by Leah Ashton
But he didn’t do that.
Instead he carefully gripped the tab of the zipper and slowly, carefully, slid it upwards. All the while pretending he didn’t notice the way Ana was trembling beneath his touch.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly, when he was done.
She stepped away and walked towards the door.
This was it, then.
Ana was going to walk out of his room and it would be over.
What they’d had would be over.
From now on it would be just like today had been: polite and awkward and...terrible, really.
It had been near impossible to spend so much time with Ana today and not touch her. Not be able to lean close to talk to her. To brush his hand against her waist. To make her laugh or make her gaze turn hot.
But what other option did he have?
It said a lot about the type of man he’d become that he hadn’t stopped Ana tonight. That he’d pushed aside his noble concerns about hurting this amazing woman as easily as he’d unzipped her dress.
He didn’t deserve this woman.
He had nothing to offer her.
But he couldn’t let her go. Not yet.
‘Stay,’ he said, as her hand gripped the door handle.
Ana went still.
‘Why?’ she said. She still faced the door.
Rhys pushed himself to his feet. ‘I don’t want you to go.’
She turned then, her lips quirking into something like a smile. ‘But how long would I be staying for?’
‘How about we just worry about tonight?’
Ana shook her head. ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘We want different things.’ She turned the handle, revealing a sliver of hallway light as the door cracked open. ‘I want a proper relationship, Rhys. I don’t want a relationship that we live in one-night increments, without a future.’
‘But do we have to worry about that now, Ana?’ Rhys said, stepping towards her. ‘Why not just take it night by night? It’s been working okay so far.’
The door cracked open further.
‘So that’s where you think we’re heading, Rhys? To a proper relationship?’
There was no way he could lie to her. ‘No,’ he said.
Ana smiled another humourless smile. ‘There you go,’ she said, her voice suddenly very soft. ‘As I said. We want different things.’
The door was open now. She was going to walk away.
‘No,’ Rhys said. ‘We don’t want different things.’
Ana froze, her gaze focused entirely on the door handle. ‘You just said you didn’t want a relationship with me.’
‘No,’ he clarified. ‘Of course I want a relationship with you, Ana. It’s like I told you. You’re the only woman—the only thing—I’ve wanted in five years. I’ve just been existing for a very long time. With you, I feel alive. With you, I want everything. I want everything that we have together already: fun and laughter and sex and connection. And I want more. I want...’
He rubbed his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he realised what he was about to say.
I want love.
He wanted to love Ana so badly. Maybe he already did. But the idea of saying those words again...
He just couldn’t.
His eyes popped open. Ana hadn’t moved, but now she was staring at him, her gaze locked on his.
‘I can’t have a relationship, Ana,’ he said. ‘I can’t even open a letter from my dad, answer a text message from my sister or a phone call from my mother. I hurt the people I love every day, and there is no way I’m going to do that to you too. You deserve so much better than that.’
‘I know I deserve more than that, Rhys. So does your family. So does our child.’
‘I told you,’ Rhys said, his eyes narrowing. ‘I’m going to be a good dad—’
‘Yet you know you can’t be a good partner? A good brother? A good son? What’s the difference, Rhys?’
‘It is different. It has to be.’
Ana shook her head. ‘I don’t think it is, Rhys. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think it is.’
She took a step out into the hallway, then stopped, turned and walked right up to Rhys. Close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze.
‘I want everything too, Rhys,’ she said. ‘I want everything with you—nothing less. But until you’re willing to fight for everything—for me, for our child, for your family—I have to walk away.’
‘You think if I just try harder I’ll be normal again?’ Rhys said sharply, incredulous. ‘Fixed just like that?’
As if he could snap his fingers and the pieces of his broken life would all fit back together. As if he hadn’t been fighting since the moment Jess died.
Ana’s gaze was steady. ‘You told me once that the right guy would fight for me. And you also told me that the next time I marry I should marry for love. That’s good advice, Rhys, and that’s what I deserve. What everyone deserves. Someone who will fight for love. For my love.’
She took a deep breath. In. Out.
‘You need to work out a way to allow love into your life again, Rhys. It seems to me that you’ve been avoiding love for the past five years—to cope, I know, but that’s no way to live your life. Our child is going to love you and, Rhys, I could so easily love you too—but I’m scared that you fear losing those you love so much you won’t give love a chance in the first place. That you won’t fight for it.’ She paused. ‘I think you need to get help, Rhys. I think—’
‘I haven’t had a panic attack in years, Ana,’ Rhys said fiercely. ‘I have it under control. But this is just who I am, okay? That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter that I want more. I can’t do it. I can’t.’
Ana’s gaze dropped. She walked to the door. She looked back and said firmly, ‘I think you can, Rhys. Maybe not for me—I guess I’m not the woman you’ll fight for.’ Her voice cracked. ‘But please, Rhys—fight for our baby.’
Then the door clicked shut behind her.
Rhys stood staring at the closed door of his suite for long, long minutes after Ana had gone.
