by A. C. Arthur
“He was our grandfather,” she answered quietly.
“Who was?” Rafe asked.
“He wasn’t lying about that part at least. His real name is Amari Marco Vansig. Marco Vansig was our grandfather,” Malayka told Rafe.
Roland heard Kris curse and knew his brother’s mind had clicked at the same time Roland’s had. They thought of the accounts at the bank. The ones that were opened under the name A. M. Vansig. Roland had also discovered they were funded with money embezzled from two of the world’s richest Americans. One of them had employed Malayka and the other had been engaged to her.
They’d only connected all these dots late last night and had planned to speak to Rafe this morning before the breakfast. But Gary’s text message had come first.
Years ago, Malayka had gone by the name Malinda Sampson, and neither of the billionaires had wanted the scandal that would have been attached to trying to prosecute the much-younger woman who had slept with and stolen from them.
“Amari’s mother mother was Amabelle Vansig. She was Marco Vansig’s oldest daughter.”
“His only child,” Rafe stated coldly. “Marco Vansig had a daughter who would have never been able to carry on as ruler of this island. Their family would have instantly lost control upon his death.”
“The death that your father caused,” she replied. “If Josef DeSaunters had not led that revolt against the ruling government, Marco Vansig would have lived longer and Amabelle would have been married. Her future would have been secured.”
“He was selling her to the vicious ruler of a Mediterranean island whom he owed a large sum of money to,” Rafe stated evenly. “She would have likely been beaten and abused like the man’s previous wives. Is that what Amari would have called a secure future?”
From what Roland had read about the man who had once ruled Grand Serenity, he wasn’t at all surprised to be hearing about this wedding agreement for the first time. Actually, for a moment, it reminded him of Hugo Harrington and all his shenanigans to get Valora married into royalty. In that moment he felt very sad for Hugo, but extremely relieved that he and Valora had found their own happiness in their own time.
“She would have married and they would have had money. Amari would not have been born in shame and filth. His mother would not have turned into a vicious drunk, abusing him every day until he grew taller and stronger than her and whichever man she was entertaining at the time. He got away from Amabelle and her boyfriend and the run-down house in the Bahamas where Amabelle had been forced to live, escaping to the United States. He did not hear from or see his mother again until he heard she’d killed herself a year ago.”
Rafe stared at her without moving. He stood no more than four feet away from her, but he did not make any move to go to her, to touch her or to console her, even as her shoulders jerked and she cried a little harder.
“When did you meet him?” Roland heard his father ask. “When did you hook up with Vansig’s grandson and plan this revenge?”
His voice was stern and cold, distant and serious. He was in full Prince of Grand Serenity mode now. There was nothing personal here, nothing except for the twitch in his father’s jaw that said his patience was wearing very thin.
Malayka wrapped her arms around her chest then, shaking as she took another breath. She appeared to be cold—in addition to upset—as if the chill from Rafe’s reaction to her was a physical one.
“Two years ago,” she said, shaking her head so that the strands of hair that had fallen into her face moved slightly. “I was in New York at Fashion Week. I had front-row seats because I was dating one of the designers then,” she continued.
Roland almost offered the fact that she was engaged to the man and had managed to siphon a couple of million dollars from an account he had unwisely added her name to.
“We met backstage. He’d made a name for himself in the States as a hairstylist to the stars. After seeing him work on a few of the models, I thought he was definitely talented, but kind of sad. He thought I was available. Luckily there were bodyguards all around me throughout the show.”
“Lucky because you did not want to be available to a man with a smaller bank account?” Rafe asked.
Roland probably wouldn’t have phrased that question so kindly. After a quick glance at Kris and Gary he figured they were thinking the same thing. As for Sam, her arms were also folded across her chest, but the look on her face as she glared at Malayka spoke of nothing but anger and contempt.
“No,” Malayka said, then gave a wry chuckle. “Lucky because when we met up another year later, after my breakup with the designer and just after Amari found out his mother was dead, we discovered we actually had a lot in common. He mentioned Grand Serenity Island and I told him that my mother had been born here. We were both shocked to learn that we shared the same grandfather.”
“Marco Vansig had one child,” Rafe insisted.
Her arms fell to her sides as she took a step forward. The guards who had been standing right behind Roland, Kris and Sam moved in. Rafe lifted a hand to stop them.
Malayka ignored everyone but Rafe.
“He had one legal child and one illegitimate one. I was fortunate enough to be the daughter of Cessaly Sincero. She was sixteen when Marco Vansig raped her. I was the product of that encounter.”
Roland wanted to shake her right at that very moment. While he and his siblings had thought all along that Malayka was up to no good. They’d had no idea how deep the treachery ran.
“So, you two believed you were the ultimate losers of a war you had no part in and decided to plan your revenge,” Rafe said. “You lied to me day after day, and then you tried to kill me, to kill my children.”
The prince’s body shook with rage now.
“No,” she said and moved to him again. This time she reached out and touched his father’s arm.
