Page 79 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

Joy. Happiness.

He couldn’t remember ever feeling either of those emotions. Maybe once, when he was a child, lying on his back looking at the stars, he’d felt something akin to them. But it had been so long ago now he couldn’t remember what they felt like. And anyway, he’d managed well enough without them so far. Why would he need them now? Why should he have them when some of his subjects could not?

He’d always been cognisant of the fact that his life was not his own and never had been. He was the son of a dispossessed king. His mother had given up her own life for him. And then his father had died of cancer, five years ago, and now he had to make those deaths meaningful. He had been saved for a reason, his father had told him from his hospital bed, just before he’d died. And that reason was to restore the crown, help the people of Kasimir.

‘No,’ he said impatiently. ‘Why should I have either of those when many of my subjects do not? I have power, Guinevere, and I do not take that lightly. Nor can I rest on it. The work is always there and must always be done—so, no, there can be no rest from it.’

She swallowed, a flicker of what looked like anguish crossing her features. ‘Is that what our marriage will be, then?’ she asked quietly. ‘You working until midnight every night and then rising at dawn the next day? Where is there time for children in that? Where is there time for a marriage? A life?’

Something caught at his heart then, giving a small, painful tug. ‘There will be time for children,’ he said, ignoring it. ‘I will have a schedule and they’ll be looked after. We will engage the services of a nanny, naturally.’

‘But what about time as a family?’ She was searching his face as if looking for something. ‘Surely there will be time for that?’

‘Not at the expense of the work I must do for Kasimir.’ He was getting impatient now, because these conversations weren’t important right now—couldn’t she see that? They could be had later. ‘Our family will not look like those of other people because we are a royal family,’ he added. ‘As I said, our purpose is to serve our country, not vice versa.’

‘So, what you’re saying is that there is no time for any kind of personal happiness?’ she said, an edge in her voice now. ‘No time for joy?’

‘You may have joy and happiness.’ He was holding on to his patience by a thread. ‘I am not saying you can’t have that. But you need to understand that the lives of rulers are hard ones, contrary to what most people think. It is our cross to bear and our privilege.’

A strange expression crossed her face, one that he couldn’t interpret. ‘That seems very bleak.’

‘Struggle is the anvil we temper ourselves upon,’ he said, quoting his father’s favourite line. ‘And my father gave me plenty of struggle to help prepare me for my role.’

‘He didn’t…?’ She stopped, pain in her voice.

Tiberius knew what she was asking, though. ‘No,’ he said, this time softening his tone. ‘He was never cruel. But he expected a lot from me, and I admit there were times when it was…difficult.’ He paused a moment, wanting to give her something that wasn’t as bleak, because he was sure it actually hadn’t been as terrible as all that. ‘Sometimes, as a child, I had difficulty sleeping, so I’d get up and go outside, lie down in the grass to watch the stars. It was…peaceful.’

‘That’s the only good thing you remember?’

He stared back at her. ‘Why does it matter that there were good things? My father did what he had to—which was to put his country first by training me, so my mother’s death wouldn’t be for nothing.’

She held his gaze a moment, then looked away. ‘It just sounds hard,’ she said after a moment.

‘It was hard,’ he agreed. ‘But life is not meant to be easy. You yourself know this already, Guinevere. It isn’t as if you had an ideal childhood either.’

He wasn’t sure why she seemed to find his past quite so painful, especially in comparison to the prison of hers.

‘No, I didn’t.’ She glanced down at the floor. ‘My brothers were not…kind.’

Tiberius frowned at the catch in her voice. He hadn’t wanted to press her about exactly what her brothers had done to her, but now he couldn’t stop himself from asking, ‘What did they do, lioness?’

She looked wordlessly at him then, blue eyes dark.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he went on. ‘Not if you don’t want to.’

And he meant it. He found he didn’t want to cause her any unnecessary pain.

She stayed silent for a long time, and he thought that maybe she wouldn’t, but then she said, ‘It…doesn’t sound bad…not compared to what some people have to suffer, but… They terrified me and I think they…liked that. They used to h-hunt me in the hallways—that’s what they called it, Hunt the Mouse—just to scare me. And they pulled my hair, broke my toys, pushed me into walls, and once Alessio gave me a black eye.’

Tiberius was almost stupefied by a hot rush of fury so intense he could hardly keep still. He’d not heard any rumours about Renzo’s sons, but this wasn’t a rumour. This was the truth, he could hear the ring of it in her voice.

They’dhuntedher.Terrifiedher. And all for fun, by the sounds of it.

He’d never wanted to hurt anyone as badly as he wanted to hurt her brothers.

‘And your father?’ he forced out, his voice hoarse with fury. ‘What did he do about it?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. He indulged them…told me that’s what brothers did.’

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