‘I could so easily love you too...’
‘I guess I’m not the woman you’ll fight for...’
‘I think you need to get help...’
Ana’s words swirled in his head, triggering visceral, conflicting, churning reactions: hope, frustration, anger.
She seemed to think it was so simple, when it was anything but. As if all he had to do was try harder—fight harder—and everything would be sorted. He’d be okay. They’d be okay.
And he was nothing like Ana’s fiancé. The old Rhys wouldn’t have waited around for his runaway bride to return, or let Ana walk away tonight. But he wasn’t that guy any more. This wasn’t about not caring enough, or not being the right guy. It was about realising that, no matter how right it felt, love just wasn’t an option.
If he loved Ana and lost her...
He turned from the door, pacing the room.
It was done now. Over. There would be no more nights with Ana.
Even thinking those words was like a knife to his gut. But he needed to deal with that and move on. Focus on their child instead.
His gaze landed on the gift from Jas—the tiny baby outfit folded neatly on a side table. He picked the garments up, turning the fabric over and over in his hands.
He’d need to shop for baby supplies at some point. He’d need a cot and whatever else babies needed at his place as well as at Ana’s. And clothes too. It would probably make sense to have sets of baby clothing at both homes.
That was the kind of conversation he needed to have with Ana—about practical things, like where he should live in Vela Ada. They needed to talk about clothes and cots and baby baths—and more serious things, like working out custody arrangements, c
hild support, access...
He realised he was gritting his teeth and felt his mind begin to race. Despite all this time, it was a familiar, instantly identifiable sensation.
No.
He dropped the baby clothes on the side table and sat on the edge of his bed. It had been so long since he’d allowed anxiety to shorten his breath, clutch at his throat and speed up his heart. Long enough that he’d gone beyond thinking he had it under control, and had actually begun to think it wasn’t a part of him any more.
How naïve. How stupid he was.
He gripped his knees as he took long, deep breaths.
Stop, Rhys. Stop and think.
He told himself that once...twice.
He had a memory flash across his brain, of his doctor at the barracks walking him through this. ‘You need to practise before you have your next attack, Rhys.’
He’d thought it stupid. Humiliating, even.
Practising meant he was going to have more attacks. Accepting that. Accepting that reality. And he never had. Rhys North wasn’t the kind of person, the kind of man, who had panic attacks.
Who practised them.
He’d never gone back. To that doctor, or to the barracks.
His brain spun in circles. Grasping at everything. At nothing. Memories, feelings, ideas. Fears...
Stop...stop...stop...stop...stop.
Stop. Stop and think.
Finally his thoughts began to slow and put themselves in order, into an arrangement he could manage that didn’t threaten to overwhelm him.
Rhys opened his eyes—he had no idea at what point he’d squeezed them shut—then fell back onto the bed and deliberately relaxed his body, letting go of all his tension, from the tips of his fingers to his toes.
It was over.
‘Your panic is induced by catastrophic thinking, Rhys.’
The memory of his doctor again.
‘Your thinking patterns are the trigger. You need to learn to look at your fears more rationally, more realistically.’
But how was that possible? His wife had died without warning when he’d been helpless and on the other side of the world. In his career he’d seen the worst of humanity. He couldn’t sugar-coat it. Terrible things did happen.
How could he pretend differently?
He’d asked his doctor that exact question, probably in far harsher language. His doctor’s response had been something to do with a referral to a psychotherapist, about cognitive behavioural therapy...
He hadn’t wanted to hear it. He didn’t need some fancy psychotherapist to tell him to be more realistic. His life was as real as it got. As if pretending otherwise would make a difference.
So he’d managed it his own way.
Which had been working out just fine until he’d met Ana. Until he’d found out he was going to become a dad. Until he’d realised that hiding in the Dolomites had abruptly stopped being an option.
And until Ana had made him realise that, no matter how he cut it, he had abandoned his family, his friends...everyone who mattered to him.
And as he’d held those baby clothes in his hands, as he’d imagined Ana cradling their baby while he or she was dressed in suns and clouds, he’d imagined life without Ana. Without his child. Losing everything.
Losing everything again.
Losing all he loved again.
And as his brain had fallen into the abyss of what that might look like, what that might feel like, he’d lost himself in the panic he’d been avoiding for all these years. Not dealing with it, or processing it. But avoiding it.
He realised that for all he’d told Ana that his anxiety was under control, that he would be a great father, he’d actually had no place saying any of that if he really wasn’t going to move from coping to living to loving...
Something needed to change.
He needed to fight.
* * *
Vela Ada’s Christmas lights twinkled prettily as Ana was driven from the palace back to her home on the marina. It wasn’t quite yet midnight—so still technically Christmas Day. She tried to focus on the lights—on admiring the angels, counting the number of reindeer... On filling her brain with anything but what had just happened. Anything but Rhys.
But, not surprisingly, it didn’t work. By the time the driver slid the car to a stop at her front gate, only two facts whirled in her mind:
She had fallen in love with Rhys.
