The Queen's New Year Secret

by Maisey Yates

  “What are you doing up?” Kairos asked.

  “I got up to ask you that question. It isn’t every day I see you wandering around the palace without a shirt. Actually, it isn’t any day.” Andres walked into the room, over toward the bar. He took the whiskey bottle out of Kairos’s hand and set about to pouring himself a generous portion. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I would rather be publicly flogged, then tarred in honey and rolled over an anthill.”

  “Excellent. Pretend that I didn’t ask, but that I’m commanding we talk about it instead.”

  “Excuse me, Andres. If you have forgotten you are the spare? I am your king.”

  Andres waved a hand. “All hail.” He took a sip of his drink. “Does this have something to do with your wife?”

  He looked down at his glass. “She left.”

  “Right. This is after your last-ditch reconciliation attempt of the past week and a half or so.”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate to be the one to tell you this, Kairos, but that is not how a reconciliation is supposed to work.”

  “I’m not in an exceptionally good mood, Andres. So unless you want to find yourself in the...stocks or something, you might want to watch the way you speak to me.”

  “I don’t know what century you’re living in, but there are no stocks in the town square anymore.”

  “I might be tempted to build some.”

  “Tell me what’s happening,” Andres said, all teasing gone from his tone now. “It can’t end like this between the two of you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you love her. And I know she sure as hell loves you, though I can’t quite figure out why.”

  Kairos lifted the glass to his lips, trying not to betray just how frightening he found Andres’s words. “She said she loved me.”

  “I see,” Andres said. “As one who nearly destroyed his own chance at happiness, take my advice. If a woman like that loves you, then you would be a fool to refuse her.” Andres paused for a moment. “Actually, it’s very close to advice you gave me. You told me that if Tabitha looked at you the way that Zara looked at me, you would never let her go. But she does, Kairos. She always has. I know you don’t find emotion easy. I certainly don’t, or haven’t, in the past. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.”

  “What did you think of our father, Andres?”

  Andres frowned. “I don’t know. He didn’t have very much time for me. I wasn’t of any great value to him.”

  “And our mother?”

  “You know she had no patience for me,” Andres said, speaking of how she used to leave him at home during royal events. Afraid that he would cause a scene, that he would somehow find a way to sabotage things.

  “Did you ever...? Did you ever wonder why?”

  Andres laughed, a short, bitter sound. “Well, as it’s the source of all of my emotional issues, I have wondered a time or two.”

  “They have much to answer for, our parents,” Kairos said.

  “As do I,” Andres said. “Have I ever told you, with all sincerity, how sorry I am about what happened with Francesca? Because I am. Very sorry.”

  “I know,” Kairos said. “And to be honest with you...I was only ever relieved. It was never her for me. Never.”

  “That doesn’t excuse me. Neither does our mother’s exit. I know it wasn’t only me. But I did blame myself. Now, I understand that there must have been other things happening. I just don’t know what.”

  Kairos nodded slowly. “Yes. I was there. The night that she left. I tried to—I tried to stop her. Looking back, I feel like she seemed afraid.”

  “It’s strange you should say that. What I think of her now, that’s what I think. She didn’t seem so much angry at me, as afraid of...something.”

  “Did you ever want to find her?”

  “No one knows what happened to her.”

  “No,” Kairos said, his voice broken. “That isn’t true.”

  “Kairos?”

  “I know where she is,” Kairos said. “I have known. I went searching for her after our father died. Or rather, I had someone do a bit of searching. I haven’t made contact. But I do know that she’s living in Greece, using a different name.”

  “I don’t think I want to speak to her,” Andres said.

  “And I don’t blame you. Not with the way she treated you. But I...I might need to.”

  “You do what you have to. But I may not be able to support you with this.”

  “Tabitha’s pregnant,” he said. He had been determined not to tell his brother, particularly as everything was in a precarious position at the moment, but he found he couldn’t hold back any longer. He needed Andres to understand why he was going to pursue contact with their mother. Especially after all she had put his brother through. “It isn’t going well. The doctor’s concerned that she will miscarry. But she is pregnant, for now.”

  Andres cursed. “I...I’m not entirely certain what to say to that. Whether or not to congratulate you.”

  “It’s difficult. That’s why...that’s why I tried to save our marriage.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Did you tell her that?”

  “I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t...I don’t know how to do this. I spent too many years training myself not to feel things. I don’t recognize any of it now. I don’t know how to move forward now.”

  Andres nodded slowly. “I think you’re lying to yourself. I think you know full well how to proceed. I think you know full well how you feel. I just think that you also happen to be terrified.”

  Kairos couldn’t argue with that. “That’s why I need to talk to our mother. I have to find something out.”

  “And you don’t think you’ll give the poor woman a stroke? Calling her after twenty years of no contact?”

  “Well, I think she nearly gave me one when she left me crying on the palace floor as a twelve-year-old boy. We can consider ourselves even.”

