Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

L YON WAS RUNNING on little sleep and too much anger. He had thought he would calm down by the time he arrived at Cristhian Sterling's estate from simple exhaustion if nothing else, but every minute of knowing Beau had run away, without talking to him, poked his temper higher.

When Cristhian's staff and then Cristhian himself had tried to bar Lyon from Beau, it had been the last straw. Whatever last dredges of propriety and concern for his image had gone up in smoke.

I will see my wife.

And he had been prepared to fight whoever might try to stop him. But once Cristhian had left, it had only taken moving past the sleepy man trying to tell him that he wasn't welcome.

Who gave a damn about welcome ?

He had heard quiet voices and followed them down a hallway. He had charged into the room but came to a halting stop. He saw Beau right away. She sat on a cozy-looking couch, dressed in fuzzy pajamas. Her hair was pulled back. But it wasn't the gorgeous, perfect sight of her that stopped him dead.

She was holding the smallest infant he'd ever seen. For a moment the sight took him so off guard, he had no words. He could only stare .

After a few moments like that, she stood. "You cannot simply barge into people's houses this late at night," she said to him, haughty and royal. She moved over to Cristhian and handed the baby off.

Then she turned to him, chin up, eyes flashing.

"And yet here I am," he returned, wanting her and wanting to shake her in equal measure. He pointed a finger at her. "And you are going to listen to me."

"You'll be careful where you point that finger," Zia said, stepping in between his finger and Beau.

He surveyed the sister he'd been meant to marry. She had once even worn his ring. It felt like a different lifetime ago, all that. Like he'd been a different person then. He supposed he had been.

And now she stood here, holding her own child, with her husband watching with wary eyes, and a child in his own arms.

"Ah, my former fiancée." Lyon gave a short, sarcastic bow. "So good to see you again now that we are in-laws."

Her eyes narrowed. "For now."

Over his dead body.

But he didn't care about Zia. He cared about his wife . Who stood in this dim room with anger and hurt flashing in her eyes, and no shame . When she should feel shame because she had run away .

"Perhaps we should give them their privacy," Cristhian murmured to his wife.

But Zia was staring at Lyon with daggers in her eyes. "Over my dead body."

"I don't care who stays or goes," Lyon muttered, moving around Zia so that Beau was in front of him instead. Nothing mattered except this woman. So he stopped engaging with the two other people in the room, and focused on why he was here.

On what needed to be said.

"You should not have run away, Beaugonia." He supposed there were better ways to say that, better ways to start this. He supposed any of the speeches he'd practiced on the flight here might have gone over better.

But it was all he could think. He loved this woman, had somehow realized all the ridiculous things holding him back on account of his childhood because of her, and she had run .

"You should return to Divio at once," she replied. "You are making a scene and it is nearly morning. If you are not careful, you will miss your dinner."

"To hell with the dinner!" He shouted it. Really shouted it. He could not remember the last time he'd actually allowed himself to shout .

It felt too damn good. Slippery slope. And maybe it was. To allow himself to feel. To allow himself to run with emotion and make a mistake because of it. Maybe he was ruining everything.

But if he ruined it and she came back to him, it would all be worth it.

She blinked at him. Finally, finally completely taken aback. It lit something inside of him. One of those dangerous fires he wasn't supposed to indulge.

But what did it matter here? It was only him and her.

And her sister and brother-in-law, and two infants, but they weren't even royalty any longer. And the babies couldn't speak. So.

"I do not know why you are so angry, Lyon. But I am not going back. We... We are ill-suited. I know that will be a problem for you, but so would be staying. I'm sure we can reach some sort of private agreement to maintain a public image. But I can't—"

He couldn't let her say another word. "You don't know why I'm angry?" He had not thought he could be more incandescent with rage, and that she would be so...outrageously ridiculous. "I am angry at you lying to me. I am angry that you hid something so important from me. And I made a gesture out of kindness to allow you not to attend the dinner that I wanted you at, as my wife. As my partner. As...everything you are, and you ran . Without so much as a word."

"Kindness?" she all but shrieked. "A kindness? To want me not to attend your precious dinner because I'm such an embarrassment?"

