Infamous Desire(13)
“You must be wondering what I called you out here for,” she says pleasantly.
“Yes.”
“I wanted to meet you … in private.” Her cool brown eyes are appraising. “You are very attractive.”
The underlying tenor suggests ‘but not even close to me’.
Maybe I’m reading too much subtext into everything.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I can see why he likes you. We are like chalk and cheese, you and I. He must relish the contrast.”
“I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t share his preferences with me when it comes to women.”
That is true. Alex doesn’t. He doesn’t talk much about his women in general.
“Are you pregnant?”
Her blunt question takes me unawares. I don’t like what she’s implying either – that Alex is with me just because I’m pregnant.
“No!” I protest. I want to add, “How can you even think of asking me something like that?’ but it would only take the already charged atmosphere in the car up another notch.
“It’s a fair question,” she says.
“But not something you’d ask a total stranger,” I reply pointedly.
“I do have a stake here.”
“But still – ”
It is not the best of starts. Tatiana seems to realize this because her next sentence is conciliatory.
She says, “Anyway, I didn’t call you out here to have an argument over a man.”
I’m a little bolder now. The adrenaline boost was what I needed. “What did you call me out here for, Tatiana?”
“To get to know you. And to let you get to know me. After all, we could be friends in a different life. We are not so dissimilar – you and me. We both love him.”
Funny, but before this, I never thought Tatiana would be capable of loving anyone. But I realize that it is my subconscious that was making her a monster. Of course she’s capable of loving someone. And who more than Alex, who commands attention in every way?
I study her eyes. Her pupils are wells of deep sincerity.
She nods, and her curls bob. “Oh yes, I do love him. I don’t know what you have been led to believe, but I do love him. Just as he has once loved me. You see, I have heard many things about you, Elizabeth. Vile, nasty things. Possibly nastier things than you’ve heard about me.”
A stab of pain shoots through my chest. No one likes to be told bad things about themselves, least of all me. And what she says wears the harsh truth. The press has been nothing short of vindictive in their portrait of me as the penniless gold-digger who is trying to entrap their beloved prince.
It just never occurred to me that someone else would have a less flattering portrait of me than I have of her. I’ve always seen myself as the poor, oppressed underdog in this – never the villainess.
“But I choose to reserve judgment until I get to know you for myself,” she continues.
“And what do you think?” I whisper, my heart thudding.
She smiles mysteriously. “I wouldn’t know. It’s too soon, and I hardly have begun to skim the surface of getting to know you. Often, the affairs of the heart are not revealed for years … and sometimes when it’s too late.”
“I love Alex,” I declare. “It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about me, but it’s the truth and nothing but the simple truth.”
“Well said. I feel the same way about him as well, and it will be nothing but the plain truth.”
So here we are, back at square one. Two adversaries facing off.
What do women do in a case like this?
Simple.
The man chooses.
This fact is obvious in the air between us, and I do not have to mention it to know that Tatiana knows it too.
It occurs to me that the scenery is changing, and we are travelling down a speedway. We whiz past other cars.
“Where are we going?” I say. A perverse thought comes to me – am I being kidnapped?
No, no, banish the thought. This is Moldavia, paean of European culture and sophistication.
Still …
Tatiana says, “I thought I would show you Nuernberg, my city state. At the end of this trip, I hope to be able to convince you, Elizabeth Turner, to cede your claim over my betrothed, Alexander Vassar – for nothing but the greater good. And yes, that includes the greater good for Alex, the people, me, the rest of the royal family, and especially you.”
Chapter Nine
Nuernberg is landlocked. It is a city state where the language is predominantly German. Unlike Moldavia, whose scenery boasts fashionable streets and casinos and tourists and yachts bobbing upon the glittering Mediterranean, Nuernberg is a notch less glamorous. It has more plains which are grazed by cows, more banks and other financial institutions. Its buildings are more Neo-classical and greyer in stone.