Page 68 of Raul
As they talked and shared the delicious food, she tried to imprint moments in her memory. The way his sun-streakedbrown hair curled at the ends as it dried. The contrast of his light eyes with his olive skin. The sudden flash of his teeth when he smiled at her. The dark, smooth timbre of his voice when he called hermi amor. The ripple of his shoulder muscles when he offered her a bit of food.
And the easy flow of their conversation. They talked about anything and everything.
So she didn’t hesitate to ask him, “What is it like to suddenly have a half sister? I always wanted a sibling or two myself.” Maybe that would have taken some of her father’s pressure off of her.
Raul took a bite of tapas as he considered his feelings about his half sister.
“Grace is terrific,” he said easily. “She’s smart and articulate and is making amazing progress with the new veterinary school.” The school his father had fabricated out of thin air to persuade his newly discovered daughter to accept the title of princess.
“That’s the surface stuff. How do you feel about this new sibling who got thrust into your life? That had to change your family dynamic.”
Erica never let him get away with the simple answer. Her probing made it possible for him to admit some less-than-flattering truths.
“I like her tremendously. She also takes some of the more, er, ceremonial commitments off my plate, which I’m mostly grateful for.”
“Mostly?”
She always caught his unspoken admissions. The ones that made him feel selfish and petty.
“I’m going to sound like a total asshole, but sometimes I get pissed off that she’s taking over my duties, even though I don’t want to cut a ribbon or plant a tree ever again. I enjoyed that once, but now…” He shrugged. “I have meetings to attend where I actually get things accomplished. But she’s doing great as the princess. Never puts a foot wrong.”
“I understand. You want her to just once drop the scissors or get dirt on her dress,” Erica said. “To prove that it isn’t so easy to be the royal representative.”
That surprised a chuckle out of him. “I don’t really wish her a soiled dress, but I feel…” Like a dog in the manger.
“Displaced,” Erica filled in for him. “Someone else slid into your job without obvious effort. Although I imagine you helped her out the first few times.”
He had dismissed that in his memory, but on Grace’s earliest outings—and even his stepmother Eve’s—he had guided them through the unspoken protocols.
“In fact, I did accompany her.”
“Then take credit for being a great teacher,” Erica said. “You made her the successful ribbon cutter that she is.”
Now he laughed as a buoyant feeling rose in his chest. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” She looked at him with a question in her clear hazel eyes.
“Show me how to get my head out of my ass.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips.
She squeezed his hand while she searched his face with an odd intensity. “It’s understandable that you might resent Grace. You’re not an only child anymore.”
She was pushing him hard, but he held her gaze.
“Once the first shock wore off, and I saw how happy it made Pater to have a daughter, I couldn’t dislike Grace.” He looked away to dig into the feelings he had never put into words before. “It might have been more of a problem if she had been a man. But a daughter didn’t challenge me…or Gabriel, who is like a second son to my father. She expanded the family in a different way.” He smiled at Erica. “Pater wanted to have a horde of children.”
“How sad that he didn’t.” Her smile was melancholy. “What a gift Grace must have seemed when he found her.”
“And how ironic that the gift was given to him by thatbrujaOdette Fontaine,” Raul said, letting his hatred boil in his voice.
“Holy shit! What?!” Erica jerked upright in her chair. “What does Odette Fontaine have to do with Grace?”
Hostia!What the fuck had he just said? He felt so comfortable with this woman that he had blurted out the most tightly kept secret of the royal family. No one outside the family and Mikel knew that Odette was Grace’s birth mother. They had fabricated a very effective cover story about Grace’s supposedly dead mother. Now he had carelessly exposed the horrifying truth.
“I should not have told you that,” he said with urgency. “You can never tell anyone else. No one!”
“Tell them what? I don’t know how Odette is part of this—” She gasped. “She’s not… She couldn’t be… She’s Grace’smother?”
“You. Cannot. Tell. Anyone.” Raul put every ounce of command in his voice.
