by Renna Peak
I glance at Andrew before I turn my back to both of them. I walk toward the bedroom and stop in the doorway. I don’t even turn to face either of the men when I speak. “That will be all.”
I’d be surprised if everyone in Montovia didn’t hear the slam of my door behind me.
“Matthias said I might find you here.” Leo sits on the bench next to me, not quite close enough to touch me.
I’ve been lost in thought since last night, trying to figure out what I’m going to do with myself. In between all the phone calls, anyway. I’m pretty limited in what I’m actually able to do while I’m still here, but that isn’t going to last much longer. And it was only a matter of time before Leo heard about my plans. Word travels too damned fast in this country—and even faster in the palace, it seems.
I don’t look over at him. I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the rock in the middle of the stream in front of me—there’s something about the way the water moves over the stone that I’m finding calming, at least at this particular moment. And even though I had hoped to be able to sit out here by this stream with Leo at some point, this isn’t exactly how I had pictured being with him when Sophia had told me about this place the first night I arrived in Montovia. Damn, it seems like that conversation with her happened in a different lifetime, but it was really only a few days ago.
I let out a long breath. Even though I can’t bring myself to look at him, I know we do still need to talk. “How was your Tax Council meeting?”
He chuckles. “It went about as well as I expected. Our country seems to relish doing things the old-fashioned way. If nothing else, I think I might be able to bring these people into the twenty-first century.”
“That’s good.” My stomach is twisting on itself, dreading the conversation I know we’re about to have.
I’ve kept myself busy today—busy taking care of the things that I knew I needed to do to be able to get myself out of this mess. There was something almost calming about that, too—figuring out that I’m not as helpless as I sometimes fear I am. Finding out I don’t necessarily need to run away from my problems.
Leo finally breaks the long silence between us. “Elle…” He lets out a short breath. “I want you to know that even if the story you heard last night is true, it doesn’t change my feelings for you in the slightest. And I hope that it doesn’t change your feelings for me.”
“It doesn’t.”
He lets out another short breath and I can hear the relief in his voice. “Oh, Elle, you have no idea how much it pleases me to hear you say that. I imagined—”
“It doesn’t change my feelings for you, Leo. But it changes everything else. I can’t stay here.”
“Elle—”
“No.” I shake my head, but I still can’t bear to look at him. “You know what’s funny, Leo? I thought I was going to be the one to fuck this up.”
“I don’t see how that’s funny at all, Elle. If you would let me explain—”
“I don’t need to hear it, though.” I press my lips into a line, trying to hold back the mixture of emotions I can feel starting to rise in my chest again. “I talked to the reporter today. Victoria Simpson—”
“Victoria Simpson? That’s the reporter Matthias thought you should speak with? Elle, she’s been writing about my family for several years. She’s—”
I grit my teeth and continue. “She’s going to meet me for lunch at the end of the week. She doesn’t just think mine is a good story—she thinks between my relationship with you and everything else that’s happened in my past, I can get a book deal out of it.”
I hear him gulp. “A book…” He lets out another short breath. “Elle, none of this is necessary, though. What’s happened is a blessing to us, really. The press will only be interested in what they can dig up on Karina now. They’ll leave me alone—”
“That’s just it, though.” I finally turn to look at him. “They’ll leave you alone. If I stay here—if I stay with you—then I’m the other woman. I’m the home wrecker. I’ve played that role before, Leo. And I’m not about to play it again. Not for you—not for anyone.”
He closes his eyes and bows his head. “I don’t believe for one moment that her child is mine, Elle. She’s refusing to take a paternity test, though, and I can’t force her. It isn’t until the child is born that she can be compelled to do anything.” He shakes his head and opens his eyes, finally meeting my gaze. “You have to believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe, Leo. The only thing that matters to your family is the story. How they look in the press. And it’s going to look a hell of a lot better for everyone if you’re supporting the mother of your child. Stephan knew that—it was why he tried to get rid of me.”
His lip twitches at the mention of Stephan and he turns his gaze to the stream at our feet. He’s silent for another long moment. “You don’t have to leave Montovia. I’ll be working in the city now—I’ve been given an office in the Tax Council building. I’ll rent a flat nearby—you can stay there. I’ll be able to visit you almost daily—”
I wish he was close enough to me so that I could reach over and slap the back of his head. But he isn’t, so I only interrupt with a scoff. “And that won’t be tawdry at all when the press finds out, right? Then I really would be your courtesan, Leo. Are you going to leave me some money on the dresser before you leave every morning, too?”
I hear a sound in his throat that is almost a growl. “That is not how it would be at all, Elle.”
“How would it be then, Leo? Your family is going to insist that you marry her, right? And even if you’re somehow able to get out of that—if she would even have you—how do we make us work? You’re asking me to step aside so that you can have your life. You want it all—you want to be able to fix your mistakes with no repercussions. But you can’t—I know that better than anyone. Your past always comes back to bite you in the ass.”
