Chapter 11
Despite the early start to the day, they left the house a full hour later than Theo had planned.
Fucking Galen had led all three of them to the shower and it was hardly anyone’s fault that they’d gotten distracted all over again.
And then they had to hold off until Meg could file the paperwork for her deferment, which had taken yet more time.
Meg seemed to have shelved her fury at them both for the moment, but Theo had no illusions—it would arrive again. She clung too tightly to her plan for her not to resent them if they held her back for too long.
The sooner they got this fucked up situation resolved, the better for all involved.
As soon as you are reinstated, the whole thing ends.
He pushed the thought away. He spent enough time borrowing trouble without adding more to the balance.
They had right now, and right now would have to be enough.
Once things untangled, he and Galen would go back to Thalania and Meg would resume her life in New York with the major difference of financial status.
He hadn’t told her that he’d made a deposit to her personal account, because she’d just yell at him all over again.
Money wouldn’t give her back the time she’d lost or eliminate the memory of the fear she’d experienced because of Dorian’s men, but it would give her a freedom he suspected she’d never had before.
She could hate him for that gift if she wanted, but she’d damn well keep it.
Theo glanced at Galen as they climbed into the car. “You found the backup files?”
“I found a place that might have the backup files.” Galen held the door open for Meg and then took the driver’s seat. “My German is rusty and we had to go around a few times, but the secretary claims that the fire didn’t destroy all the records, just their copies of them.”
Thank fuck.
Meg leaned forward. “If this is out of line, let me know, but… what records are we trying to track down?”
Theo and Galen exchanged a look. They hadn’t exactly decided whether or not to loop Meg in on all the details.
Galen shrugged, leaving it up to him. He sat back.
If she was involved enough to be in danger, she was involved enough to know the plan.
“I was stripped of my rank because my uncle claims that my mother was still married to her ex when she and my father got married and got pregnant with me. While there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that I’m Teddy’s son, rather than her ex’s, the marriage wasn’t legal and so I’m not legitimate.
With those considerations in play, I cannot be King of Thalania. ”
Fuck if it didn’t still hurt to say it aloud.
There were times during his teenage years where Theo wanted nothing more than to run away and leave the country to sink or swim without him.
To hand off the responsibility that weighted his every step.
To just be a normal civilian who worried about normal civilian things.
He’d made his peace with being the next King of Thalania in his early twenties, and he’d spent the next ten years learning everything he could from his father to be the best king possible. The one his people deserved. The weight never decreased, but he learned to bear it without complaint.
And Phillip had taken it all away.
Meg reached out and touched his bicep. “He waited until after your father passed, right? So there was no way for him to formally adopt you and make the whole thing legal.”
Smart girl. He nodded. “It was a brilliant play.”
“Not brilliant enough,” Galen muttered. “He faked it. There’s no way he didn’t fake it.”
“The marriage certificate dates hold up.” His mother had married an American, and he and Galen had tracked down the records and had them verified.
There was no record of a divorce, and there should have been within the same state where they were married.
For there to be no record meant it had never happened.
Which meant Phillip was right.
Meg gave his arm a squeeze. “So that’s why you’re in Germany—the birth certificate.”
“Yes. It was the one item missing from Phillip’s presentation that dethroned me before I had a chance to actually be on the throne.
He’s not the kind of man to leave a loophole for someone to walk through, so there had to be a reason he chose not to include it.
” A long shot for the record books, but at this point long shots was the only thing they had left.
“Hard to get a birth certificate from a burned-down clinic.”
“And yet that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
” No guarantee that the backup records would hold the information he sought, but Theo wouldn’t leave Germany without at least trying.
He stared out the windshield as Galen guided them down the winding road.
Trees practically blocked out the gloomy skies that promised rain later in the day.
Despite that, it was a beautiful area and he relaxed back into his seat.
“If this doesn’t work, we’ll just have to set out to seduce Meg into marrying us. ”
She let loose a satisfying squeak. “That’s not funny.”
