‘But now you’re free of him.’
Marisa turned to stare out across the lawns to the sandy crescent of Damaso’s private beach. It looked so peaceful, so perfect. But the sight did nothing to calm her. Not after Cyrill’s threats.
The last day and a half, she’d been in a state of shock. And now this... Once more her uncle threatened to turn her life inside out.
‘It’s not that simple.’ Foolishly, she’d thought it was. With Stefan gone, Marisa had no interest in Bengarian politics. She just hadn’t counted on the fact that Bengaria wasn’t ready to wash its hands of her. A fact her uncle had been at pains to point out.
‘Marisa? What is it?’ Damaso’s voice deepened and she forced herself to look up, only to find herself pinioned by his questioning gaze. Between Damaso and her uncle, she had no chance of peace! What she needed was time to sort herself out, away from domineering men. Even if one of them made her question her need for solitude.
‘Are you going to tell me or will I ring your uncle?’
Shock warred with laughter at the idea of anyone calling Cyrill on the spur of the moment. Who would win? Her uncle, with his smug self-importance and devious ways, or Damaso with his my-way-or-the-highway approach?
‘He wouldn’t talk to you.’
‘No one is that inaccessible, Marisa.’ Damaso crossed his arms, one slashing dark eyebrow lifting in enquiry. He didn’t bluster but there was such innate determination in his stance, his expression, she had no doubt her uncle would come off the worse in a contest of wills. ‘Why aren’t you free of him?’
With a sigh, she sank into a nearby armchair. ‘Because he holds the purse strings. As simple as that.’ And, fool that she was, she hadn’t seen it coming. How could she not have thought of it earlier?
Because she’d been wiped out by grief, grimly battling to face each new day after Stefan’s death and not to wear her pain publicly. She’d actually thought she could break her ties with the palace. How na?ve, especially after experiencing her uncle’s Machiavellian ways first-hand.
Every penny she had was now sequestered by royal command. How was she going to find herself a home and provide for her child when everything she owned no longer belonged to her? Marisa bit her cheek hard as she felt her mouth tremble.
She’d thought she was adrift and rudderless without Stefan, but now...
‘He’s threatened to stop your allowance?’ Damaso’s tone was casual.
‘Yes, he’s stopping my allowance, as you call it—the money invested for me by my parents.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘He’s also threatening to freeze my assets, including my personal bank account.’
Fire kindled in Damaso’s eyes. ‘By what right?’
‘By right of the sovereign. In Bengaria, that means everything. He has control over all members of his extended family if he chooses to use it.’ She sank back in her seat, weary beyond reckoning. It was a power even her strict father wouldn’t have invoked. ‘It’s legal. Just not ethical.’
That was Cyrill all over. Anything to get his own way.
Who’d have thought his plans would still include her after the breach between them? She shuddered, wondering if he really wanted her back in Bengaria, or whether this was an elaborate tactic to make her suffer for repudiating him.
Damaso sank down before her, his gaze capturing hers. ‘You’ll want for nothing now you’re with me.’
He meant it. It was there in his steady stare.
‘Except I’m not with you! I haven’t agreed to marry you.’ Her heart hammered high in her throat as she read his implacable expression.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. This was a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Right now he wanted her.
Correction: he wanted her baby.
Chilled to the marrow, Marisa crossed her arms, shielding her child.
Damaso and Cyrill both wanted to control her for their own ends. Both wanted her child—Damaso for reasons she didn’t fully understand, Cyrill because her baby had royal blood, making it a potential pawn in his elaborate schemes to extend the power of the crown.
‘So, go out and get a job. Support yourself.’ Impatience edged Damaso’s tone. Marisa had heard it before from people who didn’t know her but believed all they read in the press.
About to hide her feelings behind the usual show of casual disdain, something stopped her.
Damaso’s good opinion shouldn’t matter. He’d already shown how little he thought of her. Yet she paused. She was tired of being judged and found wanting.
‘You think I haven’t tried?’ At the surprise in his eyes, she turned away, hunching her shoulder against his disbelief. ‘Who’d take me seriously, especially when the press start hounding me, pestering my employer and other staff? Making bets on how long I’ll stick it out?’
She shuddered, remembering how her na?ve optimism had been shattered again and again. Failure had bred failure. Her reputation hung like an albatross around her neck: dilettante; party girl; frivolous, unable to stick to anything. How many times had she tried to do something worthwhile, only to have the opportunity snatched away?
Last time the press had camped outside the special school where she’d volunteered until both staff and children had become unsettled and nervous. Finally the director had asked her not to come any more.
‘I’ve tried. Don’t think I haven’t.’ Marisa heard the shaky echo of defeat in her voice. It scared her. All she had left was her independence. She’d fought so long for that and she had to be strong now.
Instantly she was on her feet, needing to move, to think.
But Damaso was before her, his large hand wrapping around her wrist before she could take a step.
He looked down into her pale face, her wide eyes, shadowed now instead of bright, and felt the tiniest tremor ripple under her skin. Slowly she lifted her chin as if distancing herself from him. Was it an unconscious gesture, that superior set of the head, or a practised move designed to scare off plebeians such as himself?
Yet, holding her slender wrist, it struck him that behind the air of well-bred hauteur lurked a world of pain.
Damaso was an expert at reading people. It was a skill he’d cultivated and exploited even as a child, gauging which adults would respond to a skinny kid’s wide-eyed hungry look with an offer of food and which with a swift kick. But in all his years his understanding had rarely turned to empathy.
Yet, what other explanation could there be for this protectiveness? This need to wrap his arms around her and hold her close?
There were violet smudges under her fine eyes and she couldn’t quite disguise the way her lips trembled. She did a magnificent job of hiding it but once more he recognised a vulnerability about Princess Marisa of Bengaria that went far deeper than the mere loss of funds.
His hand gentled on her arm.
‘Whatever he does, he can’t touch you here.’
It was meant for reassurance, but he felt her stiffen.
‘But I haven’t said I’d stay.’
Sharp heat twisted in Damaso’s belly. He refused to countenance a future where his child grew up without him.
His child.
The words were like a beam of light, illuminating a hollow in the dark void of his soul he’d never known till now. He’d never thought to belong to anyone. Yet he knew with deep gut instinct that he had to be part of his baby’s life. His child would have a father, a family, such as he’d never known. His child would never be alone and frightened. It would never want for anything.