Xavier’s head tipped back as he aimed his gaze at the portrait of an ancestor surveying them from high on the wall.
“If I don’t produce our next ruler, the crown passes to a family living in America for the last two hundred years. Rather than let that happen, our neighbors would squabble to take control of Elazar. Instability would ripple across Europe. The globe. We’re a small country, but a pivotal one. I need more than one child to ensure Elazar’s future. I need a wife with connections that cement our alliances.”
His voice held not one iota of regret or even concern for how his plan would affect this child. Or her.
“Spell it out for me.” She grappled for her most pragmatic tone. “Exactly how is this to work? Because I am not allowing some strange woman to raise my baby.”
“Our child will be raised by nannies, tutors and servants, same as you and I.”
“I wasn’t!”
“You left for boarding school at seven. If you hadn’t been kidnapped, you would have grown up there. Your brothers did.”
“My parents traveled, but they were very involved. We knew they loved us!”
As she stared into his half-lidded eyes and read indifference, it struck her why he was being so dispassionate rather than weighing his decisions through his heart.
“You don’t know what that’s like, do you?” She felt cruel saying it, but everything he had told her about his parents came back to her, bringing his brutally logical plan into focus.
His brow went up in arrogant query. “What?”
“Love.”
He might have flinched, but it was gone so fast that she wasn’t sure. His sigh was pure condescension as he pushed his hands into his pockets. “I told you last night—”
“I’m not talking about romantic love. Family love.”
“Love of any kind isn’t real.” His voice slapped her down for being so gullible. “Look around. Is it here? Keeping anyone in my life but my grandmother? Loyalty. Obligation. Duty. Those are real.”
She would have argued that her family loved her, but something else struck with brutal force. “Are you saying—”
She had a flash of her mother crying with joy because Trella was pregnant. Elisa Sauveterre was worried sick and had strong opinions on how Trella had avoided telling Xavier, but beneath all of that was pure, over-the-moon love for her unborn grandchild.
“Is your grandmother happy we’re having a baby?” Her voice quavered with strain.
His jaw set. “That is not the word I would use, no.”
“Wow.” A jagged laugh clawed inside her chest. “Just wow.” How did one survive such an emotional desert?
The answer was before her. They turned into this—an image of a man with a heart, but one who was actually incapable of deeper feelings. One who scoffed at love.
A fierce gleam—torment?—flashed in his gaze before he steeled himself behind a visage of hammered armor. “But she recognizes we have a responsibility toward it.”
“Precious obligation,” she said shakily. “Here’s some news for you. I will not be shut out of my child’s life and replaced by nannies and tutors. I’ll call in the rescue team right now and barricade us in Sus Brazos for the rest of our lives if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Dramatics will not be necessary,” he said with pithy disdain. “We’ll share custody, fifty-fifty. Aside from security and education, how you meet the needs of our child is your business. Visitations to Spain or elsewhere can be worked out as they arise. But our child lives in Elazar.” He pointed at the floor. “I will provide you with a home here in Lirona as part of our divorce settlement.”
She shouldn’t care how quickly he got rid of her. He was being so cold, acting so far removed from the man she had wanted to believe he was, she could hardly endure facing the next minute in his company let alone four months of marriage.
It still took effort to say, “Well, that’s a relief.” She held his gaze, saying goodbye to those moments when he had held her and touched her as if there had been more between them than obligation. “I can move on then, too.”
His eyes narrowed with warning, gaze so hard and devoid of feeling she struggled to hold the contact. “You can.”
How foolish of her to try getting under his skin. She looked away, thinking that she couldn’t stay this close to him with her defenses annihilated the way they were.
“Where is this dowager wing of which you spoke?”
“You’ll sleep where I can keep an eye on you. You were difficult enough to track down as it was.”
“Confinement. How apropos. And familiar.”