Chapter 13
Pressure built in Theo, a great crushing monster he couldn’t deny. Seeing Galen walk through the door, whole and hale, helped. A lot. But every time he looked at Meg, too pale and determined to power through the weakness caused by her injury, he wanted to break something.
This was his fault.
Galen hustled Meg out to the car—a different one than what he’d left with—and Theo went to find Alexis. His aunt stood in the backyard, smoking a cigarette, her eyes on the clouds overhead. “You’re determined to see this through.”
“I don’t have another option. I never did, despite what you want to believe.
” Once Phillip got a taste of power, he’d never stop.
He might be content to play the puppeteer behind the throne now, but eventually that wouldn’t be enough.
Theo’s brother and sister were vulnerable now that their father was gone.
He was raised as the heir, with no veil over his eyes when it came to how things worked.
They were sheltered and kept coddled. When Edward hit eighteen, that would have changed, but their father died before he could ease them into the realities of being part of Thalania’s ruling family.
Theo couldn’t abandon them any more than he could abandon his country.
“I have to do this,” he said.
Alexis exhaled a long stream of smoke and looked at him. “You might get both of them killed.”
He tensed at the very idea of it. Galen could take care of himself, but he thought of Theo first, rather than his own safety. Meg was smart and savvy, but she was out of her depth in this situation. A world without either of them would be unthinkable. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You’re so much like your father, it makes me sick.” She shook her head and took another drag from the cigarette. “You’re not a god, Theodore. You can’t save everyone.”
He could stand here and argue with her until he was blue in the face, but she would never forgive him for being the reason her sister stayed in Thalania, or for having that country’s stamp all over him.
Theo was who he was. And Alexis might not believe it, but Mary had been happy until she died.
However his parents’ relationship started, it ended in mutual affection and love.
He couldn’t say as much to his aunt, though, without being accused of lying.
Instead, he went with the reason they were in Germany to begin with. “Will you give me a copy of her birth certificate?”
“You should let this go. Settle down with your cute little polyamorous life. Have babies or don’t. Grow old at a normal pace instead of accelerated through the stress of holding an entire country together.”
Theo held onto his patience by his fingertips.
“Phillip is actively trying to remove me from the equation now, Alexis. He won’t stop, because as long as I’m alive, I’m a threat—even if I’m living what passes as a normal life.
This is as much about survival as it is about reclaiming my birthright.
” He paused. “And my mother deserves to have her reputation cleared.”
Alexis gave a bitter little laugh. Her blue eyes, so like his mother’s, held no warmth or sympathy. “Mary’s dead. Who gives a fuck about her reputation?”
“I do. And I think you do, too.” He glanced over his shoulder. Galen would have Meg in the car by now. They were waiting. “Alexis, please.”
She sighed and walked to a small table situated between two wicker chairs to snuff out her cigarette. Alexis bent and pulled a faded blue folder from beneath one of the chair cushions. She handed it to him. “Next time you’re going to bring violence down on us, don’t involve my son.”
“I won’t.” It was the least he could agree to. “The renovation is complete, as agreed. Thank you for the use of the house.”
Alexis shook another cigarette out of her pack and lit it. “I’m still contemplating burning it to the ground.”
He bit back a protest. The house belonged to her, and as such, it was her choice.
No matter how little he liked it. There was no guarantee Theo would make it back through Germany again any time soon, but hell if he wouldn’t have bought that house from her outright if he thought for a second she’d sell.
They’d only been there for roughly twenty-four hours, but the memories he and Meg and Galen had created within those four walls would stay with Theo for the rest of his life.
He flipped open the folder and read the equally faded birth certificate for one Mary Mortimore. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m assisting in your determination to get yourself killed.” She turned away.
There was nothing else to say. He’d got what he came for, and there was no mending bridges when it came to Alexis. There hadn’t even been a bridge to begin with. “Stay safe, Alexis.”
“Go.”
He went.
Theo made sure the door was locked behind him and then walked to where Galen had a beige Audi station wagon running and slipped into the back seat next to Meg. Galen barely waited for the door to shut before he took off. “You got it.”
