The Queen's New Year Secret(25)

At least this was honest. At least this was real. At least she wasn’t hiding.

She would rather be wounded in the light than slowly fade away in the darkness. No matter how much it hurt.





CHAPTER TWELVE

KAIROS FOUND THAT he couldn’t sleep. He spent the rest of the early morning hours doing paperwork in his office, then went to the dining room for coffee and breakfast. He was shocked when he saw Tabitha sitting at the table, a mug of tea in front of her, along with a piece of toast. She was dressed impeccably, in her usual style. A pristine black dress, a single strand of pearls, her blond hair pulled back into a bun. The only indication that she had not slept well was the dark circles under her eyes.

“Are you well?” he asked, moving to the head of the table to sit down.

“I’m still pregnant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Yes, that is what I was asking.” Except it wasn’t. He wanted to ask her how she had slept. He wanted to ask if he had wounded her terribly last night. But he could not.

“All right, then, now that that’s out of the way. There is something else we need to discuss.”

“I would like to have some coffee first.”

“And I don’t want to wait. In this instance, I feel I should get my way. As I’m the one who is pregnant and in distress.”

“I’m in a decent amount of distress, having not had any sleep or caffeine.”

She shot him a pointed, deadly glare. “Why didn’t you stay with me last night?”

“Because you needed rest.”

“And you were going to keep me up all night, telling me ghost stories?”

“No, not ghost stories. But I may not have respected the fact that you needed rest, and not my lecherous advances.”

“I have a bit more respect for your control than that, Kairos. I hardly think you’re going to accost your recently hospitalized wife.”

He gritted his teeth. “You don’t know that. Neither do I, frankly. The way that I treated you before the bleeding started was appalling.”

“On that score we can agree.”

He thought back to how roughly he handled her, how desperate he’d been. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to their baby. Because of him. It would all be because of him.

“I am sorry,” he said, his voice rough. “Do forgive me for how rough I was. I lost myself in a way I did not believe possible.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was too rough with you.”

“That isn’t what I thought you were talking about. I thought you meant after. When you left me. I was upset about that. I needed you to stay. I needed you to hold me. You had... Kairos, you had never done that to me before. It had never been like that. I needed to stay with you, to rest in that experience with you. Otherwise, it’s just sex. It isn’t intimacy at all.”

Relief washed over him, but along with it came anger. Frustration. “I told you, intimacy is not something we can share. Not in the way you want it. You wanted honesty, and I am willing to offer. I’m just sorry it isn’t the grand revelation you were hoping for.”

“I don’t understand why. I still don’t understand.”

“I cannot make you understand,” he said, his temper fraying now. “There is nothing I can say beyond what I have already said.”

“Tell me something. Tell me something real about you. Tell me... Tell me what happened when your mother left. Tell me what it is like to have your father raise you.”

“I have told you about my father already. He was cold, he was distant. He was trying to make me strong. And I understand why. I cannot resent him for it, even if I cannot claim to have felt happiness in my childhood. It made me the man that I am, the man that I must be.”

“Stop it. You’re not a robot. You’re a human being. Stop pretending that you don’t have any feelings. Stop pretending that a childhood being raised by a drill sergeant was fine just because it turned you into what you consider to be an ideal ruler. It’s false, Kairos. It all rings so incredibly false. And I can’t live a life that way anymore. I simply can’t. I spent too many years hiding. Too many years pursuing empty things, looking for happiness that I was never going to find hiding behind a wall. I was so deeply concealed I couldn’t even see the sun. Yes, I didn’t feel very many bad things, but I didn’t feel good things either. Right now? I have never been more terrified than I am right now. I have never prayed so hard for something to work out. I want this baby more than you can imagine. And the very idea of losing it fills me with so much pain... I can barely even think of it at all. But I wouldn’t trade it. Not for anything. I wouldn’t go back and protect myself by never becoming pregnant. Because it’s touched deeper parts of myself that I never even knew existed. It makes me hope. With a kind of intensity I didn’t know I could feel. And it’s the same...it’s the same with you.”

The back of his neck prickled, cold dread living in his chest and radiating outward. “What do you mean?”

“This can’t last,” she said, her tone filled with sadness, with regret.

“What can’t?” he bit out.

“This. Us. I can’t go back to the way things were. And if this scare with the baby has taught me anything, it’s that what we tried to build on the island still isn’t strong enough.”

“No. That isn’t true,” he said, terror clawing at him now.

“It is. Because I can’t fight against a brick wall. Not forever. And yes, for a while, I thought maybe it could be different. I thought maybe I could make it work for the sake of the baby. But if that’s the only reason we’re doing this, then we’re not building a strong enough foundation. We only make each other miserable. We’ll make our child miserable.”

“Or, do you secretly believe you’re going to lose it? Are you hoping that you will?”

He regretted his words when he saw her reaction to them. She drew back, as though he had slapped her. “Of course I don’t. I want more than anything for our child to be born healthy. But, Kairos, we might lose the baby. And then why are we together? If there isn’t an answer to that question, we shouldn’t be together no matter what happens.”

“You don’t think that the heat between us is a reason to stay together?”

“No. Because it isn’t enough. Because I can’t get so close to what I want and then have you pull away. It’s cruel. I can’t exist this way, not anymore.”

“Why are you changing things?” he roared, standing up from his seat, rage propelling him forward. “We had a bargain from the beginning. Are you such a liar, such a manipulative bitch?” He hated himself. Hated the words that were coming out of his mouth, but he couldn’t stop them. He felt as though the floor was dropping out from beneath him. He had given her everything he was able to give her, and still it wasn’t enough. Still she was leaving him. How dare she? He was the king. She was carrying his child. She was his wife.

“Because I changed. I’m sorry. I love you, Kairos. If you can’t love me back—I don’t mean just saying that you love me to make me stay—I mean showing me. I mean giving me parts of yourself. Giving me your soul, not just your body, then I can’t stay. Because it hurts too badly.”

He felt as though she had reached inside his chest and grabbed hold of his heart, squeezing it tight. She stood up, taking a step away from him, and he felt as if she was going to pull his heart straight from his chest now. That if she took another step away she would take it with her.

Perhaps you should be grateful if she did.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Do not leave me,” he said.

“What would you give me? And I don’t mean clothing, or money, or even pleasure. What will you give me of yourself? Kairos, I’ve witnessed terrible things. Things that no child should ever have to see. I spent my life hiding because it fractured my view of people. Because for a long time I believed that everyone was hiding something dark and frightening beneath the surface. I had to choose to trust you, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. So when you tell me that you can’t give more to me, I believe you. And I’m not going to sign up for blind faith. For going on for another five years, living in hope that someday you might fall for me. That someday you might break down the wall you’ve put up around yourself.”

“I am a king. I have to put a wall around myself.”

“Why?”

He didn’t like these questions. Didn’t like that her words tested the logic of his argument. “Because I must,” he answered. He refused to dig deeper. Refused to uncover that dark well, the lid to the center of his chest, the one that housed the truth of all this. The outcome would be the same, so there was no point. No point at all.

“And I must do this. I have to go, Kairos. I have to.”

She turned away from him and he found himself staring down his worst fear. As the woman who rooted him to the earth, who kept his heart beating, began to walk away from him. He had lowered himself completely and begged for his mother to stay, and it had made no difference. And here he was again, facing down his fear. He had to wonder if that moment on the beach wasn’t a cautionary tale so much as it was a premonition.