capable of traveling multiple tracks at once.”
“I used to think so.”
“What has changed your mind?”
“It’s either the baby, my pregnancy, or our upcoming marriage—which is not a done deal, no matter what you tell yourself—since you showed up here three days ago.”
He settled back into the sofa, one long arm along its back, his left ankle crossed negligently over his right knee. “Those are three tracks.”
“Ha, ha.”
“I am not attempting humor, merely pointing out a fact. I have also in the last three days negotiated mineral rights for Yurkovich Tanner to a new rare minerals mine in Zimbabwe, overhauled and signed numerous contracts, avoided a political situation between Volyarus and Canada if you can believe it, interviewed several candidates for the position of Director of the Ministry for Education in Volyarus, mediated a labor dispute via teleconference in one of our currently operating mines, and finalized a new employee benefits package for the United States employees of Yurkovich Tanner.”
Okay. So the man was a machine of efficiency in both the business and political realm. “And still, you’ve had time to text me several times a day and call me nearly as often.”
“That should tell you where you sit in my priorities.”
She opened her mouth to say something smart, but closed it again without speaking. It was true. Maks had made time for her in a schedule that would defeat most men.
He always had.
“You don’t love me.” It wasn’t an accusation, more a statement of confusion.
Why make her such a priority when his interest in her was more for the Crown’s sake than his own emotions? But that was her answer, wasn’t it?
No effort was too great on behalf of his country and its people. Including finding a wife and mother to the next royal generation.
“I do not believe in love as the all positive, powerful force everyone seems to think it is.”
“How would you know?” He wasn’t in love.
He’d shattered her scarred heart when he rejected her and let Gillian know in unequivocal terms that he did not love her.
Could she make that important in the face of her child’s future, though?
That was the real question. How important was her pain in the balance of things? Both her parents had weighed their feelings, their desires, their careers, even their mildest convenience against their only child’s happiness. Gillian had always lost.
She wasn’t ever going to do that to her baby.
Maks lifted one dark brow in an unmistakably sardonic gesture challenging her question without words.
And then it clicked. She was being naive, not to mention somewhat myopic, wasn’t she? He’d certainly experienced the negative side of love through his father’s long-standing affair with the love of his life.
“Your father’s love for the countess is not the problem, it’s what he chose to do with that love.”
“So you say.”
“He had choices and he opted for the route most thinking people abandoned sometime in the Victorian era.”
“Really? You are so sure about that?”
“No, but if the countess was like me, compromised in her reproductive abilities, he still could have married her. They could have used a surrogate.”
“And risk having a woman make claims to the Volyarussian throne via her offspring? I do not think so.”
“Baloney. There had to be a woman among your countrymen that he could have trusted to sacrifice for the good of the throne in this way.”
“He approached my mother. Her dedication to Volyarus was a well-known circumstance.”
“And she demanded marriage.”
“She believed she would be a better queen than Countess Walek, a divorcée already with no children by her previous marriage.”
Gillian couldn’t help wondering if Queen Oxana had been in love with King Fedir back then, if her reason for demanding marriage had as much to do with affairs of the heart as the affairs of state.
Maybe like Leah in the Bible, she’d thought if she gave children to her husband she would earn his devotion. It hadn’t worked that way for Leah and certainly hadn’t for Queen Oxana.
“Your family is all kinds of dysfunctional, isn’t it?”
“No more so than yours.”
“Touché.”
Maks’s dark eyes studied Gillian with an expression she couldn’t put a name to. “You said you do love me.”
If she thought he was rubbing it in, she would dump the remainder of the pasta sauce pooled on her plate over his head. His tone was more clinical than gloating however, his expression still that enigmatic mask, but tinged with curiosity she could see.
“So?”
“Yet you did not fight for me.”
“What? I fought for you.”
“You evicted me from your apartment with haste.”
She stared at him. “What did you expect? You’d just dumped me. I wasn’t even worth looking into fertility treatments for.”
“You could have argued, insisted on doing exactly that. If you wanted to be with me.”
Like his mother had fought to be with his father? That had worked out well, hadn’t it?
Shoving aside the sarcasm, she still couldn’t believe he was trying to put it back on her.
Or was he? In his mind, he was only explaining his stance that love was not a positive, powerful force. And from his perspective, she had to think maybe she could understand why he’d come to that conclusion.
She tried to explain. “You admitted you don’t love me.”
“I never claimed to love you, but it had to be obvious I was considering marriage to you.”
“It was.” That was one of the reasons his rejection had hurt so much.
It had been such a shock in the face of what she’d thought were well-placed hopes. Hopes that had confounded her ten weeks ago and now, she still found inexplicable. “Why me? I’m not royal. I’m not anything special.”
“That is not true. You are a woman of definite integrity.”
“So are women a lot more politically connected than me.”
“You have your own connections.”
“You dated me because my father is a famous news correspondent?” It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would be the first time finding out could hu
rt enough to make breathing difficult.
“No. I dated you because I was attracted to you. Full stop.” His tone left no room for question. “Listen, Gillian, whatever you think of me, I did not want a marriage like my parents. I wanted to tie my life to a woman who would be my complement in every way. You handle yourself in diplomatic circles with an enviable aplomb.”
“It’s my shyness. I learned to use it to my advantage.”
“You come off as reserved but kind. It’s exactly what a monarchy like ours needs in its diplomats.”
“I’m hardly a diplomat.”
“But as princess of Volyarus, you would be.”
“It’s my mother’s connections you find most appealing.” That had never happened to her.
“She’s a popular politician both in her own country of South Africa and on the international scene.”
“Yes, she is.” A stalwart feminist, Annalea Pitsu would not approve of Gillian marrying into a monarchy and taking a supporting role however. “She is not exactly political royalty, though.”
Annalea was a mover and a shaker. Her disappointment with Gillian’s choice of career was made clear at each annual visit.
Maks shrugged. “Marrying a woman from another monarchy, particularly a political one, comes with its own set of burdens. None of which have I ever wanted to negotiate.”
“But…I don’t know…wouldn’t your people be happier if you married a Volyarussian?”
“If I had been drawn to a woman from my country as I was drawn to you, I would have pursued her.”
“Oh.” That told her.
In this, at least, Maks had no intention of being swayed by what the people of his country might prefer. Not the nobility, not the middle class.
There was no poverty class in Volyarus. It was too small and too well run for it.
Maks looked almost nonplussed. “That is all you have to say?”
“You’ve made it pretty clear you were sexually attracted to me.” Not that she was some kind of vamp, or anything.
“I was also attracted to your personality, to the quirky way your mind works, and we have many interests in common.”
“You thought I was your ideal woman.”
“Yes.”
“And then you found out I shouldn’t have been able to conceive.”