by B. E. Baker
Beth doesn’t offer any opinions, but she doesn’t have to—with her eyebrows raised and her quirked mouth—she’s as skeptical as the day is long.
“I’ve been doing my best to fill in for my dad, but believe me. Franz will be able to do what I’ve done with one eye closed.”
“Sounds like he’ll have to, what with all his other responsibilities. I hope a tenth of his time will be as effective as all of yours has been, for the people of Liechtenstein’s sake.”
“It will be.”
Her brow furrows. “I thought you couldn’t stay, since you weren’t his biological son—”
“I can’t,” I snap.
She flinches, and I wish I could take it back. She didn’t deserve that, not when she’s merely responding to Adrian’s frustration. And probably my own, because if I’m being honest with myself, I’ve wished for nearly thirty years that Mom had just married Dad from the start. I wish I were really his son, his oldest child, an actual Prince of Liechtenstein, and not this pathetic placeholder, not quite at home anywhere. Never really belonging with anyone.
However, the daydreams of a child don’t alter the real world, and it’s time I give up on impossible dreams. Past time. “I’m sorry if I was short with you.”
“You wish you were your dad’s child, biologically. I get it.”
Of all the people I’ve met, Beth might actually understand. So I just nod.
“But even if you can’t take over as prince, I’m sure your dad could adopt you.” Her words are so soft I can barely hear them. She has no way of knowing that after thirty years of wishing and hoping, that my dad finally offered me papers naming me as his son.
Or that I already turned him down.
“If I were to be adopted, I would forfeit all claim to my biological father’s titles and estate.”
“That can’t be right,” Beth says. “In America, you can inherit from your birth parents, but you’re also entitled to a fair share from your adoptive parents.”
I shake my head. “Trust me, the title would pass, as would Château Solvay.”
“And you love it, this Château?”
I snort. “I’ve been there three times, I think.”
She tilts her head and purses her lips.
“Look, you can’t understand because you’re not from here. It’s different in Europe. Titles, lands, they still matter a great deal.”
“Well, my mom used to tell me something. She would say, ‘money can’t buy happiness.’ And I think you could apply that to titles and vast and impressive estates. You look happy with your mom and dad. You look happy here, working with Adrian. Maybe you’re just a happy person and you’ll find joy anywhere. I don’t know. I know better than most that adoption papers are just a formality.” She drops to a whisper. “But sometimes those formalities make a difference.”
I grab my briefcase and walk toward the door. “You don’t know me,” I say. “And I care a great deal about the formalities that provide me with my title, my lands, and consequently, my value. In America, you worry a great deal about being happy. Here in Europe, we worry a great deal more about things that are less transient. We care about things that last.”
I hate the hurt in her eyes, and I hate that I caused it. “I’m sorry if that was harsh, but things are very different here. I appreciate your concern, but I have things very well in hand.”
“I’m sure you do,” she says.
When we reach my car and she climbs into the passenger side, she still hasn’t said anything else. No questions about the snow in the mountains. No badgering about the origin of the family castle, or our healthcare system. I may not have known her long, but I already know that a happy Beth is a prattling Beth.
“We’re in the center of the bustling metropolis of Vaduz right now,” I say. “Would you like me to show you a few of the shops?”
She shrugs listlessly.
Oh no. Holly’s going to kill me if I broke Beth. “Maybe a restaurant.”
She shakes her head. “I’d better get back and check on Paisley.”
“Right.” My phone buzzes. “Speak of the devil. She’s feeling better and wants to know if we can bring her a Subway sandwich.”
Beth scrunches her nose. “Seriously?”
I chuckle. “She loves them—turkey, mustard, which she didn’t like until she went to America, double pickles, toasted with salt and pepper. She’s obsessed.”
“Do you have a Subway?” she asks.
I make a right turn and pull into a spot. I bob my head to the right.
Beth follows my direction and inhales. “You sure do.”
“Can I get you anything?”
Beth shakes her head. “I’m not a huge Subway fan, but thanks.”
I run inside to grab Holly’s sandwich, and when I get back to the car, Beth isn’t inside. There’s virtually no crime in Liechtenstein, but my heart races anyway. I broke her, and then I lost her? I cast about frantically. She should be easy to identify, since very few women here are taller than a metre seventy. I’ve nearly given up when I notice people gathering in front of the Hotel Adler. I cross the circle and push through.
Beth’s playing the piano absently as she chats with Jostli, the owner. He’s practically fawning over her.
“Beth,” I say more sharply than I intended. “There you are.”
“Oh, Cole, I’m so sorry. I heard the piano, you see. Some kids were banging on it, and I just came to check—”
“You can play here anytime you’d like,” Jostli says in English, but with a heavy German accent.
I roll my eyes. “Paisley’s waiting.” I figure using her middle name is better than a code, since no one here ever uses it. I’d hate for them to realize my sister was having cravings and out her secret before she’s ready.
Beth stands up. “Thank you so much, Jostli,” she says in German. “It was wonderful practicing casual conversation with you, and this is a very nice piano. Your aunt was very kind to leave it to you, and I’m very sorry for her loss.”
