Page 70 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

“We need to talk. And we’re going to talk. I’m going to explain why I did what I did.”

Chapter 21

“That was one of my conditions,” I said, alarmed. “No explanation conversations.”

“You said no talking about it in the car. We’re not in the car.”

Darn him and his infernal and correct logic.

Smoke started to hang heavy in the room, making my eyes water and my lungs ache. “Did you open the flue?” I asked, running over to the fireplace. It wasn’t enough that we’d nearly frozen to death? Now we had to suffocate? So much for his “I know how to make a fire.”

I opened the flue with the knob, and the smoke started to dissipate. I also opened a window in the kitchen, but the wind blew too hard and too much snow came in for me to leave it open for long.

“What’s a flue?” he asked as I shut the window. Poor Rafe. He probably had flue-opening servants, too.

“Something you make sure is open when you build a fire so everybody around you doesn’t die from asphyxiation.”

“Where’s a smoke alarm when you need one?” he teased, and I saw that he had moved over to the couch. He patted a spot next to him and I sat down, holding the quilt around me like a shield.

I couldn’t delay the inevitable forever. I had to let him explain. Even if it hurt, even if it didn’t excuse what he did, I needed to know.

“First, I’m sorry about tonight and everything that’s happened. It’s my fault.”

Not what I had expected. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Wasn’t it?”

He didn’t control the weather, and the mugging and tire puncturing could have just as easily happened to me without him there. It might have had nothing to do with him. It was my fault for being in Iowa City. That had been my decision. Of the two of us, I was probably more to blame. But it had all been an accident.

Or one giant cosmic joke.

I refused to believe that it had been orchestrated.

“Did you stop to think that things might have been worse if you hadn’t been here? What if I’d been alone in Old Bess in my dress and trapped in this storm?” I shouldn’t have been so insistent on having things my way. We probably wouldn’t be stuck in this cabin. I took one hand out of the blanket shield and stroked his forearm. Solely to comfort him. It had nothing to do with how much I liked the way his skin felt.

He put his other hand on top of mine, and I had to pull back my rogue appendage. I needed all my wits about me for whatever he was about to say.

“Regardless, I am sorry. Not only for tonight,” he said, as he looked up at the ceiling and let out a deep breath. “But for everything. For the way that I hurt you. For the deception.”

I didn’t say anything. I would let him talk.

He rubbed the inside of one of his palms with his thumb, and his eyes got a far-off look. “I met Veronique Renault when I was twelve and at boarding school. I had just discovered girls, and she was beautiful and an heiress. I fancied myself in love with her. So much so that I didn’t date anyone else. All through boarding school, we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Which didn’t mean much at first, but had more meaning as time went on.”

He coughed, clearing his throat. The smoke was nearly gone. “When I was eighteen, I decided I wanted to marry her. I proposed, and she happily accepted. Dante tried to talk me out of it. He had heard rumors about her, and he thought I could do better. My parents were livid. There was no way they were going to let their teenage son marry. It caused a rift in my family.”

The pain in his voice was evident. “We made plans to elope when I graduated. We got an apartment together in Paris, and I enrolled at the university. A year later, Veronique was murdered.”

Of all the things I had imagined him saying, that was the absolute last. I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

“The authorities initially suspected me. I couldn’t blame them. They always suspect the boyfriend. Or the fiancé, to be more accurate. The paparazzi were relentless. I had lost my love, and they thought I had done it. I had no privacy, no time to grieve. I didn’t want to go home to Monterra, where I could have been left alone, because part of me blamed my family. I thought that if they’d just accepted us, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. I know now that wasn’t true, but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I even blamed myself. Given who I was, the resources I had, I should have been able to keep her safe.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Everyone else was right. The rumors were true. Veronique had a revolving string of lovers and cheated on me every chance she got. One of those men murdered her out of jealousy. It didn’t matter that they caught him. Then the tabloids said my parents had paid someone to take the fall and that I was actually guilty. No matter where I went, no matter what I did, there were cameras and accusations. I had to deal with my loss while I also dealt with the discovery that I had never really known her. One of her friends admitted to me that Veronique had never loved me and had only stayed with me because she wanted to be a princess more than anything. My relationship had been fictional, and I had been betrayed.”

“It wasn’t fictional,” I said, unable to stay quiet. My heart ached for him and the pain that he had felt. I couldn’t help it. “Your feelings were real.” Even if that skanky, cheating French slut’s feelings were not.

He let out a deep sigh. “Have you ever felt like you owed someone everything?”

That was a change from what we had been talking about. “Yes,” I replied, because I did. It was how I felt about Aunt Sylvia.

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