certainly hadn’t wanted to hear what she’d finally been brave enough to say. And that hurt her deeply. She’d never said that to anyone before.
While on the one hand he’d given her so much—a joie de vivre and an inner confidence she’d been missing—he’d also devastated her. Because she wanted everything else from him too. She wanted him. And for the briefest of moments, she’d thought he wanted her too.
But he didn’t.
The afternoon she returned to Monrova—having liaised with Leonardo and Juno, and with her assistant back by her side to help—she read her prepared statement to the teleprompter. She’d watched King Leonardo make his statement and then take a couple of questions only moments before her live cross. Beside him, Juno had looked beautiful—she was literally glowing. It was the only thing that got Jade through the broadcast.
What got her through the next couple of days was pure grit. She called on Serena, her assistant to work through switching up her daily schedule and her long-term commitments, finally changing some of the routine that her father had imposed on her life for so long. Finally, she felt liberated and able to make her own calls. Hiring a new personal trainer was going to be one of them, she laughed at herself. Calm but nervous, questioning herself but with growing confidence in her own choices, she began. She was going to be okay—eventually. Because she’d found her own voice.
But at night her mind wandered and she remembered things that were so wonderful, but so bad for her. She’d asked for what she wanted from Alvaro. Repeatedly. And he’d given it to her. He’d listened. He’d not minimised her desires as the irascible wishes of a spoilt princess, but seen them for what they were—the real, secret desires of a lonely woman who’d wanted to feel something for once. Who’d yearned to be wanted in return.
She’d been such a fool about that bit. He’d just been giving her the fairy tale for a fortnight. Because, for just a fortnight, he could. He could deliver every desire, every dream...because it was finite and it was only physical. Because there was not and never would be a future in it. And that was safe for him, wasn’t it?
But the second she’d suggested that there might be a future?
That was when he’d pulled back. Because he hadn’t meant any of it. He had just been indulging her. Spoiling her. Like the poor little rich royal she was.
For the first time she understood why people did such stupid things for lust. It fogged the mind and got so far beneath your skin, it made you reckless. It felt so good, you didn’t care about possible dangers or consequences or repercussions. She imagined it was like a drug.
Jade hadn’t been an addict before. Hadn’t craved anything the way she craved physical contact with Alvaro. His touch. His kiss. His care and attention. She missed it. He’d so arrogantly teased her that she’d fall for him. But it wasn’t him, was it? Wasn’t it just his body? The way he could make her feel? A physical response?
But it wasn’t. Because the physical frustration she could survive. The tear in her heart and in her soul?
She liked herself more when she was with him. Being around him, she felt free to say what she wanted, without having to be polite about it. People had looked at her all her life. They’d stared—endlessly. But no one looked at her the way he looked at her. As if he really saw her—the soft, secret, most vulnerable, most human part of her. And no one had wanted to listen the way he wanted to either. She’d trusted him. And in the end, she’d trusted him with everything. She’d trusted him with her heart.
That was when he’d let her down. But even then, when she was honest with herself, she knew he hadn’t. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t want to carry that burden. She’d been wrong even to ask him. Hadn’t she seen how terrible it was for someone to be caught here—in the palace—when the relationship wasn’t right? And it had been less than a fortnight—to be irrevocably changed by one person?
And even if he had been—even if by just a fraction of the way she had? It made no difference to the inevitable impossibility of them. His company was everything to him as her country was everything to her. There could be no compromise. It wouldn’t be fair on