“Your loss,” I correct her absently in German. “You’re sorry for his loss, not his aunt’s.”
Jostli doesn’t look the least bit broken up about his apparently dearly departed aunt, but he certainly seems taken with Beth. I almost feel sorry for him when she doesn’t even spare him a backward glance. Almost, but not quite.
We reach the car. “We have a piano at the castle. You don’t need to find another one.”
She nods. “But last night.” She swallows abruptly and climbs into the passenger seat.
“Last night?” I raise both eyebrows.
“Well, it seemed like there was a reason that no one ever plays your gorgeous grand piano, and I don’t want to pick at an old wound. Especially after you’ve all been so gracious and welcoming to me.”
“It’s really fine.” And listening to her play the piano would hurt far less than talking about Noel.
“Okay,” she says.
My guilt about snapping at her earlier kicks into high gear. “It’s my brother,” I finally say. “He used to play a lot.”
“You have a brother?” I wonder whether Beth realizes she’s leaning toward me, looking at me like she’d look at a stray dog.
“I had a brother.” I can barely force the words out.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Holly moved to Atlanta and forgot about all of us after he died.” I’m surprised at how much bitterness invades my words.
“I wondered why she left in the first place, when I heard she was a princess.”
“Noel and Holly were inseparable,” I say stiffly. “They sort of filled our home with light, and then in the same month, they were both gone.” My voice breaks on the last word, and I grip the steering wheel at ten and two and stare straight ahead. With the short distance between downtown Vaduz and our castle, I’m nearly home, winding up the curving road toward the front gate.
“That must have been terrible for you. Was he sick?”
I nod.<
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“I thought Rob was dead.” When I glance her way, she’s staring out the window. “You said Noel filled your house with light, well, Rob was the anchor in our family. When he decided to sign up for the military, no one understood why. Mom and Dad tried their best to talk him out of it, but when his best friend begged for him to do it too, there was no stopping him. And when we got word that his unit had been hit with an IED and two men died.” She closes her eyes. “They didn’t know which ones.” A tiny choking sound escapes her lips. “But that was only for three days, and then we found out that he was alive. He had broken his back, but he survived.”
“He broke his back?”
“Well, severed, maybe,” she says. “I was in high school, and I didn’t pay enough attention to all that. But he had a lot of scary surgeries and thanks to an inexplicable miracle, he recovered. And then he came home.”
“Was it the same?”
She’s still riveted on the window, even though all she can see is the gate surrounding the castle. “It was different, but maybe it was better. Rob wasn’t the same, but he was just as solid, just as. . . I don’t know. As reliable, maybe, but he was sort of. . .thoughtful. He cared more about everyone around him, as if he was mindful that at any moment, we could be gone forever. Does that sound crazy?”
“Not at all. My dad was almost the opposite of that, though.”
“Was?” She turns toward me, her eyes impossibly wide.
“After Holly left, we muddled on, but Dad kind of checked out little by little. He went from being larger than life to. . . I don’t know. He kind of shrank. Like, without them, he didn’t care about life as much as he did before.” And nothing I did helped. He just kept shrinking and shrinking.
“Did Paisley used to play piano?”
I pull the Range Rover into the garage. “Only to humor Noel. He played brilliantly. Wickedly fast and jaunty one moment, then slow and dramatic the next.” I shake my head. “You stick the music in front of him and a few minutes later, he’d bang it out. I tell you, the world was so easy for him. He would have made a brilliant ruler. To know him was to love him, truly.”
“To know you is to love you, too,” Beth says. “So you must have that in common.”
I twist sideways to face her. “Not even close. If you knew Noel, you’d get it. We’re nothing alike.”
“You might be more similar than you realize,” she says. “I’m beginning to think you don’t see yourself very clearly.”
I open my mouth to argue when I notice a Bugatti parked at the end of the garage. Only one person I know drives a Bugatti. My shoulders tense.
“Hey, are you okay?” Beth asks.
She’s far, far too insightful, and as much as I like her, I really wish she wasn’t here right now. This is going to be hard enough without a loose, American, conversational cannon.
I’m ready to move, truly I am. I’m not rethinking my decision, but uncle Franz is a bit much. I had hoped he’d come after I was already gone. “I think we have company for dinner.” I point at the car.
“Is that a Bugatti?” Her eyes widen.
“You know European cars?”
She shrugs. “We own car dealerships back home. Occupational hazard, maybe.”
“Well, the driver of that particular car is my Uncle Franz.”
Her mouth drops open. “Next in line for the throne, Franz?”
We don’t have a throne, but I don’t bother correcting her. “The oldest of my dad’s younger brothers, yes. He’s also the CEO of the Banking Group, and a lawyer, and a financial genius. He’s a little. . . imposing. I’m going to apologize in advance if he’s rude to you. He won’t even notice.”
“Okay,” I say.
“In case you’re one of those super whizzes at reading people, we all think he’s probably on the spectrum. Mild, but he’s blunt to the point of being painfully rude sometimes, and he doesn’t ever seem to care, as if he doesn’t even notice.”
“I won’t say a word about anything, I swear,” she says.
