They were both trapped and guilt was like a stone in Gillian’s heart because part of her was glad. That had to make her a very selfish person, even though she would never have intentionally pushed Maks into their current situation.
“I want you to marry my son,” Oxana said quite distinctly.
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“Again, I am sorry. I am not usually so inept at making my wishes known.”
Gillian had no trouble believing that.
“I did not like the idea you had tricked Maksim into marriage.”
“Like you did his father.”
The queen did not react angrily to the supposition, but she shook her head. “There was no trickery involved with Fedir. He wanted my womb. I wanted him.”
“Maks believes you only wanted to be queen.”
“Maksim sees the best in his parents. It is a child’s prerogative.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Fedir never stopped loving that woman, even after Maksim was born.”
“It didn’t work for Leah, either.”
For a moment Queen Oxana looked confused, but then her expression cleared. “From the Old Testament? No. I should be grateful that Bhodana never conceived, but I am not. Fedir would have enjoyed having more children.”
“I thought the countess was infertile.”
“No tests were done. It was her status as a divorcée that prevented her marriage to Fedir while his father still lived.”
“And your presence as his wife after.”
“He would not dissolve our marriage. He refused even when I offered.”
“He and Maks have a warped sense of duty to Volyarus.”
“Overdeveloped and maybe it is warped, but I never saw it that way.”
“You shared it. After all, you stayed.”
“Of course I stayed. My son was to be king one day. He needed me to guide him and Demyan’s own parents abandoned him to our care for the sake of their own ambitions. He needed me as well.”
“In the end, you’re saying it was the children who came first.”
“As it should be.”
“I agree.”
“That is why you are marrying Maksim?”
“Yes.”
“You love him.”
“With everything in me.”
“And that is what makes this so difficult for you? That is what brings the grief and pain into your lovely blue eyes.”
“He won’t love me.” The truth of that statement weighed like an anvil on Gillian’s soul. “It’s not an emotion that grows out of nothing.”
“You have a child between you, common interests, shared experiences. That is not nothing.”
“You had all those same things with King Fedir, but he never learned to love you.”
“His love was already spoken for.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“You don’t think so? I am not so sure, but I suspect you are right. He cried out her name…the nights we tried for a baby.”
It was such a startlingly intimate revelation, Gillian knew it was heartfelt and extemporaneous. “I’m sorry. If Maks did that, I’m not sure he’d leave the bed with his bits intact.”
Incredibly Queen Oxana laughed. “As it should be. Perhaps a good kick in certain regions would have knocked sense in the king.”
“Maybe.” Love wasn’t the great bearer of rationality, though.
“I believe you are wrong.”
“About what?”
“My son’s feelings for you.”
Gillian wished with all her heart she was, but she knew the truth. “No.”
*
Gillian’s first view of Volyarus was glittery lights in the extended blackness that was night in the Baltic Sea.
From research she’d done, Gillian knew that while the majority of the inhabitants of the small nation lived on the main island about the size of New Zealand, it was actually an archipelago with some of the most profitable mineral rights existing on the lesser inhabited, more barren islands.
The main island boasted a mountain whose snow peak never melted but at the base of which a thriving capital city was surrounded by extremely productive farm land.
The growing season was short, but the constant sunlight made for bumper crops.
Gillian couldn’t see any of that as she stood on the top of the steps leading down from the jet’s doorway.
The early summer darkness here was absolute, once the sun had set. Like it had been in Alaska growing up. The landing strip and its surroundings were lit, but the area beyond was nothing but inky blackness.
Three cars waited at the bottom of the stairs. Two SUVs with large unsmiling men standing beside them and an official-looking stretch limousine with the flags of Volyarus flying on either side of the hood. The driver stood by the open back door.
A silver Mercedes sports class, just like the black one Maks drove in Seattle, came screeching to a halt on the tarmac as Gillian reached the bottom of the steps shortly after the queen.
“Oh, dear,” Oxana said. “It appears Maks has discovered my trip to meet you.”
Gillian had no chance to answer before the driver’s door slammed open and Maks sprang out. Moving forward with speed, his attention so completely on Gillian, he did not hear his mother’s greeting as he walked right by her.
The queen smiled, surprising Gillian, turning to watch as Maks swept Gillian into his arms and kissed her until she was breathless.
Deciding he knew the protocols best, Gillian went with it and kissed him back, letting her body relax into the man she loved. Once again in his arms, her worries for their future dissipated.
Eventually he pulled back, though he kept her close, facing him, as Maks’s dark eyes searched her own with an intense expression she didn’t understand. “How was your flight?”
“Fine.”
“I did not expect you to have company.” He still hadn’t acknowledged his mother’s presence.
“Me, either.”
“Is it all right? Did she…” Maks looked over at his mother, his expression one Gillian could live the rest of her life without having directed at her. “She did not attempt to turn you off marrying me.”
There was no question that if Oxana had tried that route, it would have led to a near irreparable schism with her son.
“I did nothing, Maks, but get to know the lovely woman you intend to marry.”
They actually had spent some time talking like two new friends, before the queen had insisted Gillian take a nap for the remainder of the flight. Oxana had kindly woken Gillian in time to brush her hair and teeth in the jet’s lavatory before landing, so she didn’t feel so rumpled meeting Maks.
“If she said anything to upset you…” Again that look.
And it made Gillian feel badly. Oxana loved her son deeply. “She only wants your happiness, Maks.”
“I am happy to be marrying you.”
“And to be a father, I am sure,” Oxana said smoothly.
Maks jolted, as if it had not occurred to him that his mother would learn the truth before he told her. Which made no sense. How could Maks have believed that Demyan would keep something that elemental from the queen?
Oxana was right. Maks wasn’t thinking with his usual clarity.
Gillian shook her head. “It’s fine. She’s happy about the baby, too. Okay?”
Maks again searched Gillian’s features, as if he was not sure he believed her before turning to examine his mother with the same questioning intensity.
The older woman frowned. “How can you doubt it?”
He did not answer, but turned back to Gillian.
She looked up into brown eyes that caught at her heart.
“She did not upset you?”
“I was surprised when I found her on the plane,” Gillian deflected.
Unmistakable worry washed over Maks’s features. “But you are not upset.”
Grateful he’d used the present tense
rather than the past, she was able to answer without prevaricating. “No.”
“Very well.”
“Maksim. Really.” The hurt outrage in Oxana’s tone rang sincerely. “You will have Gillian believing I am a monster.”
Maks sighed, his expression showing guilt only a loving mother could engender.
He turned his face toward Oxana, but he kept his body in a protective stance around Gillian. “Of course not.”
Incredibly, Oxana laughed, the sound soft and free somehow. “Oh, Maksim, I was so afraid I’d ruined your ability to love.”
Maks went rigid. “Love is—”
“A tremendous blessing when the one who loves practices selflessness rather than selfishness,” Oxana interrupted in a very unroyal way.
Maks opened his mouth to respond, but Oxana shook her head. “I fear that between your father and I, you have only ever seen the selfish side of romantic love. Perhaps if you’d spent any time with the countess, you would have seen what selfless love is like.”
“How can you say that woman—”
Oxana put her hand up, interrupting again. “She is more than that woman, Maksim. She is the woman, the one woman who offered your father love without strings and he took it. Selfishly.”
“Mother.”
“Come, this is no place for a discussion about our family’s brokenness.”