Or more precisely, she was pooling her courage. And in the process, was overly complicating everything.
Not that the escalating tension between her husband and Andreas helped. Every time Gabriel was back home, and Eleni insisted that they all dine together, a battle of some sort emerged between them.
Neither did it help that she sometimes felt a niggle that Gabriel was slowly pulling away from her. He still laughed with her, teased her about her devotion to all things Drakon, spent his free time with her and Angelina. Made love to her with such possessive passion, drawing it out for so long that she was cursing him, and sometimes with such heartbreaking tenderness that Eleni fell in love with him all over again.
And yet, when they were in bed after he thoroughly exhausted her, when they watched Angelina perform in the local equestrian competition, or when he was away and he called every day to check on Angelina, some sort of tension filled the air.
A distance, an infinitesimal retreat, as if his mind was faraway. Or on something else.
She reminded herself that Gabriel’s business consumed his attention, that it was a hard taskmaster. And she was okay with it too, for her hands were full with her own duties. But, still she felt the distance.
Which only made her postpone the truth for a bit longer.
She sighed and turned just as Angelina walked into her bedroom. Her bony arms thrown around Eleni, she hugged her hard. Eleni swallowed and patted her head, her heart full. Soon, she would be holding another baby in her hands.
“You stink of the stables, Angelina,” she said with a laugh.
Eyes much like her father’s, Angelina smiled back. Her obsession with horses only made Eleni’s comment a compliment. “I spoke to Papa this morning. And he’s returning this afternoon.
Instantly, her heart raced in her chest. “When?”
“He has a surprise for you. He said I could tell you ahead of time.” The girl couldn’t stay still for her excitement. “Oh, Ellie, you’re going to love it so much.” She threw her chest out, her chin lifted. “He asked me for help, you know. So we picked it together.”
By now, even Eleni’s excitement was boundless. In the last few weeks, Gabriel had been showering her with gifts. Jewelry, couture dresses, a ski lodge in the mountains that they had weekended at once with Angelina, a mansion he was designing himself a few kilometers from the palace—if Eleni ever wanted to leave the palace and live away from her obnoxious brothers, he’d said when she’d laughed and asked what she’d do with a mansion...
The presents were endless, expensive.
“If I didn’t know better, I would say you were trying to buy me, Gabriel,” she had said with a teasing wink.
But instead of laughing, as he always did when they talked about their relationship, a strange tightness had emerged around his mouth. “Just ensuring that you have everything you could want, Princesa.”
It had been the perfect moment to tell him that all Eleni could ever want was him. That he’d given her the world and its joys in the form of Angelina and the baby in her womb. That he had given her a sense of herself.
Coward that she was, she had just taken his hand in hers and kissed his palm.
“Ellie, you’ve got to see it.”
“But doesn’t he want to give it to me?” she said, playing along with Angelina. Not that she had to fake her excitement.
Angelina laughed, a bubbly, cheerful sound that made Ellie sigh with quiet joy. “This is not something he could give you like that, Ellie. And I bet he won’t mind so much if you see it beforehand.”
“Okay, fine, you have got me hooked now. Where is it?”
“In the stables. Can I go with you, Ellie, Please?”
Eleni shook her head, knowing how much Angelina was like her father in trying to get her way. “Your math tutor is here, Angelina. How about you and I and your papa can go see it again, once he is back?” When Angelina nodded, she pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “Please, shower before you see Mr. Stephanapolis,” she said, scrunching her nose.
Her heart beat a rapid tattoo as she straightened her hair and pushed her feet into pumps. Angelina would probably have shown more composure in the same situation than her, but somehow she didn’t give a damn about propriety right then.
Every time he went away on one of his trips, Eleni felt as if she was losing a limb.
She wanted to ask him to take her and Angelina along. She desperately wanted to tell him that the time he was gone felt like an eternity. She also wanted to tell him that she loved him with all her heart, even when he was his grumpiest and uncommunicative as he’d been the past few weeks.
A nervous sort of quiet reined over the stables when she finally got there.
Sounds from Black Shadow’s empty stall sent her heart racing. She hurried over and then leaned against the opposite wall, her knees barely holding her up.