“Who’s joking?”
“You are, you asshole,” Meg hissed. She smacked him, hard enough to sting. “You can’t say stuff like that, Theo. I know what this is. We all know what this is. Don’t pretend like it’s something else. It’s too cruel.”
He opened his mouth to contradict her, but Galen gave a slight shake of his head. Fine, then. Theo ran his hand through his hair. “I’m hurt you don’t want to keep us, princess.”
“Wanting something has nothing to do with the reality.”
He knew what she’d say next—a long list of their theoretical differences, starting with the number in his bank account.
To Meg, his finances mattered more than anything she might share between them.
It was interesting that she’d looked to Galen to help during that first argument.
Theo could have been petty as fuck and told her that Galen’s holdings were double his own.
He’d lost a lot when Phillip stripped him of his titles, all the money and properties, except what he’d had in his personal accounts.
It was only because he’d enjoyed playing the stock market and was more than passably good at it that he had anything to his name at all.
Galen was still titled. He had two residences in Thalania—one in the capital Ranei, and one in the middle of his holdings, which included three towns and a small city, all of which he collected an income from in the percentage of a small tax.
All of it could be stripped from him, but they’d already made arrangements to combat that eventuality.
Not to mention Galen had trusted Theo to invest his money for over a decade. He was wealthy even without any of his connections to Thalania.
Theo couldn’t tell Meg any of that. She saw a kindred spirit in Galen, someone who stood in Theo’s shadow or some shit. And they saw him as the heir apparent, the one who would reclaim his throne and leave them both behind in different ways.
He didn’t have an answer for that.
He didn’t have an answer for a lot of things right now.
So Theo let the conversation fade into silence, rather than spark into an argument that would ruin the flickering happiness they’d claimed for their own. It wasn’t forever, but it didn’t have to be. He had to be content with that.
When have I ever been content leaving something I wanted behind?
Galen took a turn onto a wider road. They still had a good thirty minutes of driving ahead of them, so Theo leaned forward and clicked the radio on, picking up on one of the local channels.
His German was just as rusty as Galen’s, but the station played Top 40 hits, and that was good enough for now.
To one side, the road fell away into a ravine, dark and twisted with old growth. It made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Theo straightened. “Galen—” He never got the rest out.
One second they were cruising along, and the next they were airborne. Up was down. Down was up. Theo hung suspended in his seatbelt as the world rushed by for one breathless second.
Then they hit and everything went dark.
Meg must have lost consciousness. The last thing she remembered was looking out the window and now she was upside down and blinking blood from her eyes.
She touched the bright spot of pain on her arm and cried out at the feeling of something big and sharp protruding from her skin.
Glass, her mind so helpfully supplied. She knew better than to yank it out, so she swiped the blood from her face and tried to figure out what happened.
Theo hung from his seatbelt, his body limp. Unconscious. That was all. He’d passed out. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t possibly be dead. Theo’s life shone too brightly to be doused like this. It had to.
You’re going into shock, Meg.
Galen’s seat sat empty, door closed. The windshield was gone, but she couldn’t tell if it had happened during the crash or afterward.
It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting out of this car and then getting Theo out as well.
Cars didn’t really explode as easily as the movies made it look, right?
Oh god, what if they did?
She fumbled for her belt clasp, her movements slow and uncoordinated. Must have gotten knocked on the head…or it’s blood loss. The roof of the car over her head was stained a wet red that made her stomach lurch. How long had she been unconscious?
Too long.
She pushed on the latch, but it resisted. Jammed. “Oh, fuck.”
Footsteps outside her door. Meg blinked, but she didn’t get a chance to react before someone wrenched her door open and then Galen was there.
He looked just as shitty as she felt, small cuts peppering his face.
It didn’t seem to bother him, though. He touched her head and then cursed as the sight of the glass shard in her arm. “Hang in there, baby.”
“Theo.”