to shake her.
How much he wanted to crack that perfectly logical, reasonable veneer she wore like a shield.
‘It means there are cracks in that perfect plan of yours. And it’s all a little...desperate.’
‘You were the one who brought it up,’ she shot back, reminding him of yet another of his slips. ‘And yes, a child is desperate, but aren’t we in a desperate situation?’
‘So, you’re saying desperate times call for desperate measures?’
‘If you’d like to use that cliché to help you understand it, then yes.’
‘And how would we conceive this child?’ He knew he wasn’t asking it because of his fertility problems but, again, because he found himself wanting to pierce through that cold facade. ‘Should I stay after the banquet for us to get...reacquainted?’
He hated how bitter he sounded—worse still, how the bitterness had made him more vulgar than he’d intended. He watched her honey-coloured skin go pale, and felt the satisfaction of it just as acutely as he felt the shame.
Her lack of colour made the golden-brown of her hair—the green of her eyes—all the more striking. And if he added the gold dress she wore, which clung to her curves in a way that made him forget she was a queen...
She wasn’t the delicate Princess from their youth any more, he thought. Though her face still had its slight angles and there were still freckles lightly spread over her nose, the woman who had laughed with him in the waters that separated their islands—the woman who’d once agreed to marry him—was gone.
The woman who stood in front of him now had a realism in her eyes that sent an ache through his body. The light that had always been there had been dimmed by whatever she’d gone through in the ten years since they’d been close. There was power, more authority, too. She’d changed, he knew.
But then, so had he.
‘It won’t work,’ she told him, colour flooding her skin again. ‘I know you’re trying to shake me, but it won’t work.’
‘Won’t it?’ he asked, taking a step towards her. Her eyes widened, and awareness sizzled through his body. He’d loved those eyes once. They’d told him everything he needed to know. And though there were many less disturbing memories to choose from, his mind offered him the day Leyna had agreed to marry him.
Her eyes had shone with a love he hadn’t thought capable of hurting him the way it—the way she—had. And then there had been the desire in her eyes a few moments later. When he’d had her against a tree. She’d wanted him as much as he’d wanted her, but there had been fear, uncertainty, too.
He saw those emotions in her eyes again now. And it made him wonder whether they were caused by the same reason. That she’d never been with a man before. The thought stirred a mess of emotions in his chest that he didn’t want to think about. Though there was one thing he couldn’t ignore, and that was the fact that he still wanted her, regardless of what the answer to that question was.
It shocked him into stepping back.
‘No, it won’t,’ she said, and he heard the breathiness she tried to mask. ‘Because we both have kingdoms to think about. Unless you’ve forgotten that’s the real reason for all of this?’
She was right, he thought. He needed to think about his kingdom. And that meant he couldn’t deny her suggestion had merit. If he pushed all his feelings about it aside, he could recognise the strength and subsequent protection a marriage and child would offer Mattan.
He was also sure his family would approve. Sure, they’d treated his relationship with Leyna as an indulgence in the past. Mostly because they couldn’t deny how beneficial a union between him and Leyna—between Mattan and Aidara—would have been. But the moment they’d realised that wouldn’t be happening, they’d told him to snap out of it. To think of his kingdom.
Since that was what drove him now, too, he knew they would approve. And since the man he and Leyna had grown up with no longer seemed to exist in Zacchaeus, Xavier was forced to face that this might be their only option.
Which meant he needed to tell her the truth of his fertility problems.
The thought had him heading straight to the alcohol decanter next to her desk. He flipped over two glasses, and poured a splash of the brown liquid into each. He offered her one and, when she took it, downed his own. He would have liked another, but that wouldn’t have been wise considering what he was in Aidara to do. Or what he was about to say.
‘I can’t have children.’
He set the glass back in its tray. It gave him a reason to avoid the emotion on her face.
‘You...’ Her voice faded. ‘I’m so sorry, Xavier.’
‘I’ve accepted it.’
‘How...how do you know?’
‘I was married, Leyna,’ he reminded her, and saw hurt pass over her face so quickly he didn’t know what to think about it. So he continued. ‘Erika and I tried to have children before she died. We could never conceive.’
‘That must have been terrible for you...and Erika. I’m sorry.’
Emotion churned inside him. Erika had been devastated by their battle to have children. And when they’d found out that there was no medical reason why they couldn’t, she’d turned angry.
By then, she’d learnt that the allure of marrying a king had only been in her imagination. That the reality of it was far more demanding—and sometimes more demeaning—than she’d wanted.
Would she still have felt the same if she’d become a mother?
He never gave himself the permission to consider it. All he knew was that the only thing that had kept Erika committed to being Queen had been the prospect of a child. And when that hadn’t happened she had become more and more withdrawn. And he’d felt more and more guilty. Because though there’d been no proof that it was him, it had to be.
‘Why not? Why can’t you have children?’ Leyna’s soft voice interrupted his thoughts.
‘We tried and we didn’t conceive.’
‘Yes, you said that.’ She frowned. ‘That doesn’t mean you were the reason you couldn’t conceive.’
‘It wasn’t Erika’s fault,’ he said sharply.
‘I wasn’t saying that it was. But there is such a thing as unexplained infertility.’
It was what the doctor had told them, too. But, as someone who’d needed answers, Xavier hadn’t been happy with that. Neither had Erika. So he’d accepted the blame for it.
‘So there’s no medical reason that you can’t conceive?’
He clenched his jaw. ‘No.’
‘Then we still have a chance.’
‘I must have missed this unfeeling side of you when we were friends.’
He