“Elle, I have no intention of making you be the other woman in the long term. It would only be until this child is born—until I can prove to you and the world that it is not mine—”
“But what if it is yours—?”
“Impossible.”
I tilt my head, frowning. “Not impossible, Leo. I’m sure I don’t have to explain the mechanics—”
He interrupts with a shake of his head. “But it is impossible, Elle. There is no way—”
“Did you sleep with her?”
He clenches his jaw. “Yes.”
“You put your dick inside the woman?”
He frowns, almost wincing. “Elle, there is no need to be crass—”
“Did your cock at any point enter the woman who is claiming to be pregnant with your child?”
He groans and closes his eyes. “Yes.” He pauses. “Elle, you truly do not need to explain this to me. I do understand the mechanism. Believe it or not, Montovia is very progressive in the sexual education of its youth.”
“Then stop telling me it’s impossible that there is even a remote chance that her baby is yours. If you fucked her, there’s probably a great deal more than a possibility.”
“Fine.” He rolls his eyes. “There is a possibility. But, Elle…” He shakes his head again. “I know. I can’t explain how I know, but I do. I know that the universe would not do this to me. I wouldn’t have been allowed to find you if this were true. We would have never met—”
“Oh my God, Leo. Seriously?” I close my eyes and shake my head. I sigh and look over at him after a moment. “If I hadn’t fucked my boss, I wouldn’t have been fired from my job. I wouldn’t have ever gone to Rio de Campo and I wouldn’t have met you. I don’t actually believe that the universe intervened on my behalf, though. And I don’t believe you were sent to Rio de Campo so that we could meet, either.”
“I didn’t say that, Elle.”
I groan. “Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the universe not allowing you to meet me if your ex is pregnant and having it arranging to have us meet be
cause it was meant to be.”
“And none of this matters now.” His voice is low, almost tinged with sadness. “Matthias said you were planning to leave tonight.”
I turn my gaze back to the rock in the middle of the stream. “My plane leaves at nine. I only have a few more hours.”
“Oh.” He’s silent for a moment. “You realize that you don’t have to go through with telling your story to the press now, though. And there’s really no reason for you to leave.”
“Aside from you needing to be with another woman—”
“I don’t need to be with her, Elle. I’ve already told you, I don’t believe—”
“Fine, don’t believe what she says.” I turn to look at him. “What happens when you find out that the baby is yours? You’ll have wasted all this time. Time you should have spent figuring out your shit. Time you should have spent learning how to be a father.”
His gaze darts away from mine before he looks back at me. “These things happen often, don’t they? In your celebrity tabloids? Aren’t people having children out of wedlock or with other partners, then leaving them for someone else? Isn’t celebrity divorce-watching almost a pastime in your beloved magazines?”
“Fuck you, Leo. My beloved magazines.” My jaw clenches before I turn to him again. “You know, I didn’t do this. This one isn’t on me.”
“You’re leaving, though. I need your help and you’ve decided to leave. After you promised that you would discuss leaving with me before you left—”
“I am discussing it with you, Leo.”
His gaze narrows. “You know what I mean. And I heard it from Matthias—”
“And now you’re hearing it from me.” I let out another long breath, trying to curb the anger that’s trying to unleash itself. “Look, I don’t have a problem with you having a kid. I don’t even have a problem with you having spawned a child with one of your flavors of the week.”
He’s speaking through gritted teeth. “Then why are you leaving?”
“Because there’s always going to be something with you. And I’ll always be the one to have to take the fall.” I shake my head. “If Stephan’s plan had worked, I would have been the one going through hell right now. Fuck, Leo, I’m still going to have to go through hell. There are enough people out there who know about me now—my story is going to come out eventually, so I’m still going to have to tell it. I just don’t want to have to do this every time something happens. Every time there’s some embarrassing thing that’s going on in your family, Stephan or whoever can just shove me in front of the press and point at me and say, ‘Look at this whore! Pay attention to her! She’s got way more interesting shit to dig up than the Royal Family!’ And I don’t want to be the scapegoat. I don’t want to be the person they keep around to be able to wheel out to deflect attention when things get rough for you.”
“Then we can go somewhere else. Somewhere outside the range of the media. We’ll live on a beach—”
I interrupt with a sigh. “And then what? We run every time the paparazzi finds us? We’d have to move to Antarctica, Leo.”
He’s silent for a moment. “If that’s what it takes.”
I can’t help but smile. “It’s pretty cold there.”
He shrugs. “We’ll bring coats.”
I laugh for a moment, but it quickly turns into something that feels and sounds an awful lot like crying. “I can’t do this.”
“I can’t do this without you.”
“You can, though.” I blink back the tears that are stinging at my eyes. “We both need to own the mistakes we’ve made. And you need to learn how to be a father to your child. I need to face the consequences of the choices I’ve made in the past—we both do.” My chest aches at the finality in the tone of my voice.
“We can still talk, Elle. I can still come to see you. I’ll send my plane for you—we can go anywhere we want—”
“In between your Tax Council meetings? And your family gatherings? And after the baby’s born, your pediatrician visits? Maybe after your baby learns to crawl but before he says his first word?”
