Chapter 29
Max
“Max, your sash is crooked.” My mother tweaks my blue satin sash as a muscle jumps in my jaw, nerves popping like corn in my belly. “What’s with you tonight, darling? You’re so on edge.”
“I’m fine,” I lie, forcing a smile. I’m anything but.
She places her palm against my chest, smiling up at me. In her Ledonian red ball gown, she looks really quite beautiful, her hair swept up off her elegant neck with a tiara nestled in her curls. “You’ve been through a lot lately. You can sit this one out if you want. Your father will understand.”
Sitting this one out is the last thing on my mind. “I’m good. Don’t worry about me.”
“Darling, even though you’re a grown man, I’ll always worry about you,” she says with a soft smile. “It’s a mother’s job.” She pats my chest.
“All set?” Father asks as he steps into the room, looking resplendent in his red jacket, the same as mine, only his with significantly more gold detailing, appropriate for his status.
“My baby brother is having his mummy fix his outfit,” Amelia teases from her position on the sofa beside Ethan.
“Less of the baby, thanks,” I sniff.
She rises to her feet, puffing out her full skirt. “You’ll always be the baby of the family, Max. That’s life.”
Ethan quirks a brow. “A six-foot two baby? Isn’t he almost twenty-eight?”
Amelia and her husband share a smile, and it does something to my heart.
I want what they have.
Alex, who arrived in Villadorata with his wife and children this afternoon, comes to stand next to me. “Still taller,” he declares as he slaps me on the back. “Hello, Max.”
“No, you’re not. I’m at least a centimeter taller than you,” I reply.
“You could both be a couple of linebackers,” Maddie says as she kisses me on the cheek.
“Is that a good thing?” Amelia asks.
“Oh, yeah,” Maddie replies, her eyes dancing. “Are you okay, Max? You’ve had a rough few weeks, right?”
“I’m doing okay,” I lie.
“Max, I thought you were bringing a date,” Sofia asks, adjusting her tiara in the mirror.
Marco places a kiss on her bare shoulder. “You look beautiful, my love.”
“I might be,” I reply, my nerves cranking up.
Sofia turns to me. “So? Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” I reply honestly.
Father knits his brows. “Who is this woman who’s keeping the entire family waiting? The ball is about to begin.”
“Yes, Max, who is she?” Sofia asks, and every eye in the room turns to me.
"I've invited Valentina Romano," I say simply.
Mother's expression immediately fills with compassion. "I remember that little girl. She had the sweetest smile." She pauses. "Do you think she'll come after everything that’s happened?"
"I’m not sure," I admit, my chest tight. "But I had to try."
Father studies me for a long moment. "You care for her."
"I do."
"Then I hope she comes," he says quietly, his hand on my shoulder.
I do, too.
“Let’s get out there, shall we? The Autumn Ball waits for no man,” I say.
“Or woman,” Sofia says.
“Max is right. Let’s greet our guests,” Mummy says, and we begin to file from the room, heading to the ballroom.
I feel a hand on my arm and turn to see Amelia. “What?” I ask, both eager and terrified to get to the ball.
Will she come?
“What’s going on with you?” she asks.
We’re alone in the room now, so I come clean. “I’ve invited…well, I’m hoping Fabiana will be here. Valentina, I mean.”
“Fabiana? Are you mad?” she guffaws.
“Maybe?”
She narrows her gaze. “You fell in love with her, didn’t you?”
Slowly, I nod my head.
“Even though she lied to you about who she was?”
“I’ve realized she had good reason. She needed to put distance between herself and her family name. I couldn’t hear it at first, but I understand now.”
“Are you sure, Max? About her, I mean. She’s been pretending to be someone else for years, someone who persecuted you.”
I shrug. “I guess we’ll see.”
She studies my face before she pulls me into a hug. “I want the world for you.”
“I know you do.”
We join the rest of the family, and together we enter the ballroom, announced at the top of the sweeping staircase as is tradition.
As it is every year, the room is decorated in an autumnal theme, with garlands of maple and oak leaves wound around marble columns, and delicate bronze pheasant figurines nestled among floral arrangements in reds and yellows and oranges.
