Chapter 8
Family
“Ma’am,” Maeve says as she knocks on my door. “Your uncle is here to see you.”
The last few weeks have passed by in a tentative truce. Rhys and I are in the middle of a stalemate while the battle rages on around us. I’ve taken more and more royal engagements as our wedding and his coronation draws ever closer, but I also don’t ask any questions.
And every night he makes love to me.
He keeps asking me if I’m ready to learn the truth about my family.
He claims there’s more to know than what was in the dossier that Saoirse left for me when she tried to chase me out the last time.
Part of me feels like I should leave again, I know I don’t belong here and so does everyone else except for Rhys.
I’m sure he knows it, too, but as the heir to the throne turned monarch, he’s used to getting his own way.
I’m just not sure why what he thinks he wants is me.
I’m just a nerdy girl from a small town in New England. I like books more than people.
The other part of me wants to go back to the affair we had in my little apartment in New England.
Back to a time when I loved Rhys unconditionally and without qualifications and what-ifs, with no threats hanging over my head.
A time when he was a man I could love unconditionally with none of this extra drama and static.
But if Paul or Fran were here—or God willing, both—I wouldn’t dream of squandering the opportunity.
I don’t even bother to change my clothes as I jump up from the cozy chair where I was reading one of the novels Rhys had bought me on our trip to the village.
It seems like it was so long ago but in actuality was only a few weeks.
My uncles won’t mind a pair of pink, wide legged yoga pants with a fold over waistband and a cream-colored, soft knit sweater over a matching tank.
They’ve seen me in torn jeans and university sweatshirts.
My bare feet won’t even make them bat an eye when they’ve bought me tampons and taught me about the birds and the bees.
I throw open the door of my rooms and race down the hallway. Leo pops out and calls to me to stop. “Your highness, wait!”
But I don’t stop or even slow down. I just wave over my shoulder. “Can’t!” I call out. “My uncle is here!”
“I know,” he shouts after me. “But wait—”
I don’t wait. Instead, I plow full steam ahead around the corner into another corridor of the residential wings and fling open the door of the formal parlor, barreling in with my arms pinwheeling like a cartoon character only to come up short when I stop—rather ungracefully—in front of a man of moderate height and build.
He has jet black hair that’s graying at the temples and a thick mustache and beard of the same.
His dark eyes bore into my own and his crisp suit is a stark contrast to the loungewear I have on, even if it is designer.
But what stands out the most is that I have never seen this man before in my life.
“Pardon me,” he says in accented English.
“No, please,” I say softly. “Excuse me.”
“That is quite all right, although I hope you do not make a habit of racing about like that,” he says. “It is most unseemly.”
“No, I usually don’t,” I reply with a rueful smile. “I was told that my uncle is here, and I haven’t seen him in a long time so if you’ll excuse me—”
Leo stumbles into the room behind me and interrupts, “Your highness, please.”
“You were right as always, Leo,” I whisper to him. “I was in the wrong room. I hope I haven’t messed anything up for Rhys or, God forbid, the queen. She’ll never let it go.”
The strange man clears his throat. “Now, I believe there is some kind of mishap—a misunderstanding, if you will.”
“You are correct,” I agree, nodding my head profusely.
“There was a mishap—a misunderstanding. I thought my uncle was in here but as I can see, he’s not.
So, I’ll just be going to find out where he might be.
You see I’ve been here for a long time, and I haven’t seen him in months and I miss him very much… ”
“Do you always ramble on so?” he asks in what I think is quite a rude manner since we don’t know each other at all. “It is most impolite.”
“Well, I don’t see how that’s any of your business, actually,” I reply waspishly which is very unlike me, but I have no idea why he keeps judging me so much. I don’t know him at all.
“You are my business,” the man snaps and I look to Leo just in time to catch him closing his eyes in a way that suggests I’m in much bigger trouble than I thought I was. “And if I were you, I’d watch my tone.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, looking back at the man. “There’s no need to be rude. I don’t know you at all.”
“You are wrong, madam,” he spits out. “Because I know you very well.”
“I think not. Now if you’ll excuse me—” I’m trying my best to get out of this sticky situation and I don’t know how.
I’m not sure Leo can get us out of it either.
This is just another reason why I don’t belong here.
I’m bound to cause some kind of global incident if I don’t get murdered by someone first.
