Page 94 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

Guinevere stared up at him in shock, her heart feeling as if it was full of broken glass. ‘But I wouldn’t,’ she whispered. ‘I would have been still hiding in the walls, too afraid to come out.’

He said nothing to that, only stared at her for one long, aching moment.

Then he turned on his heel and left her standing alone by the column.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tiberius pushed his waythrough the crowd, abruptly unable to bear being in the ballroom any longer. A hot, painful feeling was pressing against his chest, making it feel as if he was suffocating, and he was desperate to get outside and breathe the cold mountain air.

He found some doors that led to an outside terrace and managed to get them open, stepping out into the clear night, his chest heaving.

But even taking deep breaths of the cold Swiss night didn’t relieve the burning sensation, or the tightness. It was as if something enormous was sitting on his sternum.

It was all to do with Guinevere, and he knew it.

Her dark blue eyes looking up at him as she told him that she was in love with him. The wild rush of joy that had filled his veins in that moment, and then the aching bitterness that had followed it, because love wasn’t for kings. Or at least not the kind of love that she deserved.

He’d hurt her, bastard that he was. He’d made her cry. He’d told her that she would be better off without him, and she would. She needed someone who could give her their whole heart, not just a small piece of it. She’d had nothing all her life—nothing but her brothers’ fists and her father’s indifference. It was incredible how her bright, warm, effervescent spirit hadn’t buckled under the fear and violence she’d experienced, or at least crumbled away.

But it hadn’t.

Despite how her father and brothers had treated her, she was undaunted. And he’d watched her turn from a mouse into a lioness, all beautiful, strong, brave and caring.

A woman like that deserved the entire world—not to be tied to a man who’d never be able to put her first. A man who’d never tasted happiness and had no idea what joy looked like. What could he offer her? Pleasure in bed, that was all.

He walked over to the stone parapet and gripped it, looking out over the lake at the mountains looming dark and forbidding in the night, the caps of snow gleaming.

He didn’t know where that left him.

Divorcing her felt impossible, and yet that was the only option he could see. The only option that would give her the freedom she needed and deserved. Freedom from him and from Kasimir.

Free to make her own choices—choices that hadn’t been forced on her the way he’d forced them on her at the very beginning, by demanding that she marry him, that she pay for her family’s crimes.

The pain in his chest deepened, excoriating him.

He couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go, and yet he had to.

To be a ruler required sacrifice, his father had told him. Both of his parents had made that sacrifice. And so would he.

He had to follow their example, otherwise what was he?

An empty, hollow man. A man without purpose, whose whole life had been for nothing.

Tiberius stepped back from the parapet. He’d go and find her now and tell her that she had to leave him, that she should be free, and he had to do it quickly. Make it swift and hard, like ripping off a sticking plaster, so she could heal faster.

He turned around, moved back to the doors.

And found Guinevere standing there, shining in the moonlight, sparkling and glittering like the fairy she was, her eyes, dark in the night, burning with her lioness courage.

He froze, the pain in his chest an agony. ‘I told you we’d have this conversation later,’ he said, his voice rough and raw.

‘It is later,’ she said levelly, and stepped outside into the night. ‘But we don’t need to have this conversation at all. You’ve said your piece, I’ve said mine, and we’ll agree to disagree.’

That was not what he’d expected.

‘Guinevere,’ he said, forcing the word out. ‘I have made a decision. I can’t give you what you need, and as such I can’t ask you to stay with me. So I’m going to start divorce proceedings—’

‘No,’ she interrupted flatly, and crossed the space between them, coming straight up to him and putting her arms around him, her head on his chest. ‘You can start proceedings, if you want, but I’m not leaving you. I’m never leaving you.’

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