I smile and make small talk with everyone I meet, always keeping an eye on the double doors. Hoping…hoping…
Mother announces the dancing, and each of my siblings and their spouses step onto the floor, looking elegant and in love, just as they always do. Several women catch my eye, hoping for a dance, but all I do is smile at them and look away.
There’s only one woman I want to dance with, and she’s not here.
It had felt so romantic to simply invite her tonight by sending her a dress anonymously. Now, with almost half the evening gone, I wish I’d been more direct. I wish I’d simply turned up on her doorstep and told her how I feel about her. Tell her what I’ve learned.
But I didn’t, and right now, with the ballroom double doors firmly shut, what hope I’d held that she would come begins to dwindle like the last echo of a fanfare in the palace courtyard.
An elderly woman in a black velvet dress, her long gray hair captured in a bun, approaches me. She has a pleasant face, and when she smiles her eyes twinkle in the golden glow of the ballroom.
She inclines her head, dipping into a shallow curtsy. “Good evening, Your Royal Highness,” she says.
“Good evening,” I reply, wracking my brain for which member of the aristocracy this woman is. I come up with nothing. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” I say, keeping one eye on the door.
“My name is Lady Violetta Romano,” she says, and immediately she captures my full attention
“You’re Valentina's grandmother?” I ask, my heart stuttering.
“I am,” she replies, her chin lifted with pride. “I hope you'll pardon an old woman's boldness, but I felt I must speak with you.”
Hope leaps in my chest. “Is she here?” I scan the room but see no sign.
“I want to ask you a question, and I hope you’ll give me the respect to respond truthfully.”
“Of course I will.”
“My granddaughter has made mistakes, but she's suffered enough. If you've invited her here out of anger or for some kind of public humiliation, please tell me now. I cannot stand by and watch her heart break again.”
That she would think I was capable of such a thing… But I understand. Valentina told me the truth, and I sent her away. Of course, her grandmother will be dubious about my intentions.
“You have my word, Lady Romano. I have nothing but the very best of intentions where your granddaughter is concerned.”
She studies my face for a beat before she says, “I believe you.”
“Thank you,” I say, meaning it. “Can I see her?”
“I will speak with her. But young man?” Her voice is sharp. “It will be her decision what she does next.”
A small smile works its way across my face. “I would expect nothing less of her, Lady Romano.”
As I watch her make her way around the dance floor, flashes of recognition appear on guests’ faces, and I bet it took a lot for her to come here tonight.
She’s here. The woman I love is here.
I can barely contain my excitement, and I have to work hard at stopping myself from tearing after her grandmother and demanding to see her.
But I gave my word, so I need to wait. Wait and hope.
And then, the doors I’ve watched for so long tonight, open and there, standing alone, breathtaking in the dress I handpicked for her, her hair dark, falling in soft waves around her shoulders, is the woman I love.
Valentina Romano.
She takes a tentative step forward, her hands clasped at her waist, searching the room. When her eyes land on mine, they flash with recognition, her lips parting as she takes a deep breath, and I can no longer contain my need for her that coils in my chest.
I can no longer stand and wait.
I rush toward her, apologizing as I bump into people, stepping on dresses, but not once taking my eyes from hers.
“You came,” I say, my heart thrumming in my ears at the sight of her. The dress is everything I imagined it would be on her when I’d chosen it. She looks regal, beautiful, elegant. She’s power wrapped in beauty, and I’m utterly transfixed.
“You look—” I begin, but suddenly, I can’t find the words. How can I tell her she’s more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her, more beautiful than I’ve ever seen anyone, a stunning, almost otherworldly vision in emerald.
In the end, I settle on, “You look perfect.”
Her full lips—the lips I’ve thought about kissing again and again, that have tormented me since I sent her away—pull into a hint of a smile, and I no longer want to be here in this crowded room with people watching us, waiting to hear what we have to say.
This is between us. Her and me. No one else.
I take her by the hand. “Will you come with me?”
“Yes,” she breathes.
With prying eyes watching our every move, I lead her to the terrace and close the doors firmly behind us. Bathed in the soft moonlight and glow from the ballroom, she looks even more beautiful, and it takes all my strength not to pull her to me and claim her as mine.
That must wait.
“Thank you for coming, Valentina,” I say, her lyrical name feeling odd on my lips.
