Page 43 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

Now his fingers were kneading my shoulders. “She drove me into town, where Aunt Sylvia was waiting for me. I’d never met her, but she looked just like an older version of my mom. My mother told me that Aunt Sylvia was going to take me to their family farm, and that John-Paul would never find it because my mom had always used her married name, Kim Kristofferson. There would be no connection to a Sylvia Summers or the Summers farm in Iowa. She hugged me goodbye, told me to be good, and said that she loved me. That was the last time I saw her.” My voice broke at the last sentence.

“Why didn’t she leave with you?”

I shrugged in response. I honestly didn’t know. It had all happened so fast—as soon as my mom drove off, Sylvia put me in her rental car and drove us to the airport to exchange it for another car, which she paid cash for and later told me she’d used a fake name and ID to rent. At the airport she gave me an outfit to change into that was nothing like the old-fashioned dresses I had grown up wearing, and had me stuff all of my hair into a knit cap. She hoped that would be enough to stop anyone from following us.

But I’d always wondered why my mom didn’t come with us. Was it because she didn’t want to come? Was she just removing her younger competition? Had she just given up?

Or had it been something nobler? Had she stayed so that I could go? John-Paul considered us his possessions. Like we were dolls or puppets that moved around only at his whim. No one defied him. And he told whatever lie he had to in order to maintain total control. Had she sacrificed herself to give me a chance to get away from him?

Then I explained to Rafe about his lies, how he had told me so many of them about the real world that when I first moved into the farmhouse I was too scared to leave. And I was still terrified that John-Paul would find me. So Aunt Sylvia homeschooled me for three years. She was so patient, and she brought the pastor over to work with me. I immediately distrusted him because of his position. But he was nothing like John-Paul, and he was honest, loving, and kind. He had been a counselor before feeling called to his ministry. He was the one who helped me move on, who had showed me the world wasn’t a scary place, and that John-Paul had been a consummate liar. It’s one of the reasons I did so much volunteering at the church. I needed to give back.

When I got to high school, I was ridiculously awkward and backward, and Whitney was the one who helped me learn to socialize and act normal. She never knew what I had been through and just thought I was weird. I told him how much she meant to me and how I felt like I’d never be able to repay her.

A wave of nausea hit me as the panic set back in, and somehow Rafe must have been able to tell because he went back to saying soft words while rubbing my back. This used to happen in the coal bin, too. I would freak the freak out, and then there would be a period of calm until the fear returned.

As the anxious feelings again abated, he spoke. “But you use the last name Kelley.”

“I probably should have changed my last name to Summers, but Kelley was my mother’s stage name. Aunt Sylvia asked me what last name I wanted to use, and I chose it after the stories she’d told me about my mom wanting to be an actress. It made me feel connected to her, and to her hopes and dreams. And it was all I had left of my mom. That and the red hair.”

He paused, thinking. “The night we met, you told me that your mother died. How do you know for sure?”

When I was younger, some part of me used to imagine that she had beat her sickness, outsmarted John-Paul again, and was coming to find me. Even though I knew it wasn’t true. “One of the sister wives that my mother had been closest to sent Aunt Sylvia an email. It was my mother’s last request, and she risked a lot to let us know. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“So you’ve never even been to your mother’s grave.”

Hot, burning tears filled my eyes. I choked them back, not wanting to sob. I had promised myself a long time ago that I would never cry about my childhood ever again. “No, I haven’t,” I finally managed. “I don’t even know where she’s buried.”

“That’s terrible,” he said, hugging me closer. “So it was just you and your aunt?”

“For a few years. Then she met Richard Parker at a fundraising event in Iowa City. Aunt Sylvia fell hard and fast for him. They got married two months after they first met. She’d never been married before, and I was so excited to have what felt like a real family and for her to have someone she loved. I was worried about her being alone because I was about to go off to college. Then three weeks after the wedding, he cleaned out all of their joint banking accounts, including her inheritance money, and skipped town. He left us dead broke. That’s why I had to sell Marigold. A month after that, Sylvia was diagnosed with MS.” The doctors had thought the extreme stress of her situation had led to her first flare-up.

I tilted my head back to look up at him. There was so much concern, affection, and tenderness in his gaze that I sighed. “The sheriff did some digging and found out that his real name was Richard Owens. He had pulled the same scam a bunch of times before.” It had bankrupted us. We never had any issue taking care of the farm before, but after that everything became a struggle. Aunt Sylvia’s flare-ups prevented her from trying to find a full-time job because we never knew when the next one would happen. We sold off everything we could, and I went to work. We constantly struggled.

“Did they ever catch him?”

“No. As far as the authorities know, he hasn’t struck again in the United States. Their guess is that he’s in some non-extradition country living off of all the money he stole.”

“Hmm.” It was an odd sound for him to make, and I wondered what he was thinking. “That’s a lot of hardship, and yet you still stay positive.”

“I’m not the only person in the world who’s suffered. I do think happiness is a choice. I don’t mean for people who suffer from depression or something. But for most people, it’s a choice. We get to decide how we feel. And I choose to be happy.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. I brushed my fingers against the side of his face, and he gave me a hint of a smile. “I’m sorry you’re scared and anxious right now, and I’m even more sorry for what you’ve been through. And this probably isn’t the time, but I want to let you know that you make me happy. Happier than I thought possible. And it’s been a really long time since I’ve felt truly happy.”

His sincerity was evident. Now my heart was racing for a reason other than terror. It felt like he was saying something more, something deeper, about his feelings without actually saying it. He wasn’t doing this for cameras or because someone expected him to. He really meant it. I wondered what had happened that had made him sad. I hoped he would tell me when he was ready.

“Back at ya,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “Present circumstances not included.”

At that he threw his head back and laughed. The sound was contagious, and I laughed along with him.

As the laughter tapered off, his eyes were bright with merriment. He was going to kiss me again, and I very much wanted him to.

But there was something else I needed to tell him, now that he knew everything. I put my hand to his chest to stop him. “Given what I just told you, I want you to know that I can’t tolerate lying. Of any degree or any kind. I know that’s a little heavy-handed, but after living through two horrible men who manipulated, stole, and lied to get what they wanted, it’s a deal-breaker for me. I won’t go through it again. I don’t think I’d ever get over it.”

That light in his gaze dimmed and then died altogether. It was a warning I gave to all the guys I dated, but without the accompanying backstory. I hadn’t found one yet who managed to be totally honest. I hoped Rafe could be. He turned his head right as the elevator started back up. He stood, still not making eye contact with me, and I wondered whether it was my imagination or if he was hiding something from me as he helped me to my feet.

Now I knew why he didn’t say anything, because he had been lying to me on that elevator like a Lying McLiar. I sat there, opening myself up to him completely, telling him how important it was for him to be honest, and he didn’t tell me the truth. In those moments I had been so vulnerable and shaken up that I think if he had come clean and just told me that he had an identical twin brother, and that they were both pretending to be the same person as a twist for the show, and that he was a prince, I probably would have forgiven him. I could have accepted it and moved on.

But he never did tell me. I found out. In the most shocking, public, and humiliating way imaginable.

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