“I will not excuse you,” he shouts. “I am here to see you.”
“I’m so sorry about that,” I tell him. “You’ll have to make an appointment with the office. I’m off to see my uncle now.”
“I am your uncle, you idiot!” he shouts, and I freeze as ice fills my veins. “I am a king, and you owe me the respect of your home nation.”
“I’m not sure I’m who you think I am,” I tell him. “I’m American. We have a president. Some like him, some don’t but that’s why he only gets so many years at bat, you know?”
“No, I don’t know because you are not from America, you were born in a small South American country. My country.”
“That can’t be because I grew up in New England.”
“Si,” he says. “You did grow up—safely—in New England after your parents were assassinated. But you were born in San Juan de Baptista.”
“I-I didn’t know that,” I stutter as my mind reels with all the information he’s just throw in my face like a vat of scalding water.
“Madame,” my uncle, if he’s to be believed, says. “I’m not convinced you know anything. Your papa would be disgusted with you.”
It feels like he’s struck me. A slap across the face would have hurt less than hearing that my father, the one I didn’t get to grow up with, would have hated me.
The little girl in me who cried every night, wishing her parents would come back to her with every wish she ever made on every shooting star that passed by her bedroom window, just died.
“I’ll ask you to hold your tongue when you speak to my future queen,” Rhys warns.
I snap out of my mental fog to turn around and watch him approach our little tête-à-tête. I have no idea when he entered the room. Possibly, it was when my entire world—everything I thought I knew—was being tossed on its head. Again.
“Excuse me?” I whisper.
“I am your uncle,” he explains as if I’m slow, which, I guess at this moment, I am. “I am the king of San Juan de Baptista.”
“Allow me to introduce your uncle,” Rhys says as he steps up beside me, placing his warm hand on the small of my back. The act of protection and care is not lost on any of the occupants of this room, least of all me. “How are you, Carlos?”
“I’ve been better,” he answers. “Does she always look like this? I was told she was beautiful.”
“I find her very beautiful.”
“I should hope so,” he laughs. “You’re stuck with her now… Although I guess that’s what mistresses are for. Once you have your heir and all that.”
Both Rhys and I are silent as the joke falls flat.
There’s still no trust between us. I know that he wasn’t celibate before he met me, and it wouldn’t be fair to think that he would have been even when I thought he was just a rich businessman.
He’s older than I am and more worldly by far.
But after Saoirse presented herself as my fiancé’s lover while sitting at the dining table with another former lover of his, I’m having a hard time believing that he’s either devoted to me or willing to stay that way until he’s dead.
I let out a sigh. “I had thought that Paul or Fran were here,” I admit quietly.
“I see that,” Rhys says. “I’m sorry you hadn’t been told.”
“There seems to be a lot of that going around these halls…”
“I tried to tell you about your family,” Rhys says quietly. “But you didn’t want to know.”
“No, I rejected the conditions that you placed on that knowledge. I was under the impression that my family was dead,” I reply defiantly. “Besides, Paul and Fran are my family.”
“My royal guards?” my real uncle asks. “They are not your family, I am.”
“I don’t know you,” I say, shaking my head. “Paul and Fran raised me. That’s all I know.”
“You dare reject the care that I provided for you?” he snaps. “Your education? Everything you ever wanted?”
“No,” I jump to answer. It’s funny. I haven’t felt this insecure in a long time.
Sure, I’m a fish out of water here, but with Rhys, I’m confident in who I am and know that I have value.
This is who I used to be, before Rhys entered my life, when I lived alone in my little New England apartment and spent my time in a quaint bookshop.
“I just didn’t know that it was you. Or who you are.
I always thought that they were my uncles.
I didn’t know who my parents really were. ”
“No,” he says with a sigh. “You wouldn’t. Your mother and father thought they could save the world.”
“I thought they were archeologists…”
“No,” he says with a smile. “That was their cover. There is much you don’t know.”
“You have no idea.”
“Perhaps we should dress for dinner,” Rhys suggests. “I’m sure all will be better then, and we can discuss the upcoming coronation arrangements.”
“Good thinking,” my new-to-me uncle says.
Rhys takes me by the arm and leads me out of the room like a gentleman, but it’s just a ruse. There is no gentleman here, only a bossy king who thinks he owns me.