A tear slides down my cheek—I hadn’t thought about it before now, but maybe I really do have a problem with him having a child with another woman. Those are all things he was supposed to have someday—just with not with someone else. Those are things I wanted to have with him. For him to have with me.
He closes his eyes. “She meant nothing, Elle. It was six days. We were only together for six days—”
I swipe at the tear on my cheek with the back of my hand and blink hard to keep the rest from leaving my eyes. “We haven’t been together much longer than that, Leo. Not really when you total up the numbers.” I shake my head. “Someday, you can look back on what we had as a short term thing, too. Tell the woman you end up with that it meant nothing.” I have to choke back the sob I feel forming in my throat hearing my words.
He’s silent for a moment, and when he finally speaks, his voice is low. “One last time, Elle. I need to have you one last time. I need to burn you into my memory. I need to burn myself into yours.”
I’m not even sure what sound it is that comes out of my mouth when I open it—some mixture of a sob and a laugh, I think. My shoulders have dropped and I rub my fist against my chest, almost desperate to stop the burning ache inside it.
“Please, Elle. One last time. I’ll…I’ll do whatever you ask of me. I’ll accept my responsibility—I’ll do whatever you want. I just… I need you to know. I need you to believe me when I tell you how I feel about you.”
I shake my head again. “I believe you, Leo. That’s the problem. I feel it, too. But I can’t—”
“If you feel it, too, then there is no reason for you to leave. If you love me—if you honestly meant it when you told me that—you will stay. We will find a way to make this work together. Isn’t that what you told me? That we could find a way through anything together?”
“That was when…” That was when it was about me. Fuck, maybe I am being selfish. Maybe I am running away from my problems again. But hell if I want to stay and fight right now. It isn’t what’s best for him. It isn’t what’s best for either of us.
He continues. “It shouldn’t matter, though, should it? Whether it was something you did in your past or something I did in mine? All that should matter now is that you’re here—that we’re together. And we can face our problems together—”
“Did you talk to her? Your ex? Did you speak with her today?” I press my lips together and search his eyes.
He frowns. “I attempted to have her contacted, yes—”
“That isn’t what I asked, Leo. Of course she doesn’t want your people calling her. Your press secretary or whoever. She’s scared—she’s pregnant and alone and afraid. And all you’ve told her you want is a paternity test to prove she’s lying. You can’t just have your people deal with her. You have to call her. You have to be the one—”
“I don’t—”
“What if it was me, Leo? Can you think about it that way? Would you want me out there by myself, dealing with the wolves that are the media—?”
“Of course not, Elle. But believe me, she is not you. And she is desperate for media attention. It was why she seduced me in the first place—”
I can barely hold back my laughter. “She seduced you? You expect me to believe that, Leo?”
He narrows his gaze a bit. “You don’t know her, Elle. My mother actually invited her here to try to arrange a relationship between her and Andrew. But at least he was smart enough to not become involved, though I can’t say the same for myself. Otherwise, I suppose we would be having a much different conversation at this moment.”
“It doesn’t matter, Leo. If she’s having your baby—”
“She’s not.” He lets out a sigh that sounds almost like a growl. “I can’t prove that yet, of course, but I am quite certain that whatever she is saying is a lie. There is no way—”
“Leo.” I pause for a moment. “
Just own this. At least until you can prove otherwise. Even if what you’re saying is true, it’s going to make you look bad if you don’t just own the responsibility.”
“You have no idea how frustrating this is.”
I lift a brow. “I have some idea, Leo. It wasn’t even a day ago that I was on the hook for something I did almost eight years ago. You did this four months ago. You need to own it. We both do.”
He’s silent for a moment. “You still have an hour before you must leave for your flight.”
“Is that a question?”
“I could take you in my plane to wherever it is you’re going. We would have those hours together, at least—”
“But then people would see your plane when it lands. And they’d see me get off your plane—they’d see you were there with me. And then I’m the other woman again. Leo…” I pause, trying to catch his gaze. He won’t make eye contact with me now, though. “I already told you how I feel about that. I did that once. I’m not doing it again.”
He shakes his head and closes his eyes. “But I love you.”
“Yeah. He said that, too.” I have to close my eyes for a moment—of course Leo is nothing like him. Nothing about my relationship with Leo is like that, but it does seem like I’m living my life on repeat. I need to do something to break out of this cycle—and it has to start with me not backing down on what’s right for me. “I have to go. And I have to go alone.”
He nods but keeps his eyes closed. “May I see you again?”
“Leo…”
“After I’ve proved it to you? Will you come back?”
“I…I don’t know.”
He winces. “This hurts so much more than I ever could have imagined.”
Another tear slides down my cheek. “I know.”
Leo
This can’t be happening.
I thought Elle and I had finally reached a place where we couldn’t be torn apart by anything. I thought we’d reached a place where we could take on the world together. But I was wrong. And I wasn’t prepared for this.