The Thoroughbred was tall, at least sixteen hands, and athletic with a dark brown, gleaming coat. A thing of utter beauty and male perfection, like the man who had bought it for her. Proud and arrogant too, just like Gabriel, in the way he reared his head when she took a step toward him.
Eleni just watched, her breath taken away by his male beauty. Her hands itched to trace those sloping shoulders but he would not like her to. At least not yet.
Like his Arabian ancestor, he would be very high-strung. And yet the very prospect of taming him with correct training, of forming a bond with him sent excitement fizzing through her veins.
When he was hers, his loyalty would be absolute. His love would be forever and unconditional. It was the same thing she craved from Gabriel.
She had no idea when Gabriel had decided on this, or when he and Angelina had even slipped away without Eleni knowing. Father and daughter were slowly building a tenuous bridge toward each other.
After a few more minutes of watching him, Eleni turned to walk out of the stables. Excitement fizzed through her at the thought of Gabriel returning. This gift, of all the ones he had showered on her, was so special. It said he knew her; it said he’d wanted to see her happy again, even as he understood that she’d always mourn Black Shadow.
She wanted to thank him personally for such an extraordinary gift. For knowing what would make her laugh again. For simply caring about her.
It was more than she’d expected, more than he had signed on for, she knew.
But the weeks she had spent with him, observing his every interaction with Angelina, learning small things about him, also kindled a flicker of hope.
Contrary to the media’s endless stories, she knew now that Gabriel was hardly the love-them-and-leave-them type. She knew that he had a deep core of loyalty toward those he considered his. Despite his initial refusal, he’d agreed to help Andreas in his search for whatever it was he was looking for. Neither of them would tell her what was going on, but she left them to it, used as she was to secrets in the palace and happy to allow Andreas some privacy.
When Monique’s mother, Angelina’s grandmother, had made a tearful phone call begging to see her granddaughter, Eleni had waited with bated breath. Lies or not, it was clear Monique had loved her daughter. And the thought of Angelina, so much like she’d been at that age, being cut off from another person who loved her, had threatened to slice through Eleni.
To her shock, Gabriel had asked her advice, trusted her to have Angelina’s best interests at heart. He’d confessed with a never-before-seen flicker of emotion that every instinct of his wanted to refuse the older woman’s request. To cut off his daughter from her mother’s family completely.
In the end, he had listened to Eleni’s advice that Angelina only benefited from the presence in her life of people who loved her like that.
He’d had Monique’s mother chartered to Drakon on his personal jet. However, he had insisted that Eleni accompany Angelina and her grandmother on their day-long tour of Drakon. Had even joined them for dinner that night and had been a charming companion after a satisfactory assessment of Monique’s mother.
Her husband, for all his denial of emotions and deep feelings, Eleni realized, felt very deeply when it came to the people he cared about. It was just very rare for anyone to get so close to him as to notice that.
Would he ever consider Eleni one of those? She had no idea. Would they ever share anything beyond the physical connection and their parenting of Angelina?
She had hardly taken another step when she saw a shadow enter the stables.
Her heart thundered that it might be Gabriel. Tucking away a strand of hair from her temple, she stepped into the main corridor between the stalls when she saw who it was.
“Hello, Eleni mou.”
Eleni’s head jerked up.
Hair shining like raw gold, a glorious smile illuminating his beautifully defined face, Spiros stared at her.
Eleni stiffened, her heart beating a thousand miles an hour. She didn’t want Gabriel to discover them here. She didn’t want the fragile truce they had built to shatter so soon. Not ever.
Would he even believe that she had not planned this? Would he understand that this was a conversation she needed to have?
She could not untangle her complex feelings for Gabriel without saying goodbye to her past forever. She could not even trust herself again until she learned why Spiros had abandoned her.
“Hello, Spiros.”
Her reached her and took her hands in his. A pang of familiarity pierced her heart. His face had been so dear to her once. The blond hair, the slender frame, the straight, patrician nose—it was like seeing a much-missed, dear old friend. She was glad that he was okay. That he hadn’t died in some unfortunate accident as she’d sometimes feared.