“Did you see my article?”
“I did. It meant everything.”
She moves closer to me, and I catch her scent in the air. “Max, I’m so very sorry about lying to you.”
“I don’t need you to apologize again.”
“You don’t?”
I can no longer resist my overwhelming need to touch her, to feel her warm body next to mine. I wrap her in my arms and hold her close, my heart thudding against my ribs as though it’s trying to escape. “I forgive you wholeheartedly.”
“I never dared hope you'd forgive me,” she replies softly.
“I only hope you can forgive me.”
She looks up at me, her eyes shining. “For what, Max? You did nothing wrong.”
“I sent you away that day,” I reply, the memory of the look on her face like a physical pain in my chest.
“How could you not? I lied to you.”
“You were only doing what you had to do. I understand that now. You were protecting yourself. I have things to tell you. Important things.”
“What?”
I take her by the hand and together we sit on one of the stone benches. “I did some investigating into what happened with your father.”
She blinks at me in shock. “Why?”
“After you left the palace that day and I’d calmed down, I read Miranda Thorne’s article. It didn’t sit right with me. She seemed to know details about your father's case that were oddly specific.”
“You sound like an investigative journalist.”
“Perhaps that could be a new career for me?” I reply, and we share a smile.
“So, I had Dante do some digging for me.”
“Dante? As in your Air Force friend?”
“Former Air Force, now a private investigator. He searched through all the files. He discovered some inconsistencies and followed through on some of them.”
“And?” she asks, eagerness in her eyes.
“And it would seem your father was innocent.”
Her hand flies to her chest. “What?! Max, how?”
“The man who accused your father of embezzlement and provided most of the evidence against him was Lord Blackwood.”
“Lord Blackwood?” she repeats, aghast.
“Here's the key thing Dante discovered. The financial irregularities didn't stop when your father fled the country. Money continued disappearing from the same royal charities for months afterwards, but it was covered up.”
“But if Papa had been the one stealing—”
“Exactly. It should have stopped the moment he left the country. But it didn't." I squeeze her hand. "Blackwood had massive gambling debts around that time, debts that were paid off just after your family left Ledonia.”
“I don't understand. How could Lord Blackwood frame my father?”
“Dante found forged signatures and backdated papers, but the most damning evidence was a bank account.”
"What kind of bank account?"
"One that Blackwood opened under a false name, routing stolen funds through it. He got sloppy. He used his own address for the correspondence. It was all there in the old records, but no one looked closely enough because they already thought they had their man.”
She stares at me for a long moment, as if trying to absorb the magnitude of what I've told her.
"My papa. All these years he's been living with that shame, and he was innocent all along?
The man I believed to be a criminal was telling the truth?
" She covers her face with her hands, and my heart aches for her.
“It’s a lot to take in.”
She lets out a laugh. “You’re telling me.”
“As the person who exposed Romano, Blackwood was put in charge of financial oversight to prevent future incidents. This gave him perfect cover to continue stealing while appearing to be the solution. He’d positioned himself as the hero who saved the Crown from a traitor.”
“People don't suspect their saviors.”
“There's more,” I say softly.
“More? How could there possibly be? Max, finding this out, you’ve already done so much for me, for my family.”
“He was the one who worked out who you were. He told Miranda Thorne to investigate you.”
“Lord Blackwood is the villain,” she says, her face a study in shock.
“Dante and I presented all the evidence to my parents yesterday. Lord Blackwood has been arrested, and your father's name will be officially cleared. The palace is issuing a full public exoneration.”
“My father is…vindicated?” she asks, her voice thin.
“He is.”
She lets out a whimper, her eyes filling with tears, and I pull her against me.
“You’re free, my love.”
She pulls back to look into my eyes. “I don’t know what to say. I am so incredibly grateful to you and what you’ve done.”
“Perhaps you don’t need to say anything at all.” I smile at her, and she slides her hands around the back of my neck.
“I have one thing to say.”
“If it’s ‘I love you,’ then I beat you to it,” I say in a murmur.
She lets out a gurgling laugh. “I love you, too.”
And then I pull her against me, and I press my lips to hers, showing her exactly what she means to me. This woman I once thought I despised but now cannot imagine my life without. The woman I love.