“You remember.” She was trembling, so he held her lightly.

“Yes.” Her voice was so quiet he leaned closer to hear. “I remember it. I remember you.”

He knew better than to push, so he spoke gently. “Anything else? Do you remember anything else, or only that one night?”

She shook her head and would have drawn away. It hurt, she discovered. Memory hurt. “I can’t think. I need— Reeve, I need a few moments. A few moments alone.”

“All right.” He looked back toward the ballroom, crowded with people. She’d never be able to make it through them now. Thinking quickly, he took her down the terrace, through another set of doors. “I’ll get you to your room.”

“No, my office is closer.” She hung on, pushing herself to take each step. “I just want a moment to sit and think. No one will bother me there.”

He took her because it was closer, and it would take him less time to go back for the doctor. It would take him less time to tell Armand that her memory was coming back and the next step had to be taken. The arrests would be made quietly.

The backup guard was well trained, Reeve told himself. He wouldn’t have even known he was there if Armand hadn’t explained that Brie was watched always, not only by Reeve, but by others.

The office was dark, but when he started to turn on the lights, she stopped him.

“No, please. I don’t want the light.”

“Come on, I’ll sit with you.”

Again she resisted. “Reeve, I need to be alone.”

It was a struggle not to feel rejected. “All right, but I’m going to get the doctor, Gabriella.”

“If you must.” Her nails were digging into her palms as she fought for control. “But give me a few moments first.”

If her voice hadn’t warned him away, he would have held her. “Stay here until I get back. Rest.”

She waited until he closed the door. Then she lay down on the little sofa in the corner of the room, not because she was tired, but because she didn’t think she had even the strength to sit.

So many emotions. So many memories fighting to get through, and all at once. She’d thought that remembering would be a relief, as if someone released strings around her head that had been tied too tightly. But it hurt, it drained and it frightened.

She could remember her mother now, the funeral. The waves and waves and waves of grief. Devastation—hers, her father’s, and how they’d clung to each other. She could remember a Christmas when Bennett had given her a silly pair of slippers with long elephant tusks curling out of them. She could remember fencing with Alexander and fuming when he’d disarmed her.

And her father, holding out his arms for her when she’d curled into his lap to pour out her heart. Her father, so straight, so proud, so firm. A ruler first, but she’d been born to accept that. Perhaps that’s why she’d fallen in love with Reeve. He, too, was a ruler first—of his own life, his own choices.