‘That is absurd, Luciana,’ he said fiercely. ‘You speak when you wish to and I listen.’
She groaned aloud. The man was delusional.
‘Did you listen in Courchevel, when I told you I wasn’t getting onto that plane? No. Did you listen when I told you I had to go home before we could get married? No.’
A frigid draught swept over her, pebbling her skin with goosebumps.
‘Home?’ he incised. ‘Galancia is your home.’
It wasn’t his words that bothered her—it was his granite-like tone. The one that said Arunthia was to be forgotten and she should accept that.
He’d have to bury her six feet under first.
She wrenched open the antique armoire and hauled out her suitcase.
‘Luciana? What the hell are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing, Thane?’
She was leaving this place. This island. As soon as the dawn broke. And nothing would stop her.
‘I don’t think—’
‘Oh, Thane, right now I don’t care what you think. And if I were you I would start listening to me. Because your days of controlling my life are over.’
* * *
Frustration mounting, his pulse spiked, making him feel light-headed as Luciana whirled around the room like a tornado, shoving clothes into the sinister suitcase that sprawled over her bed like a black stain on pure white satin.
‘Would you like to tell me why you are packing?’
He had no idea why—she wasn’t going anywhere.
Seeing her beautiful clothes and those delicate bottles of cream that made her radiant skin smell sweet being haphazardly tossed into that vile contraption made his fists clench into thwarted balls of menace.
‘I would’ve thought that was obvious. I’m leaving. I need to go home for a few days. I need time. I need to sort out my responsibilities there. If you had stood still long enough this week we would’ve already had this discussion—but, no, you dictate and you command. And I’ve had it.’
Darkness fell over his eyes until he was blind to everything around him. She was not leaving him again. Nor was she stealing his son a second time.
‘No, I am sorry, Luciana, but you are not going anywhere. And that is final.’
His conscience was screaming at him to stop. To think about what he was doing. Saying. But if he let her go she wouldn’t come back. He knew it. Just as she hadn’t five years ago.
Her heavy sigh infected the air. ‘You need to trust me, Thane.’
‘Trust?’ The vicious swirling cyclone in his chest picked up pace and he whirled on her in a gust of fury. ‘Trust the woman who disappeared in the night and never told me I had a son? Are you serious, Luciana?’
Those thick decadent eyelashes descended and her voice turned heartbreakingly weary. ‘I know it’s early days, but are you never going to forgive me? Are we ever going to get past this?’
The memory of earlier tonight, when he’d peered through a different lens…her frantic whisper that she would show him what he’d missed…doused the furious fire in his blood.
He thrust his fingers through his hair and exhaled heavily. ‘I’m trying, here, Luce.’
Truth was, even before this evening he’d started to appreciate the turbulence she must have gone through. Which was why he didn’t want her or Nate anywhere near Henri Verbault—the man who’d almost cost him his son. Thane would never forgive him or trust him, and he was amazed Luciana could contemplate either. Obviously she was blind to the man’s influence over her, so Thane would protect her from that too. By keeping her here with him.
‘Just let your father deal with the Arunthian crown. He places it above your importance anyway. You don’t need to go back and see your family ever again. You have Nate and I.’
Her hand plunged from where she’d pinched the bridge of her nose and her jaw dropped agape as she spluttered, ‘Of course I need to see them. You can’t expect me to give up my family. That’s just insane… Whoa—hold on a minute. Did you expect me to get married next Saturday without my family there?’
‘Basically? Yes. I do not want your father anywhere near my wedding.’
‘And what about my sisters? My sisters, Thane! And, no matter what grudges you have against my King, he’s still my father and he’s sick. I don’t know how long he has left and—’
That stopped him in his tracks. ‘He is sick? I didn’t know this.’