Rafe did not move a muscle. He did not even look down at her.
Sam, however, had stepped closer to their father, the look on her face and her stance clearly sending the message that she was more than ready to do bodily harm to Malayka.
“I was only supposed to find information to blackmail you. I thought I could use the bank accounts, so I broke into Kris’s office in search of a paper trail of the deposits into the account. Then it dawned on me that the money would be traced back to the men I’d embezzled it from. Amari wanted to rule Grand Serenity. He wanted to shame you and your family out of the palace. That’s all.”
“No, that was not all.” Sam spoke up then. “You tried to have my father’s car run off the road. A bomb went off in our house when hundreds of people were here as our guests. Somebody shot at me...and you, for that matter! And we would all be dead or severely injured right at this moment if the extra security we were forced to hire hadn’t caught the man you paid to drive through the gates with a truck full of explosives!”
Gary moved in at that point, taking Sam’s arm and pulling her closer to him. She’d begun to cry, she was so upset. Roland clenched his teeth at the helplessness he felt at this moment.
Amari had already been carried away. He would be on his way to the jail again, this time to be chained to his bed in a cell until the trial. Malayka was still here, still inflicting pain on his family and Roland desperately wanted it to stop.
“I couldn’t find anything,” Malayka continued, pulling on Rafe’s shirt in an attempt to get him to look at her.
It didn’t work.
“There was nothing to find, Rafe. You are a man of integrity. Your family, even him,” she added with a roll of her eyes in Roland’s direction, “manage to live and to rule by the same strong principles and standards that your father had. I looked and I looked. I listened in on conversations, went through personal papers in your office. I even hired Landry, thinking that maybe she could seduce Roland and get some type of scan
dal going. But it didn’t work. Everything started to backfire,” she said. “You asked me to marry you and it felt so real, Rafe. Everything we shared began to feel so real. I was planning a royal wedding. I was going to be a princess. Finally.”
“But Vansig wanted to rule,” Kris interjected. “He wanted to bring Grand Serenity back into the Vansig family. You messed up the plan.”
“Yes,” Malayka answered, but did not look at Kris when she did.
Instead, she lowered her head until her face touched the sleeve of Rafe’s shirt.
“Yes, I messed up because I fell in love. For the first time in my life, I’m in love.”
“Lying bitch!” Sam yelled in her direction.
Malayka only shook her head as she looked up to Rafe. “I’ve lied about many things in my life, but not this. That’s why Rafe wasn’t in the car that day. I waited until I knew that the driver was scheduled to bring him back to the palace to call Rafe and tell him that the mine owner had called for him on his personal line at the palace. I knew Rafe would go to see him while he was close to the man’s house. I knew he would not be in that car.”
They all stilled at her words.
“The reason the bomb didn’t kill everyone in the ballroom was because I moved it. They had planted it under one of the buffet tables. It would have killed everyone in the ballroom.”
“Including you,” Rafe said through clenched teeth.
“The day before that, I had told Amari I couldn’t do this anymore. I told him I was in love with you and that I wanted to marry you. I tried to convince him that I would keep him as my personal stylist and I would pay him lots of money so he could live in the palace, in the lifestyle he insisted was his birthright. I thought that was a good deal for both of us. We were Vansigs and we were back in the palace, after all.”
She shook her head then.
“He was so angry. If you hadn’t found that construction worker and eventually arrested Amari, I don’t know what he would have done next.”
“How about hire another guy to shoot at my sister and then escape from jail?” Roland finished for her.
“I didn’t know he was going to do any of that. Later that day I got an email from him,” she told them.
“The email that we intercepted,” Gary said.
“We had a plan and I felt bad about not holding up my part of the bargain. But I loved you, Rafe. I loved you and I wanted to marry you. I even followed that creep Morty Javis to Sam’s office the night of the Founder’s Day Ball. I’d overheard some of his conversations with and about Sam. I knew his type, and I figured he was going to make a move. I tried to help her.”
They were all silent, then, because that part of her story rang true. Morty had attacked both Malayka and Sam in her office that night. They’d all wondered why Malayka was there in the first place, but the fact that Gary had killed Morty seemed to overshadow that question.
“I know that all of you have been against me. Rafe, I told you they weren’t going to like me and you were the one who insisted that they would get used to it, that we were going to be together, regardless,” she said, both her hands now on Rafe’s chest, her imploring gaze staring up at him.
Roland, and he suspected everyone who was standing there at the moment, waited for Rafe’s reaction. Malayka had just admitted to being in on the plot that had almost killed members of this family. Sure, she was now declaring her love for Rafe, but wasn’t it too late for that? In Roland’s mind, yes. There was no question. She could not love Rafe and knowingly sit by while his family was targeted. Even if she didn’t carry out any of those heinous acts herself, she’d known who was behind them and she did nothing to stop him.
Rafe moved slowly, lifting his hands to grasp Malayka’s wrists and push her away from him. She looked stricken when he immediately released his hold on her and took a few steps back.
