Prince's Son of Scandal

by Dani Collins

  “Is that what you said to his mother when you exiled her?”

  The Queen’s eyes were so much like Xavier’s, it was sheer agony to look into the contempt they held.

  “I was told you have a predilection for dramatics.” She was like a cat that knew its prey’s weakest spots, but took her time piercing them, preferring to terrorize before putting a creature out of its misery. “Xavier’s mother has always had access to him. He chose not to pursue a deeper relationship.”

  “Because you didn’t approve of one. Did you? And he couldn’t afford to alienate you. He didn’t have anyone left.” She showed the Queen how she had won more staring contests than she’d lost.

  After a moment, the Queen reached very casually to polish her glasses, then perched them back on her nose. “My relationship with my grandson is not up for discussion. But if he’s asked you to leave, yours with him is clearly over.”

  Breathe. Uno naranjo, dos naranjos...

  “Xavier has been conditioned to believe that people who love him leave and don’t come back. I plan to show him that’s not true.” Would it work? She couldn’t think about that right now.

  “What he knows is that a country can’t maintain stability when it’s ruled by emotion. Scandal and division among its people are poison. How can he be regarded as a man of integrity when he’s with a woman who is nothing but racy headlines?”

  “I can’t control my headlines!”

  “No. You can’t. That’s why removing yourself is the least you can do. If you care anything for him and your son, protect them.”

  Score one for the Queen. She knew it, too. She didn’t move, but her verbal rapier kept whipping the air, cutting into Trella with casual ease as she spoke again.

  “You have no idea the strength required to hold this position. Your weaknesses would become theirs, undermining what has taken five hundred years to build.”

  “Loving is a weakness?” Where had she heard that before?

  The Queen narrowed her eyes. “Your background, your extensive need for therapy and your delicate mental state are weaknesses.”

  It was as if she saw into Trella’s soul where the specters were swirling and cackling, dragging icy fingers over her bones. She sees you. She knows.

  “The toll of the throne would break someone like you. This is a marathon that lasts a lifetime. What are you going to do when it becomes too much? Retire behind closed doors and burden the palace with making explanations? If that’s to be the end result, do it now. Fade into the background before you do any more damage.”

  “Someone like me,” she repeated darkly.

  They won’t come for you. They won’t want you after this. It was the oldest, darkest, ugliest voice. The one that made her eyes sting and her heart shrink.

  She hadn’t come back to her family in pieces because she had passively accepted her situation, though. She had fought with every ounce of will she possessed, from the first moment through all the other struggles to today.

  “You know nothing about me and what I can endure. Do not confuse my capacity for love as an inability to stand and fight. In fact, love is my weapon. You want to go to war with me? Gird your loins. You might rule this country, but I rule the online world. I’m beloved by billions. You want to protect what’s taken five hundred years to build? I belong to something that’s lasted millennia. Family. When you die, do you think duty will squeeze a single tear from Xavier’s eye?”

  The Queen went white. “You’re becoming hysterical.”

  “You unleashed this!” She stabbed the air between them. “Love is the only thing that pulls us through hardship. I know that. And your tepid love isn’t enough to sustain him. Yes, you love him in your stunted way, but you’re afraid to show it. Why? Because you might have to deal with grief again? Is that why you don’t even look at Tyrol? You’re afraid he’ll die and you don’t want to be attached? Now who’s weak?”

  Queen Julia gave her bell a resounding shake.

  “What’s wrong? This is what someone looks like when they’re fighting for the people they love. Still think I’m not tough enough for the job?”

  “Get out.”

  “Ms. Sauveterre!” Mario entered. “Please.”

  She shot him a bitter look on her way past him then ran blindly to her room.

  * * *

  Voices were droning around him, but Xavier wasn’t tracking. He was lost in a fog he hadn’t experienced since childhood. Twice. The miasma was cold and gray and left him rudderless. His grandmother had been there to lead him along those other two times, but she was the last person he wanted to turn to right now.

  Not because he blamed her. No, he blamed himself.

  All he could hear was Trella saying, If you loved me.

  He had said he couldn’t love her as if he didn’t have the capacity. For a long time, he had believed he didn’t. The love he’d once felt for his parents had stagnated under their leaving, stunting him into an inability to feel anything beyond superficial liking.

  And yes, Trella had been a distraction lately as they had tried to cram a lifetime into the short marriage they had agreed to, but the fact that their time was finite had put that pressure on them. Hell, he’d called it off and he was still distracted.

  I can live somewhere else.

  The doom he’d felt at that statement couldn’t be measured. He tried to picture Patrizia in the room where he’d held Trella and bile rose to the back of his throat.

  No, the real problem was that he was afraid to admit he loved her. Otherwise, he might feel like this when their marriage ended. But he did feel like this now, which must mean—

  “You agree, Your Highness?”

  “Pardon?” He sucked in a deep breath, like he was coming out of a coma. What the hell had he done?

  “We were discussing where the tax rate should break.”

  He shook his head, taking in the dozen people slouched over a boardroom table, surrounded by laptops and scratch pads and coffee cups while snow fell beyond the windows.

  “Get the Australians on the phone. We’ll request an extension into January. We’d rather be with our families through Christmas and I’m sure their people would, too.”

  Screw duty. He had to fix things with the woman he loved.

  He rose just as his PA slipped into the room and hurried across with a message that Angelique was trying to reach him.

  Frowning, Xavier excused himself and turned on his phone. It lit up with missed calls and texts.

  What happened?

  Where is she?

