Tyrol was showing off the growing strength of his lungs, recognizing the feeling of the soft flannel against his cheek as she draped it over him and growing frantic for her to open her buttons.
“It was understood the Prince was taking a bottle,” Mario said, mouth pinched, gaze averting self-consciously while his whole face went red.
Oh, was he uncomfortable with her breastfeeding? What a shame.
“He’ll need a bottle, won’t he? Or he’ll starve to death before we get to each other. Am I even allowed into the palace without an escort? He’s six weeks old. Still a few days shy of his due date. He’s not weaned and won’t be for a year.”
“As I see.” Mario cleared his throat and turned to the door. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Do.”
This doesn’t change what has to happen. Xavier should have told her this was going to happen. How dare he use her up last night, thinking this would be okay.
* * *
Trella woke thick-headed from a heavy nap to hear Xavier’s hushed voice, “Give him a bottle if he needs it.” A door closed.
She jackknifed to sit up and shot a look to the travel cot she’d had Gerta bring down from the nursery. It was empty.
Sucking in enough breath for a scream, she leapt from the bed and stumbled into the lounge, wearing only the oversized T-shirt she’d thrown on for sleep. Xavier was there, but no one else. No Gerta, no Adona, no Tyrol.
“Oh, hell no,” she informed and rushed after her son.
“Trella.” He caught her arm and reaction kicked in. She used the momentum to round on him, heel of her hand aimed straight for his nose.
He deflected, tried to catch her into a hold, but she expertly twirled out and broke his grip, the movements ingrained in her muscles from years of practice. Knocking a lamp in his direction to force him to leap back, she backed up too, out of his reach, neatly balancing on the balls of her feet, breathing in hisses as she gauged the distance between him and the door and how she would take him out in order to get there.
“I didn’t know,” he growled, holding himself in ready stance. “Calm down.”
“Bring him back.” She reached for a slender vase and flicked its three tall irises at his feet, spattering water on the bottoms of his pant legs, then tested the heft of the blown glass as a weapon.
“You’re going back to the room you were in, next to mine. I sent him up because he needs a bath. I stayed to tell you that and keep you from throwing a righteous fit when you woke and saw he was gone. Calm the hell down.”
“You should have told me last night this could happen. This, by the way, is how you put up a fight.” She shook the vase at him, mocking his lame attempt to turn her away last night.
“This was always going to happen!” He pointed at the door. “If not today, soon enough. In a few weeks, you’ll move out of the palace and he’ll come and go between us. That is reality, Trella. I have damned well made that clear to you. More than once. You came to my room, last night, knowing that. Don’t pretend this is news.”
She threw the vase at the fireplace so it shattered and droplets of water made the dancing flames sputter and crackle. Then she stared at the destruction, chest heaving.
“Is this bringing on an attack?”
“Don’t pretend you care if it does.”
“I care,” he bit out. “Why the hell do you think I’m here?” He looked positively tortured as the words escaped him. He wiped his expression away with a stroke of his hand, releasing a heavy sigh.
“I’ve just been raked over the coals for one photo.” He held up his finger. “And because a debate has sprung up online. Team Trella or Team Patrizia. My fault.” He turned his hand to tattoo his chest with his finger. “I promised to undo all of that, as if it’s even possible, and walked back to my room to learn you’d been sent here. Do you know how much furniture I wanted to break? Do you understand what I’m doing, taking you back there? It’s pure weakness!”
No, it wasn’t. That’s not what caring was. He wasn’t ready to hear or believe it, though, and she was too angry and hurt to explain it.
“Why does she hate me so much? Why—?”
He closed his eyes. “I keep trying to tell you. Emotion has nothing to do with it. It can’t. That’s the point.”
“The crown is all that matters.”
“Yes.”
“I hate your crown! I hate that our son will be raised with this same hard-hearted attitude.”
“Hate away. It changes nothing.”
“And you want me to come to your rooms again, anyway.”
“Yes.”