  “I thought I was a little bit more well-adjusted since my marriage, but all of this emotion still makes me slightly uncomfortable.”

  “Extremely.”

  “Do whatever you have to do, Kairos, but do not let Tabitha get away.” Andres turned and walked out of the office, leaving Kairos alone.

  Now, all he had to do was wait until it was late enough for him to call a woman he hadn’t seen in more than two decades.

  He was afraid. He didn’t know if he could trust her, or himself.

  But if he had learned one thing from Tabitha it was that you had to make choices. And he was making them now.

  * * *

  “Hello. Is this Maria?” Kairos could scarcely breathe around the lump in his throat as he waited for the response to come down the telephone line.

  “Yes,” the response came, questioning, uncertain.

  “Then I am hoping I’ve reached the right person. It is entirely possible I have not. But I am King Kairos of Petras. And if that means anything to you, then you are the person I’m looking for.”

  There was nothing in response to that but silence, and for a moment, Kairos was certain she had hung up the phone.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.”

  “You are my mother.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  “I am very sorry to call you suddenly like this. Especially because I do not have time to make light conversation. There are some things I need to know. And it may be difficult.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, ignoring the knot that tightened in his chest.
“But there will be plenty of time for that. Later.”

  “I hope so. What is it you need to know, Kairos?” she asked, her voice wrapping itself around his name like an embrace.

  “I need to understand why you left. And I need to know why... I need to know why you treated Andres as you did. He will not ask.”

  “He grew up to be quite a lot of trouble, didn’t he?” The question wasn’t full of judgment, but rather a soft, sad sort of affection.

  “You have read the tabloids, I take it?”

  “Some. I could never resist the chance to look upon you again. Even if only for a moment.”

  “He has settled. He has a wife. He is a good husband to her. Where I fear...I am not so accomplished as a spouse.” He took a deep breath. “This is why I need to know. I need to know why you left.”

  “It took me a very long time to answer that question for myself,” she said, her voice sounding thin. “A lot of therapy. A lot of regrets. Please, know that I regretted it. Even as I was leaving. But there was no going back.”

  “My father’s doing?”

  “Yes. He could not... He said he could not forgive me. And that the damage was already done. It wasn’t only that he refused to take me back...he refused to let me see you.”

  It didn’t surprise him to hear that about his father. And perhaps, because it was so unsurprising, he couldn’t find it in him to be angry. He only felt a strange sense of relief over the fact that she had thought of them again. She had wanted to come back. Selfish, perhaps. But he found comfort in it.

  “I knew it would come to that point with him,” she continued, her voice sad. “I always had. My family raised me to be the queen. To marry the king. I was trained. But I always feared that I would not be equal to the task. Your father would get so angry when Andres would act up. That’s why I stopped having him come to events. I was afraid he would start taking it out on him. As it was, he simply took it out on me.”

  “He didn’t hurt you?”

  “Not physically. But...it was very trying. I was afraid of where it might lead eventually. I was just so afraid of doing something wrong. And you boys were a reflection on me. In your father’s eyes, if you did something wrong, it was directly related to a weakness of mine. And I...I wasn’t strong enough to fight against that. I was so low. And I just left you with him. That was the hardest thing later. Once I was gone. Realizing that I had abandoned you to stay with that cold man who... But I didn’t feel I was helping you. Not by being there. I certainly wasn’t helping Andres. I couldn’t be the mother that he needed. I did more harm to him than I ever did good. Once I realized that...I just...I didn’t feel I did a good enough job as queen. And I didn’t feel I did a good enough job as a mother. At that point, I had convinced myself that you were better off without me. I was just so afraid that if I didn’t leave, he would make me go. And for some reason, that seemed worse. And if I waited for that...well, I might have done more damage to you both by then and I was so afraid of that.”

  Kairos nodded, before realizing that she couldn’t see him. “Yes,” he said, his voice rough, “I can understand that.”

  “You can?” she asked, her voice so filled with hope it broke his heart.

  “Yes. I have been afraid too. But someone very wise once told me that sometimes we just have to make a choice. A choice to trust. The choice to let go.”

  He realized, right then, that he had a choice to make. To release his hold on the past, to refuse to allow any more power over the present. Tabitha was right. You couldn’t wait for these things to go away. Couldn’t wait until a magical moment of certainty, couldn’t wait for a guarantee. It didn’t exist.

  There was no magic. Sometimes, you had to get up and move the mountains all on your own.

  “That is very wise. But I’m not certain I deserve for anyone to choose to let my sins go.”

  “I’m not certain that matters either,” he said. There were so many years between this moment, and that moment in the hall in the palace when his mother had left. So much bitterness. So much pain. Part of him railed against the idea of releasing it, because shortly, it couldn’t be so simple.

  In truth, he knew it wouldn’t be simple. But it was the only way forward.