"Embarrassment?" He yelled it right back. To hell with decorum and anything else. He was so angry he didn't even notice the two people holding babies quietly leave the room. "Who said anything of the kind? I love you. I would do anything for you. And instead of giving me the decency of a discussion, you ran ."

"I will not be hidden away. Not again. I will not be your dirty secret. You will not drag me back to—" And then it was as if what he'd said caught up with her. She stopped short. Her breath came out in a loud, sharp gust. "What did you say?"

She looked so beautiful. So shocked by words he thought obvious. He thought it had been...a neon sign on his very face. That soft spot. That distraction his mother had accused him of.

And she seemed utterly and thoroughly shocked as if it had not occurred to her.

Because, clearly, it hadn't. A mix of his own failures, and perhaps some of her own.

But that also gave him hope now, instead of fury. Something to hold on to that might...lead them to where they needed to be.

He moved to her, and when she didn't back away, just stood there still staring at him as if he'd grown another head, he took her hands in his. He looked her in the eye. And he said the words this time—not yelling, not accusing, but with everything he felt inside of him.

"I love you, Beaugonia. My entire life I have been a tool. A payment to a debt. No one has ever cared what I might like or want. Not until you . You read what I asked you to. You enjoyed the chalet even though you hated the drive. You were honest with me—I thought you were honest with me. And then I discovered you had been hiding this..." He didn't have the word for it.

"Failure? Blight? Weakness?"

He stared at her. At the anger on her face. She didn't believe those things. Surely... Surely, she didn't believe those things. His self-possessed princess. And then it dawned on him.

When she had looked at him as though she didn't understand a word he was saying back at the chalet, he had been talking about his grandmother's words. The things she had passed down to him, whether he'd really considered the truth of them or not.

So these words were not Beau's . They were not even his. They had come before. They were her baggage. They were, no doubt, her father's words. And she didn't even realize it.

But they had likely been the words her father had used when he'd kept her hidden away, and it hadn't been all that long ago when he had threatened the very same. Maybe for different reasons, but that was the problem. They both had a lot of reasons they did not fully understand, they had not fully dealt with.

But now they would.

Beau was certain she was shaking, but Lyon's hands still held hers. He was looking at her like she'd suddenly started speaking in tongues.

"I have never once used those words to describe you, Beau," he said, very calmly. Very carefully. "I understand now why you thought I might, but I do not care about panic attacks. I have been on anxiety medication since I was fifteen. The state of your brain chemistry is not what dismayed me. It was that you lied and hid yourself from me."

She thought she had been floored when he claimed to love her, but this... He said it as if it was fine. As if...all his talk about stability and respectability had nothing to do with... He said he'd been on anxiety medication as if it was nothing.

"You've been on what ?"

"I would not call what I had panic attacks, but the consistent cycle of catastrophic thinking was interfering with my studies. My mother..." He frowned a little as if he was realizing something. "Looking back, I think she was afraid if she did not do something, my grandmother would be...very unhappy with me. So she found me a therapist. I was prescribed medication. It has helped, infinitely."

"Helped," she echoed. Stupidly. But... It had never occurred to her in a million years that he might have anxieties. Real ones, not just his obsessive worry about respectability. An actual condition that needed some kind of interference. "I need to sit."

And he didn't let her go. He just led her to the couch and sat next to her when she all but collapsed into the seat.

"Beau, I do not think your panic attacks are any of those words you said. Those are your words. Not mine."

But as she sat there with the reality of all this...new information, she knew that wasn't exactly true. Not her own words. Not really. "I never cared about my panic attacks. Not in that...way. I can't help it, so I wasn't about to beat myself up about it."

"But your father did it for you."

She looked up into his eyes. Even before she'd loved him, she had always thought they were more alike than different, but this was... How could it be true that he understood so well? That they were this much alike?

I love you.

He had said that. Plainly and simply. In the midst of a very loud scene. Where he had yelled and not cared who heard.

"You really love me?" she asked on a whisper. "Even with..."

"I am here, tesoruccia . I told Mother to handle the dinner. I do not intend to make it back in time. I intend to make everything right. So that we can build a life together. One of balance and stability...but not...sacrificing ourselves on the altar of our images. Our people should know that we are people. Love. Soft spots. Anxieties."