I’m not sure that’s a promise she can keep, but at least she’ll try. I’d hate for her to get attacked again today.
When we pass through the door, Mom immediately seizes me. “Ah, Cole, you’re back. How’d it all go?” She beams a little too intensely, which is how I know she’s barely hanging on. The more stressed Mom gets, the nicer she becomes. Forced cheer is her defense mechanism, like a squid inking, or a porcupine throwing needles. Mom lobs smiles and compliments, but she can’t mask the crazy in her eyes, not from me.
“Aunt Andrea.” I bob my head at Uncle Franz’s wife, who’s ten years his senior. “Where’s Alejandro?”
“He had school commitments,” she says.
Beth’s head snaps toward my aunt, immediately recognizing another American. Even if Andrea was born in Puerto Rico, she emigrated so young that the United States is all she knows.
“Three Americans in one house,” Holly says, walking down the stairs. “If we aren’t careful, they’ll stage a coup.”
Uncle Franz chuckles. “I barely got to say two words to your husband at the wedding. I can’t wait to talk shop with him today.”
“He’s got one call after another for the next little while,” Holly says. “I’m afraid his smaller bank and investment bank don’t run quite as smoothly as your megaliths yet.”
Uncle Franz shakes his head. “Nonsense. We’ve acquired a few new banks that have allowed us to expand into far-flung markets, but what James has built from the ground up in a decade is excessively impressive. Truly. And the way he wields it like a rapier, shredding his enemies and friends alike.” Uncle Franz inhales and exhales slowly. “He’s an inspiration, and I need to pick his brain on several things. The exchange market in—”
I stop listening and start reviewing a list of things I need to accomplish in the next two weeks before I leave for Antwerp.
Thank goodness for Holly. She carries most of the interactions with Uncle Franz and Aunt Andrea. Afternoon tea stretches out far longer than I like, but eventually it ends, and we’re released to change for dinner. I catch Beth on the way upstairs, jogging up two steps at a time to pull even with her. “Sorry about that,” I say. “I had no idea they were coming, or I’d have left you at the Adler to practice piano or something. Jostli is obnoxious, but he’s harmless.”
“I didn’t understand most of what your uncle and Paisley talked about, and your Aunt Andrea was nearly as intimidating with her fashion lines, but they were perfectly polite. And now I can boast that I’ve met three princes.”
“Still only two,” I say. “I’m not a prince, remember?”
She shakes her head. “You’re a prince to me.”
I laugh. “That’s exactly the kind of thing you shouldn’t say at dinner, though.”
“Are you sure you want to give up and hand everything off?”
“Of course I am.”
She shrugs and purses her lips.
We passed my room, rounded the corner and are standing outside her door. “What does that mean?”
“What?” She lifts one eyebrow.
“That shrug and frown thing you just did.”
“Oh, good grief. Nothing.”
I cross my arms. “That meant something. I have a sister—I know when a girl’s dying to say something.”
“I’ve already been fussed at once today.” She pulls her thumb and index finger from one corner of her mouth to the other, like she’s zipping her mouth closed.
“You don’t really have a zipper on your mouth. . .” I lean against the doorway.
“You Europeans are obnoxious, did you know that?”
I smile. “We’re persistent, and we’re elegant. Is that what you meant to say?”
“Right, that was it.” Beth ducks inside her room.
“See you in a bit,” I say.
“Just be sure,” she says. “Before you do anything final. There are some things you can’t take back, no matter how badly you wish you could.” Sh
e closes the door before I can ask about the story behind that cryptic remark. Which is probably for the best, because I barely change in time as it is. Beth and I reach the staircase simultaneously, and I offer her my arm.
Her incredulous smirk is priceless. “I can walk on my own.”
“That’s not the point.”
“These heels are stupidly high.” She takes my arm until the bottom of the stairs and tries to let go.
I tighten my hand on hers. “You must allow me to lead you into the dining room. After all, we can’t have you loitering around the piano again.”
Her mouth rounds into a perfect o. “Hey, I could play the piano during dinner,” she says. “Then you don’t have to worry about what I’ll say, and maybe some music will improve the atmosphere.”
“You don’t work for us, you know.”
“But I’m just taking and taking and taking,” she says. “It would be nice to be useful in some way.”
“I’ll let Marta know to add you to the rotation to mop the floors tomorrow,” I say.
“Of course.”
I laugh. “I’m kidding.”
Every eye in the room turns toward us when we walk inside. The smile falls from both our faces and we take the seats at the end of the table, just like last night. But this time, Uncle Franz and Aunt Andrea are seated across from us.
“How long has it been since this room was redecorated?” Aunt Andrea asks. “Because it’s awfully dark, isn’t it?”
She’ll be measuring the curtains next. Have Mom and Dad already told them why they invited them here, or are they simply assuming? I thought we agreed that I’d tell them about my plans to work for Argenta first.
“Would you like living in a castle?” Mom asks.
Aunt Andrea arches one eyebrow. “Castles are dreary, but I can make it work. My bigger concern is that I don’t know how you’ve survived in Vaduz.”
“You don’t like small towns?” Beth asks.
