“What did she say to you?”
She didn’t know if her mental state made him sound that lethal, or if he really was murderous.
“Nothing I don’t say to myself.” She clenched her eyes in anguish. “I am a detriment. A hindrance. You shouldn’t be here. What are you going to do? Run out of every high-level meeting because I’m having an episode? This can’t happen. You can’t be here. I have to do this alone.”
“Look at me,” he said gently.
“No, you look at me. Is this a queen? It’s not. I pretended for a while that we could find a way and you followed me through the looking glass because duty chafes and the sex is great, but we knew it couldn’t last. You were right, Xavier. This was always going to happen. This—” she pointed at her position on the floor “—will happen when I can least afford it. I wish I wasn’t this person, but I am. And if you stay in here and nurse me through this, you’re only proving that I’m a burden. I have to do this alone. I’m an adult who will be a single mother. I have to know I can do it.”
The mention of living alone sent a tumble of unvoiced fears through her head. Intruders. Kidnappers. A million bad, horrible, terrifying things.
“Bella,” he said gently. “I want to talk to you about that. Come on. Come out of here.”
“No.” She slapped at his reaching hands and said very clearly, “There is no way. None. Just—go look after Tyrol. Please? I can’t look after him when I’m like this. If you want to help me, go do that. Please?”
He stared at her, jaw clenched. “I’ll bring him to you. Will that help?”
“I can’t use him as a crutch. It would turn into me using him all the rest of my life. I won’t put that on him. But I’ll feel better if I know you’re looking after him. Please?” She clutched his wrist. “Will you do that for me?”
“Trella—”
“I’m begging you, Xavier. Please.”
* * *
He left her in the closet like a child hiding from monsters, hating himself for abandoning her, but she’d knocked the wind out of him. Blind shock held him in stasis for long minutes outside her door.
She thought her attack made her unfit to be his wife?
This was his fault. Not just her breakdown, but her belief that she had to be perfect to be his queen. She was already perfect in the way of fierce storms and jagged mountains and a flower blooming on a broken stem. Her perfection was in her resilience. That’s what was needed in his partner. He loved her for her strength and her ferocious capacity to love and her ability to move forward despite how many times she’d been knocked down.
With her emotional bravery top of mind, he strode to the nursery where Tyrol had just woken.
“I was about to bring him down for a feed—”
“Warm a bottle. I’ll take him.” He carried his son through the palace, pushing into his grandmother’s parlor where she was meeting with Mario.
“Out,” he said to Mario, and gave the door a light kick behind the man.
“Your meeting?” his grandmother prompted.
“My wife was indisposed. Someone upset her. I had to care for our son.”
“We pay staff to care for him.”
“He shouldn’t need his parents because you and I didn’t? We’ll never know, will we?” He set Tyrol in her arms.
“What—”
“Hold him. Feed him.”
“What do you think you’re proving?” She lifted her brows and calmly silenced the boy with the nipple.
“What are you trying to prove? Look at your great-grandson. Can you honestly say you feel nothing toward him? Because that’s certainly how you act.”
She looked at the boy. His hand found her thumb and gripped it. A dribble of milk leaked from the corner of his mouth and his eyes were focused on her.
A flinch of anguish crossed her expression before her mouth softened in tenderness. “He looks like your father. Let’s hope he doesn’t have his temperament. Your father wasn’t cut out for the crown. I let him go because I had to, Xavier.” Her head came up, blue eyes clouded with sorrow and a pleading for forgiveness. “He wasn’t his brother. He wasn’t you. He was never going to survive the demands. I let him go and yes, you suffered, but I had already lost both my sons. I couldn’t let you go, too.”
It was the most sentimental thing he’d ever heard her say. Shaken, he lowered to sit across from her. “I’m a parent now. I do understand,” he said at length. “I can’t stomach the idea of his being across the city three and a half days a week, let alone not in my life at all.”