Page 96 of Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra)

Chapter 28

“You didn’t ask for my opinion, but I’m old, which means I get to give it to you anyway,” Aunt Sylvia said as she sat across from me at the table, opening her Diet Coke. “First, I wanted to let you know that I got a phone call from the sheriff. They found Richard.”

She took a drink while she let the shock of that set in. “What? How?”

“He was in Dubai, and they brought him back to the US. He said he was at a party on a private plane and woke up bound and gagged on the front steps of a police station in New York.”

I couldn’t believe how calmly she was telling me this. “Did they find any money?”

She set her can down. “The money’s gone. But he’s caught. Now we have both of the men who screwed up our lives behind bars.”

Rafe had done this. He was the only one I’d ever told about Richard, and the only one with the resources to track him down and get him back into this country. I was overcome with an incredible sadness. Not that Richard had been caught—I was thrilled about that. But that Rafe was gone.

And I knew where she was headed with this. “Speaking of money, we’re going to need to list the guesthouse again. We need the money,” I said.

“No, we don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, playing with the tab on the soda. “Rafe paid for two years of rent on the guesthouse. And he paid off the mortgage on the farmhouse and the back taxes. Everything is taken care of.”

Anger came rushing back. “What? You can’t accept it. We don’t need his charity.”

“We actually do need his charity. We’ve been barely keeping our heads above water for years, and I took the help from the wonderful young man who offered because of his feelings for you.”

“I’m not taking it!”

“Well, then it’s a good thing he offered it to me and not to you, because I’m not too proud to accept it. You got your horse and I got my house. And the last time I checked, charity was the pure love of Christ. What kind of Christian would I be if I denied someone else the chance to show us that kind of love?”

Love was the reason for it. Maybe not the religious kind, but definitely love. I wanted to say he had a guilty conscience or had done it just to be kind. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t the reason.

He’d run away, but there was no denying that he still loved me.

Hope took hold of my heart and refused to let go. I stroked Laddie’s head as a distraction.

“And I know that the way that you deal with things is to hide. I can’t blame you after all you’ve been through. But it’s time to stop hiding. It’s time to woman up and go after the man you love.”

My chin trembled. “He left me.”

“Yes, just like your mother. Like I told you in the hospital, he left because you told him you didn’t love him and wanted him to go. And he loved you enough to do it.”

Back in Max’s cabin, Rafe had said he would leave if I wanted him to. If I told him there was no chance. I still didn’t remember what had happened in the ambulance. There was this wisp of familiarity about it, but nothing I could catch and pin down. Did I really tell him I didn’t love him and that there was no chance for us? That I wanted him to go?

Maybe it was better this way, for us to be apart. “He put a tracking device on me.” It was a weak argument, and we both knew it.

“And thank heavens he did. Who knows what that man would have done to you if Rafe hadn’t found you when he did? What if I was the one in danger? Or Whitney? Or Rafe? Wouldn’t you have done anything to keep us safe?”

That was true. And he was overly protective after what had happened with Veronique. The woman he loved had died on his watch. It wasn’t his fault, but he was the kind of man who would always blame himself and spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it by keeping his loved ones safe.

Including me. Especially me.

“Loving him hurts,” I admitted. Laddie must have heard my sadness, because he licked my hand in sympathy.

“Loving someone doesn’t hurt. MS hurts. Lies hurt. Regrets hurt. But love doesn’t. Love is the one thing that makes all those other things better.”

She was right. My heart ached because he was gone, not because I loved him. “I didn’t want him to leave.”

“You had a funny way of showing it.”

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