“You forget that I know what it is to be in love with someone,” he told her. “There was never a moment that I did not trust Vivienne with my life and with the lives of our children. No matter what I may have thought I felt for you, the trust is gone,” he said somberly.
“Rafe—” she began, but Rafe only shook his head.
It was a quick and definite motion, one that had Malayka’s lips snapping immediately shut.
“If you loved me, you would have never set out to trick me or to harm my family. When you knew they were being targeted, you should have come forward. You should have told me or the police. You should have done something.”
“I did. I tried to stop him,” Malayka insisted.
“On your own terms,” Rafe continued. “You tried to stop him without implicating your part in the plan. When you love someone their welfare, their happiness takes priority.”
“What about my happiness?” Malayka yelled back at him. “What about my welfare? My mother was thrown out of her family home when they found out she was carrying Vansig’s child! I grew up on the streets when I should have been given more regard. I should have been somebody!”
“That may be true,” Rafe told her. “But you will never be my wife.”
After the words were spoken, Rafe turned away from her. He looked to Gary and gave him a nod.
“I want them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Rafe said and continued walking until he disappeared inside the house.
Gary motioned to the two guards, who immediately moved to where Malayka stood. One of them grabbed her from each side and walked her away. To her credit, she didn’t say another word. She didn’t make another plea. She simply walked out of their lives almost as mysteriously as she had come to be there in the first place.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Roland, Kris, Sam and Gary walked back into the palace. Police were still moving about the property, even though the threat of any bombs or other explosives had been cleared. Huge fresh flower arrangements that had been brought in for the wedding created a fragrant atmosphere in the front foyer. Roland was surprised to see Landry and Valora also there.
“Is everything alright?” Landry went straight to Kris.
Valora came to stand beside Roland. “I can leave if you want me to,” she said quietly to him.
“Nonsense,” he said with a shake of his head as he took her hand. “You’re father knows as much, if not more about this family than I do. That makes you one of us.”
“For better or for worse,” Sam said glumly. “Malayka admitted to her part in this debacle.”
“Oh, no,” Landry said as Kris wrapped an arm around her. “I didn’t want it to be true. I mean, I didn’t like Malayka, I know that none of you did, but for your father’s sake, I wanted her to be genuine.”
“She was,” Sam said. “A genuine liar. Her and her so-called cousin Amari. They both deserve every bit of whatever the courts decide to give them.”
Kris shook his head when Landry looked up at him in question. “I’ll tell you the whole sordid story later. Now, I think we all need a drink or a nap or something.”
“I can get on board with a drink,” Gary replied.
Roland shook his head. “I can’t believe this is how this day has turned out.”
“Me, either,” Rafe said, surprising each of them by entering the foyer, now dressed in his tuxedo.
“Where are you going, Daddy?” Sam asked him.
“Well,” Rafe began as he came to a stop in front of his family. “I was thinking that we have all this food and entertainment planned for tonight. Somebody should just get married.”
In that instant, all eyes moved from Rafe with no subtlety at all to Roland and Valora.
“What?” Roland asked.
“You love her, don’t you?” Rafe asked his son.
Roland looked his father straight in the eye and declared, “Yes, Dad. I love her.”
Rafe smiled and nodded. “Then you should marry her, son. Tomorrow is promised to no man.”
“He’s right,” Landry chimed in. “For the last eight months we’ve all been walking around, either planning or dreading—or possibly a little of both—this day. Just because one wedding won’t take place, doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any nuptials exchanged today.”
Rafe began to laugh. “You picked a good one, Kris. A mighty good and smart one.”
“I stood still for forty-five minutes getting fitted for that tux,” Gary added. “I guess I might as well get the chance to wear it.”
Roland saw them all looking at him expectantly. He felt Valora standing at his side, but she hadn’t said a word. He was almost afraid to look over at her. Had he planned on marrying her? Of course he did. He loved her. It was the obvious next step. Obvious to everyone including him, he supposed. But was this how he wanted to do it? Was this how she wanted to get married? In a couple of hours, with plans that had been made by someone else, for someone else?
He began to smile as he realized that this was perfect. It was as unpredicted and surprising as their love.
“Will you do it?” he asked when he finally turned to look at her.
She was smiling at him in return, her eyes bright with excitement. “Will I do what?”
Sam snickered and Landry covered her mouth to keep everyone from knowing that she was doing the same. Okay, Roland thought, if they wanted it that way...
He moved to stand directly in front of Valora and slowly went down on one knee.
Behind him Roland could hear Hugo clapping.
Roland took Valora’s hand and kissed its back. He looked up to her and asked with the most sincerity he’d ever felt in his life, “Will you marry me? Today?”
She laughed then and shook her head. “This is insane. They said you would never marry. They said I would never marry a prince.”
“They’re not us,” Roland told her. “This is just you and me. Tell me you’ll be my wife...in about three hours.”
