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If only it were that easy, she thought, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her ar safety and stability Ever since she’d arrived in Roche, she’d felt rootless Lost She desperately ive her days structure and purpose “I want to return to Khronos,” she whispered “I want to go home”
“Not until after the baby is born, but then yes, you could go for a visit”
“A visit,” she said, her voice tre
He said nothing and she glanced around the roo in the thick stone walls, the narros, the heavy bea me”
“That’s not fair”
“I was a virgin when I nant Doesn’t seem fair at all”
“You wanted to be with me”
“Because I thought you were free I thought you cared about me”
“I do care about you, which is why I’ you, not Danielle”
“You’re only nant!”
“Do you wantyou because you’re carrying my child, but that doesn’t invalidate my offer—”
“Oh, it does It hness”
He sighed “You’re being childish”
“You’re being hideous”
“We can’t go back, Josephine We can only go forward”
“And ill,” she agreed huskily, “but not together We ether, but that doesn’t mean we must punish ourselves for eternity—”
“Marriage is not hell”
“So says the irlfriend and a fiancée”
“I broke up with ement was announced”
“But you were privately engaged to the princess, weren’t you?”
“We’ve had an understanding for years, yes, but Danielle also dated She had relationships—”
“That still changes nothing I’m not about to have my heart broken by a man who only cares for himself”
“But ould it be broken if you don’t care for e, Josephine It’s a business deal, an arrangement to protect our child, ill inherit the Alberici wealth and title”
She blinked, hard “So I don’t matter”
His sigh was deep, heavy “Of course you matter”
Her head dipped, her gaze dropped “Please leave”
“It’s time to put our child first Stop with the selfishness—”
“Me? Selfish? Clearly, you don’t remember Khronos or what happened there But I do And I was never selfish, never unkind, not toward you”
He left her then, and as the door closed behind hiht tears
She was exhausted and nauseous and sick of e this much, and certainly not used to so little physical activity For a girl who’d grown up outside, so close to nature that she felt she was an extension of thecooped up in a tower, in a castle, in a city, was a terrible punishment indeed
Alexander descended the tower staircase to his office on the second floor, aware that Josephine wasn’t wrong He was different here He had to be different here On Khronos he’d been just aHe’d rather enjoyed being just a man There had been freedom, and an ease he didn’t know in his world here