  Are you with her?

  His heart lurched. He hit reply on a video call, moving farther down the hall to an alcove where he had some privacy.

  Angelique appeared, her pinched expression deeply anxious. “Are you with her? She keeps texting that she’s fine, but she’s not fine. I can tell.”

  “I’m not with her—”

  “Damn it, Xavier, you can’t leave her alone when she’s having an attack!”

  Her tone made Xavier’s scalp prickle. He only half-believed in the twin connection, but her alarm was genuine enough that he looked for his PA to signal for his car.

  “Is there someone who could check on her and get back to us?” Kasim asked.

  “She’s really scared, Xavier.” Angelique sounded half-hysterical herself.

  “I’ll try her right now. But if you two feed off each other’s mood, you should try dialing back your worry and send her some calming thoughts.” It came off the top of his head out of frustration and sounded too metaphysical.

  Her wet face went blank with surprise. “I honestly never thought of that. God, I’m such an idiot. Of course. I’ll text her that I love her.”

  His conscience twisted as he thought of his own refusal to say those words this mo
rning. He ended the call and tried Trella. She declined to answer, but texted a moment later to say she was napping.

  “Everything all right, sir?” his PA approached to ask.

  Xavier held up a staying hand as he reached Vincente. “Have you seen Trella today?”

  A brief hesitation, then, “Adona said she locked herself in her room after her audience with the Queen.”

  “She spoke with my grandmother? The car,” Xavier snapped at his PA. “Now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE WAS DOING this for Tyrol, she kept telling herself, as she bit down on one of his teethers and counted her oranges. Some women went through the pains of childbirth. Her lot was to weather waves of terror. The irrational, fearful thoughts would pass. The sweating and sobs of insecurity needed to run their course. She just had to breathe and count her oranges and wait it out.

  It was easier when someone she loved and trusted sat with her and told her she was safe. She didn’t feel safe right now. She felt very temporary and unwanted. Abandoned. Forsaken.

  “Shh,” she breathed, pushing those thoughts away.

  I am strong. I am loved. I can do this.

  She should have brought her phone in here. All the texting had been breaking her concentration. She had left it on the night table, but now she wished she was reading Gili’s comforting words. It was almost as good as having her here.

  “Trella!”

  Oh, God. What was he doing here? She had locked up and told Adona not to let anyone in. Now he would see her like this and know how cracked she really was.

  His footsteps crossed into her bathroom. There was a systematic banging noise. He was opening all the cupboards beneath the dual sinks, looking for her.

  “You’re sure she didn’t leave?”

  He had someone with him? And someone who saw him searching cupboards for her? She pulled her feet in tighter, driving the curve of her spine into the wall behind her.

  The closet light flicked on, blindingly bright even against her clenched eyes. She made a noise of protest and ducked her head.

  “Are you here?” he demanded.

  She plucked the teether from her bite. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

  “Get out and lock the doors.”

  “Yes, sir.” It was Adona and a moment later, a distant noise of a door closing sounded.

  Xavier came to the back of the closet and swept aside the gowns. He swore when he found her huddled in the corner on the floor. He crouched and wiped her wet cheek with his hand, drying it on his thigh. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I have to do this alone.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said grimly and started to gather her.

  “Don’t.” She pressed as hard as she could into the corner, holding him off with one shaking arm.

  “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.”

  “You shouldn’t have agreed to share him.”

  “I intend to renege.”

  Her head came up, surprise in her lined face.

  “They’re both staying with me. I’m not asking you. I’m telling. If that means you stay on the throne the rest of your natural life, so be it.”

  “So she’s won you over.” She sniffed her disdain.

  “No, it’s up to me
to win her.”

  Her gaze came up again.

  “If I can’t give the woman I love what she needs, how the hell can I give our country what it needs? She makes me whole. Stronger. I want to be a better man for her. That can only make me a better leader. A better king.”

  Tyrol finished his bottle. She set it aside and brought him to her shoulder to rub his back, exactly as if she’d been mothering infants all these years.

  “After the risks she took bringing him into this world, how can you not want to know her? If you knew the things she’s been through...” It was killing him, what she was enduring right now, but she seemed to need to prove something to herself and he had to give her that. “She’s stronger and more determined than either of us can conceive.”

  “Her reputation, Xavier. Patrizia is such a good fit.”

  “I don’t love Patrizia. I love Trella.” It was conviction. Will. Fate. But he couldn’t help pointing out, “So does everyone else, judging by the online polls. She’s the more popular choice by a long shot.”

  “Don’t be vulgar,” she said crossly. “What about another baby?”

  “We’ll find a way. I am going to find a way to make it work. I have to. I can’t live without her.”

  She let out a sigh of defeat. “Some monarchs would rather die than watch the next generation struggle to master the art of ruling. I’ve always thought I could give up the throne to you quite confidently. You rarely make mistakes. I will trust your judgment holds true in this instance.”

  He didn’t need her approval, but he was glad to have it. Now he only had to convince Trella to stay.

  * * *

  Trella woke to bright light beyond the cracks in her blinds. She squinted gritty eyes at her clock. It was late morning. She had pumped milk a few hours ago when her swollen breasts had woken her, so she wasn’t too uncomfortable, but she missed Tyrol enough that her chest hurt just thinking about him. She texted the nursery, then glanced at herself in the bathroom mirror, cringing.

  She had done it. She splashed her face, brushed her teeth, then texted her sister.

  It’s over. I’m okay.

  She earned a heart emoji in response.