“If I waited for you to finish one of your unending meetings, I would wait forever. All I want is to—”
Gabriel shot up from his seat, frustration boiling over in his blood. “You behave like a spoiled brat, with no concern for others’ time. Has your mother taught you no manners?”
Her flinch fell on him like a poisoned dart, sinking deep. Goddamn it, nothing he said ever worked with Angelina. The tears that she had somehow contained in those big eyes fell onto her round cheeks, drawing paths down to her neck. “I wish you had died instead of Mom. I wish you weren’t my father. I wish—”
“Angelina! That’s enough,” a feminine voice shot out.
Shock traveled through Gabriel as his daughter, who’d barely exchanged one civil word with him in three months, instantly looked contrite. Her round shoulders straightened and something shifted in the planes of her juvenile face, already struggling to show signs of adulthood.
He startled when Eleni Drakos pushed her chair back and walked toward his daughter, her expression one of sternness and yet somehow kindness at the same time.
Gabriel frowned as her pumps click-clacked against the marble floor. In three months, he hadn’t been able to quite put his finger on the woman the media disparagingly called the Plain Princess.
An opinion he didn’t agree with anymore.
Unlike her tall, dark brothers, the Princes of Drakon, Eleni Drakos, on first impression, was a mousy woman. Ten years ago, she’d barely ever met his gaze, hiding behind King Theos’s fierce temper.
Since he’d arrived in Drakon a few months ago, however, he’d watched the brisk efficiency with which she ordered the palace staff around—and even his staff.
Every time he turned around, there she was, a petite dynamo. Only now, as he saw her reach Angelina, did he realize how much his staff and he had depended on her to smooth out numerous problems between his company and the palace in those first few weeks.
How much the Crown Prince Andreas and the Daredevil Nikandros relied on her.
His frown deepened as her slim hand went around Angelina.
She whispered something and instantly his daughter’s expression cleared. A hesitation emerged in her eyes but Angelina wiped her tears, and then to Gabriel’s shock, a tentative smile curved her mouth.
A tight ache emerged in the nether regions of Gabriel’s heart. Three months with a string of nannies each more expensive and efficient than the next, three months of gifts and presents to make up for twelve birthdays, three months of fighting the urge to tell her that it was not his fault, not once had Angelina looked at him with anything remotely bordering on the affection in her eyes as she looked at Eleni Drakos now.
What magic had the Princess wrought on his child? To what purpose? When had Angelina become acquainted with her?
Shock buffeted him in fresh waves when Eleni softly nudged Angelina toward him.
The wariness in his daughter’s eyes dealt a swift kick to his gut more painful and wretched than anything Gabriel had faced before. But for the life of him, he hadn’t been able to forge even a tenuous connection between them.
It was as if fate was laughing at him.
He’d willfully become this man who avoided emotional entanglement at any cost. Now, try as he might, it seemed he couldn’t connect with his own daughter.
“I’m sorry,” Angelina whispered, her eyes bright and big.
She didn’t call him Papa but he knew better than to expect a miracle. She turned to the Princess as if waiting for another cue, as if she could only bear to do this small thing—look at him without hatred—for the Princess.
Breath balled up in his throat, for he’d never felt this strange anticipation.
Hands firmly on those small shoulders, the Princess gave his daughter a cue.
Again, something about her smile snagged him while she and Angelina walked toward him. That his daughter, who treated him as if he were plague-ridden, had found someone to connect with should have been a good thing.
Instead, all he felt was a yawning chasm in the pit of his stomach.
“Now, Angelina,” the Princess said, and her voice shivered over his spine. The taste of her came to his lips, his hands fisting against the sensation of her curved hips. It was a sensation he hadn’t been able to get out of his head in three months, even as he’d become more and more aware of her husky, low-pitched voice, of the way her dress shirts seemed voluptuous on her body, of the tug of her mouth on one side when she was being sarcastic, of her every movement. Of the fact that she’d avoided meeting his eyes since that night at the masquerade ball.
No woman had ever messed with his head quite so much by trying to ignore him.
I just wanted a kiss, Gabriel.
Had she?
And now here she was with a wide smile bestowed on his daughter.
Muddy brown eyes glinted with warmth, the edges of them tilting up, revealing hints of heritage no one, he was sure, knew about.
The smile seemed to spread to her entire body as she looked at Angelina. It snagged his attention, and every other man’s attention, he noted with a flare of annoyance.
“Remember what we talked about,” she said. “First we express our anger and hurt in a constructive way instead of hurling accusations at someone, however well deserved they may be.”
His daughter nodded like an angel, lifting her chin in a show of condescension toward him. That put-upon anger and the skinny shoulders pretending to be so unaffected, caused Gabriel to feel a realization slam into him: hateful words or not, his daughter was very much just a kid.
And he wouldn’t have seen it if not for the woman silently glaring at him over Angie’s furiously nodding head. Her judgment of him was clear in her deepening frown.
“You went on your trip again. You not only left me with that...horrible nanny, but you also forgot my birthday. Mom would’ve never...” A choked sound emerged from Angie’s throat. “Mom told me you didn’t live with us because you were a busy man. Not because you didn’t care about me. But now... I know she was lying to protect me. It’s clear that you never wanted a daughter.”
Pushing away the Princess’s hand from her shoulder, Angie ran out of the boardroom, leaving a minefield of silence behind.
No, he’d never wanted a daughter. He hadn’t been in a relationship with her mother, which he thought was why she’d never told him.
And yet when he’d seen Angelina for the first time, Gabriel had known his life had forever changed. To his own surprise, he hadn’t felt an ounce of resentment.
He’d only wanted to welcome her into his life.
But Angelina wouldn’t give him a chance. Frustration and fury twisted inside him.
He took a few steps in her direction when he heard the soft command.
“Leave her alone, Mr. Marquez.” A pregnant pause, as if the Princess couldn’t believe her own audacity. “For now. Please. Don’t force her to take back those words just because your ego is smarting.”
A burning feeling emerged in his throat and Gabriel realized it was shame.
The Princess was right. He was only thinking about how this affected him, how he wanted to fight the tug of failure.
He’d moved mountains and built castles, immersed himself in the world’s real estate games, and yet he didn’t possess a single thing that would bring his daughter closer to him.
With one nod, he dismissed the