It sounded too good to be true. And yet...

She thought of what Zia had said. About give-and-take. She had given, and she had taken—when he'd offered comfort, when he'd been kind. But only rarely had they discussed what they were doing, and so perhaps they hadn't had a chance to understand one another. Their gives and takes were careful, shrouded, because they had both been burned by people who should have loved them, but had only taken instead.

So much of him she understood—what had shaped him, why he felt the way he did even if she didn't agree, but she could admit now that she was perhaps not the best judge of understanding him when it came to her.

Because she had her own baggage clouding her judgment. But he was helping her see past that. Love had done that.

And when his baggage had clouded his judgment, he had used his words. He had told her about his legacy. About what he felt he had to do to pay that debt he thought he owed. Maybe he'd been wrong, but he'd never run away. He had been honest.

She had not been.

"I am sorry."

"You are?"

"I...jumped to conclusions. Based on my own issues. I was so...unhappy. But you said I made you happy and I wanted to. I wanted to do anything I could to make you happy. Because I love you, Lyon. Your kindness. That desire within you to do what is right. But I cannot be that thing you need. I cannot pretend as well as I wanted to. I don't wish to...sleep in the same bed every night so far apart. I don't think I am capable of being the robot you wanted. I—"

He squeezed her hands together. "It was wrong. Or at least, misguided. But we are learning. We will forge a new path. It will be...a challenge. We have the country's baggage stacked against us, but if we have learned to carry our own, if we help each other unpack our own, perhaps we can do the same as royals."

It sounded like a dream, but also...possible. And she wondered why it hadn't occurred to her. Why her own response to everything was all or nothing. Misery or run away. "I suppose we both need to work on our compromising."

His mouth curved, and she started to allow herself to hope...to really hope.

"I am quite sure my mother will come around eventually, but it will take time. Parliament might not care for it or me, but the citizens of Divio will. I believe they will. I cannot be perfect for them, or for you, though I will still try. But what I know I can be is there. I can find balance. If you'll share a life with me, Beau. I think we can accomplish anything."

Anything.

It was such a big promise, such a hopeful future. It made her realize how small her dreams had always been. Because she had never dreamed of a love that might not be concerned with her panic. She had not allowed herself to dream of... anything except the bare minimum.

"When I was a very little girl, the only thing I ever dreamed about was my own little place. Hidden away from my father. Just me and Zia. Lots of animals, but never people. I never truly believed anyone but Zia could see me for who I was."

He touched her cheek. "Tesoruccia..."

"You made an effort. To know me, to love me. You call me a treasure, and I have never felt like one until you. I'm sorry I didn't know how to make an effort back, to...believe you'd see something lovable. But I will learn. I promise to learn how to stay instead of run, to reach out instead of hide."

"Come home with me. Be my wife. My princess. Let us figure it all out, always together."

She pulled her hands from his, but only so she could wrap them around his neck. And he held on, even as her tears spilled over. He whispered endearments, words of love, rubbed her back. He gave her so much she'd never had, because though Zia had tried to be there for her, so much of their relationship was Zia acting as barrier between Father and her, not actually being able to comfort .

And it was scary, really, to believe that she might have something so beautiful, so wonderful, when she had spent so much of her life being told she wasn't good enough for it. When she hadn't realized how deep those scars went.

Until someone new had tried to love her. And it hadn't always been right or good. Because they were both flawed, in their own ways. But there was nothing inherently wrong with that. Not if you tried, not if you talked, not if you loved.

"You must only promise to never run away again," he murmured against her hair.

She nodded, still holding on to him. "I do. I promise. To work everything out, no matter how ridiculous either of us are being. I will not run away again, but you must promise the same."

He pulled away slightly, frowning down at her. "I never ran away."

"You did. You pulled away from me, hid yourself away from me. Perhaps it is not exactly the same, but it felt the same. Like a limb had been lost."

He nodded slowly. "Yes, exactly that. Then I promise, amore mio . With all that I am. I love you, Beau. I will always find a way to come back to that."

Beautiful words, but they were beautiful because he meant them. She could see it in his eyes, and because she knew him.

Lyon Traverso did not make promises he did not keep.

And this promise would last them a lifetime.