But Rhys didn’t love her.
So much for getting out before she got hurt. So much for not making any more mistakes.
She’d been so stupid to sleep with him again. At the time it had felt like the most natural thing in the world, the most right thing in the world—but she’d just been kidding herself. She’d never stop wanting more, and getting out of his bed to leave had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
She should have just left. Not stopped and talked. What had that achieved other than underlining the fact that yet another man didn’t want her? Didn’t love her?
Rhys could dress it up by saying he wanted a relationship...but she didn’t believe that. Rhys was prepared to find a way to be a good father, to overcome his grief and isolation and have a relationship with his child—and, oh, how desperately Ana prayed that he would deliver—but he wasn’t prepared to do that for her.
He didn’t love her. But she definitely loved him. And when had that happened? Maybe all the way back at the beginning, when he’d made her laugh in Castelrotto? Or when he’d told her mother at the airport that she was more than a princess? Or maybe simply every time he’d kissed her and the rest of the world had fallen away.
It was freezing in her courtyard, yet Ana still paused, hugging her coat around her as she stared at the fruit trees she’d decorated not much more than a week ago.
A week ago she’d refused any assistance from her guards and stood on a small stepladder as she’d wound Christmas lights around the branches of her orange tree, then her lemon tree. A week ago she hadn’t known she was pregnant. She hadn’t known she’d ever see Rhys again.
She hadn’t known the pain of a broken heart.
The slam of a car door made Ana startle. She turned and watched as a familiar figure leapt up the few steps to her iron gate.
‘Ana?’ Rhys said, his gaze locking on hers.
Her guard Adrian glanced at her.
She shook her head. She’d learnt her lesson. She walked to her front door.
‘Ana,’ Rhys repeated, ‘please.’
‘Doviđenja, Rhys,’ she said. Goodbye, Rhys.
She turned her back to him, fighting the tightness in her throat and the sting of her tears.
‘No, Ana,’ Rhys said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Her guard asked in Slavic if Ana would like Rhys removed.
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said in English, ‘he’ll go now.’
‘I won’t,’ Rhys said. ‘I’m here to fight for you, Ana. I’m not just going to walk away.’
I’m here to fight for you.
Ana turned to face Rhys. Adrian was already at the gate, ready to move Rhys on—but Rhys only had eyes for her. The guard opened the gate, but before he could put a hand on Rhys—who had moved not one millimetre—Ana spoke.
‘Adrian, leave us.’
The burly guard went still. ‘You’re sure, Your Highness?’
She wasn’t—not at all. But even so she nodded.
Then suddenly it was only her and Rhys in the courtyard, the gate clanging shut behind him.
‘I had a panic attack after you left,’ Rhys said.
His blunt words hung in the frigid air between them.
‘I’m a big guy, Ana,’ he continued. ‘I’ve always been taller and stronger than pretty much everyone else. My whole career was built on that strength—both physical and mental.
It’s who I am—who I was. But when Jess died, I crumbled. I was the opposite of strong. I lost my wife, I lost my future with her, and with the panic attacks I lost my identity.’
Ana’s gaze traced the hard edges of Rhys’s face.
‘I needed to believe that I could overcome them myself. I needed to believe that I was in control, that I wasn’t weak. That I was still strong. But of course I didn’t deal with them at all. I just removed the trigger.’ He swallowed. ‘I removed love. By removing all the love in my life, I had nothing to fear losing.’
They’d moved closer together at some point, but Ana had no idea who had moved first.
‘I knew I wanted more with you, Ana, but I told myself I wasn’t capable of it—I was terrified that if I let myself love you I’d be weak again. But then you left, and I realised it was too late: I already love you.’
Ana swallowed, but it was too soon to know what his words meant.
‘So I had a choice. I could run away to the mountains again, or I could stay and fight for you and for our baby. And then I realised it wasn’t a choice at all. I want love in my life again. I need love in my life again. So I’m going to get help. I’m going to see the psychotherapist I should’ve seen all those years ago and learn how to be strong again.’
‘I never thought you were weak, Rhys,’ Ana said fiercely.
Rhys frowned, but Ana continued before he could argue.
‘Grief is not a weakness, Rhys. It’s a part of life. I’m so sorry it’s played such a big part in yours, but it’s never made you weak. You’re strong, Rhys. You didn’t even know me and you supported me when I turned up on your mountain. Then you followed me to Vela Ada to be by my side when I needed your strength. You’ve been by my side every step of this crazy, unexpected journey we’ve taken together and you’ve made me stronger.’
‘You make me stronger too, Ana,’ Rhys said, his voice rough with emotion. ‘I—’
But then he stopped and suddenly looked upwards.
So did Ana, and as she did something touched her cheek.
Snow.
‘It’s snowing,’ Ana breathed in wonder.
Suddenly it was impossible not to touch Rhys, and he must have thought the same about her as his arms were around her and he’d dragged her close.