He looked at the birth certificate again. Mary Louise Mortimore. His mother. “I got it.” It didn’t seem like anything special, though. He had no idea why Phillip had specifically not included it in the evidence he’d compiled, but Theo had every intention of finding out.
After they got to safety.
He leaned forward. “Greece.”
“Figured.”
Meg had found a blanket somewhere—Galen, no doubt—and had it wrapped around her so that only her face was visible. “What’s in Greece?”
“A property Galen owns that no one in my family or his knows about. He purchased it through a shell corporation within another shell.”
She gave a wan smile. “I’m sure the fact that Greece borders your country has nothing to do with that decision.”
“Well, there is an infinity pool.”
She laughed softly. “Of course there is.”
“Next he’ll try to convince you that naked sunbathing is the thing to do.
” Though there was a thread of amusement in Galen’s voice, the tense line of his shoulders gave lie to it.
He glanced at Theo in the rearview. “Why don’t you both rest for a bit?
It’s a long drive, and we’re going to have to make it longer to muddy the trail. ”
“I’ll take over in a few hours.” He should have said he’d drive now, but the truth was that his head pounded hard enough that it was a wonder it didn’t fly right off his shoulders. Theo needed a handful of meds and a couple hours sleep and he’d be as good as new.
Mostly.
“Works for me.”
Theo touched Meg’s knee. “How are you holding up?”
“Oh, you know, I’m peachy.”
Right. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. He motioned. “Come here, princess. We both need some rest while we can get it.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt and moved to the center seat.
Once she had buckled herself back in, he arranged the blanket around them and tucked her against his side.
The tension bled out of her as the space between them warmed.
She shivered. “God, this is the most insane experience of my life, and that’s saying something. What the hell did they do—shoot us?”
“Not us. One of the tires.” Galen didn’t look back. “It’s not an impossible shot, but it took a lot of skill to set it up so that the tire would go out right as we hit a curve and send us into the ravine.”
“They really want you dead, don’t they? I thought you had until your brother’s coronation.”
He should shield her from this, but even lies of omission tended to blow up in his face when it came to Meg. Better to put all their cards on the table and let her decide for herself. “They think you might get pregnant.”
She shot up fast enough that she almost clipped him in the jaw. “What?”
Galen took the entrance ramp onto the Autobahn and picked up speed. “If you get knocked up with Theo’s kid, then it bring other factors into play.”
“Why? If Theo isn’t in line for the throne right now, then why would his kid be a factor?”
Theo sighed. “Because my uncle knows he’s spun a web of lies and my brother is barely more than a child.
He’s not going to be married and settling down anytime in the next few years, even if he wasn’t taking the throne.
That leaves our sister as his only heir, followed by Phillip.
And Phillip has no kids of his own. You mentioned a civil war, but having our line die out would cause a civil war.
There are two lines who could argue that they hold enough royal blood to be next in line after Phillip, and neither of them are going to compromise.
It would be England’s War of the Roses all over again.
While there are members of both families that would be happy to see that happen, the majority of them prize Thalania and their business interests over their ambitions.
If they know that I have an heir, they might be willing to support me despite the evidence Phillip provided.
I’m a known quantity, and even though you’re not one of the marriage candidates they’d been pushing on me since I hit twenty-one, it wouldn’t matter. Stability is everything.”
“So many strings.” She gave a sigh of her own and resumed her position tucked against his side. “I think I’m going to try to sleep now.”
He’d said something wrong again. Theo held Meg close and let the hum of the car’s engine sooth his eyelids shut.
He never usually had a problem talking to people, especially women, but from the start Meg had cut through the bullshit.
She didn’t like words twisted into games, didn’t get off on the push and pull of power plays the way some women did.
She didn’t want his money, but she wanted him.
She didn’t seem too keen on the fact he was a prince, but she didn’t blink at his unconventional relationship with Galen—or that they wanted her to be part of it.
She’d agreed that this should be temporary, but every time he said something that supported that agreement, something shut down in her hazel eyes.