  “Come and visit us,” he said. “When you can. The palace will facilitate your travels.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Are you... You’re certain you want to see me?”

  “You left because of fear. I pushed my wife away because I was afraid. There is nothing more to fear now. Anger, hurt, it doesn’t have to stand in the way. At least, not if we make the choice to put it away.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  “For me. For me, first. Don’t get the idea that I turned into anything too selfless. I realized that I had to speak to you, to put all of this to rest first before I could move on with my life. I want very much for us to get on with life. All of us.”

  “I would very much like that too, though I don’t deserve it.”

  “Heaven forbid we only got what we deserved. If that were the case, then there would be no point in me going and trying to fix things with Tabitha,” he said.

  “Go. You should always go. I didn’t. And I will never stop regretting it.”

  “No more regrets. For any of us.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TABITHA FELT WRUNG OUT. She hadn’t had the energy to try and secure herself a place other than Kairos’s penthouse, and to his credit, he hadn’t come after her. Also, to his discredit, he hadn’t come after her. She didn’t know what she wanted. She didn’t know what she had expected. Something. To hear from him.

  You expected him to stop you.

  Yes, two days ago when she had walked out of the palace, she had expected him to prevent her from leaving. But he hadn’t. He had simply let her go. Damned contrary man.

  The bright spot was that she had no more bleeding. She was feeling well, and not terribly drained. At least, not physically. Emotionally, she felt exhausted. She was sad. As though there was a weight in each of her limbs, pulling her down, trying to bury her beneath the earth. She was beginning to think it might succeed. That the weight would win. That the overwhelming heaviness would become too great a burden, that she would simply lay her head down and not get up and spend the rest of her days in bed, watching life go by.

  Why did she have to love him so much? It was more convenient when she believed herself simply unhappy because of distance. Not unhappy because she was the victim of unrequited love.

  She walked out of the bedroom, into the kitchen, feeling extremely contrary, because she wanted to lie down desperately, but she also needed to get something to eat. She stopped as soon as she walked into the main part of the room. She pressed her hand to her chest, as if it would keep her heart from beating right out of it.

  “Kairos,” she said, stopping cold when she saw her husband standing there.

  He looked as if he hadn’t slept in the past two days. His black hair was disheveled and there were dark circles under his eyes. His white dress shirt was undone at the collar, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He looked devilish and devastating. Like every good dream she could hope to have for the rest of her life. So close, so real, but untouchable.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Is that going to be the first question you ask me every time we see each other from now on?” And she realized just then that they would see each other again. At least, if all went right with the pregnancy, which she desperately wanted.

  They would be forced to see each other at sonograms. At the hospital when she went into labor. Every time they passed their child back and forth. She would have to watch him walk away, taking a piece of her heart with him. Not just because he was holding their child, but because he was leaving too.

  There would be no clean break, no getting
over it. And if he remarried... If he had more children with another woman... She would be forced to see that too. And photographs of it in the papers, and clips of it on TV. A woman standing in her position.

  She pressed her hand to her stomach, and doubled over, a harsh cry escaping her lips.

  “Tabitha!” Suddenly, his strong arms were around her, holding her close. “Tabitha, what is it?”

  “I can’t do this,” she said, her voice nearly a sob. “How can I see you and not have you? How can I watch you with another woman? How can I watch her take my place, and hold my child and bear more of yours? Kairos, this can’t be endured. I can’t.”

  “You’re the one who left,” he said.

  “Yes, I left. Because I can’t live with you when you don’t love me either. Why do you have to make everything impossible?” She straightened, and he took a step back, but she followed the motion, pressing herself against his chest, hitting him with her closed fist, even while she rested her head there, listening to the sound of his beating heart. “Why do I still love you?”

  “I never quite understood why you loved me in the first place,” he said, his deep voice making his chest vibrate against her cheek.

  “I don’t either. I was very careful. I was supposed to marry a man so cold he could never melt the walls I built up. You didn’t hide it well enough.”

  “What?”

  “How wonderful you are. Even when I couldn’t see it, I could feel that it was there. And I just wanted...I want everything you hide from me.”

  “I want to stop hiding,” he said, his voice rough.

  She lifted her head, looked into his dark eyes. “You what?”

  “I called my mother. And I...I have to tell you something. I never wanted to tell you about the night my mother left. It was a defining moment for me. A mark of my great failure, a warning against what I might become. My greatest weakness.”

  “You aren’t weak. If there’s one thing I know about you, Kairos, it’s that.”

  “But I have been. Just not...in the way that I recognized weakness. I have been afraid. Like you, I’ve been afraid of being hurt again. Afraid of undoing everything I have learned. And that if it happens, I will no longer be able to do what I need to do as king of this country. It isn’t that I feel nothing, Tabitha. I feel things, so deeply, and I spent a great many years trying to train that away.”