“Dad, don’t. We don’t have to do this. You don’t have to say anything.”
“Yes, I do. I owe you an apology.”
I gave him a smile. “Royals don’t apologize.”
He smiled back. It was weak, but its warmth reflected in his eyes. “Maybe we should start.” He squeezed my hand again. “I spent so much time making sure you’d be a good king that I forgot how to be a good father.”
His words ripped open wounds I’d carried with me for years, wounds that no one other than me ever knew existed. I had perfected the art of burying them beneath layers of confidence and indifference. The Phillipe Thorne I knew had no regrets. He made no apologies. He was the law and the only one he answered to was God Himself. I’d waited my whole life for this man to show up, for my father to act like… a father. Why now? Why take off the mask right before the curtain was about to fall? It only made things worse.
“You were a good father,” I replied because I wasn’t about to break a dying man’s heart by telling him I wished he’d loved me more.
He tried to laugh but only ended up throwing himself into a coughing fit. I grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and gave him a drink.
“I was a good king. You will be both.” He reached up and cupped my cheek. “When that day comes, promise me something. Promise me you’ll take your son deep sea fishing. That you’ll teach him how to sail. Fly over the Mediterranean Sea in a helicopter and show him all the land he’ll one day rule. Do all things I should’ve done with you.”
I closed my eyes and silently mourned a life that never was, a life where Dad was just a dad, and I was just a son. “I promise.” I won’t let my children turn out like me. “I wish we had more time,” I said.
He closed his eyes. Maybe he was mourning too. “Me too.”
It had been four days since my fight with Keaton. Four days since Sutton accused me of sending him threats. And four days since I realized that there was so much more to the last few months than bad timing and a tragic storm.
I’d read all the tax logs for the last five years. Sutton was right. My dad, the law-abiding, financially responsible citizen—a man who up until five years ago had done everything by the book—had completely stopped paying taxes. I racked my brain for any significant life events, anything that might have provoked his defiance, and came up with nothing. I didn’t understand.
But I knew who did.
The door to Mama’s office was open, and like last time, I knocked before going in. She looked up from her computer screen and grinned.
“Twice in one week. God must be smiling on me.”
“Hey, Mama. How are you?”
She closed her laptop and leaned back in her chair, studying me. “I’m doing well. The question is: how are you? Is everything okay?”
Far from it.
My heart thrummed knowing that I was about to flick my finger and knock over a meticulously placed trail of dominoes. We should at least have lunch first. I hid my answer behind a weak smile and set a brown paper bag on her desk.
“I brought us lunch. You hungry?” I asked as I took a seat in the white, cushy chair across from her.
She took the bag, her gold bangles jingling as she pulled out its contents and spread them across the smooth wood. “Starving. How did you know?” she asked with a wink.
I shrugged then grabbed one of the chicken salad sandwiches Madeline made for us. “A good daughter always knows.” Sadness tugged at my gut for letting so much time go by before I decided to bring my mama lunch. I wasn’t a good daughter. I wore my grief like armor, using it to shield myself from the rest of the world. It took Sutton ripping it off to bring me here… open, raw, and exposed.
“Is that a quote from one of your books?” she asked between bites.
I laughed. “No, Mama. That one was all me.”
She wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin. I swore she was born with manners. “You aren’t just here to bring me lunch, though, are you?” Manners and brains.
“I thought we could talk. You know… about the stuff you promised to tell me.”
“Katarina, I—”
I held up my hand. “Wait. Before you say anything, there’s something you should know.” I set my sandwich on a napkin on the desk. “I’ve been reading some books in the library. Tax records. And I found some things. Things about Dad.” I looked her in the eyes. “I think I understand now… Why you didn’t fight for the farm. It’s because you had no choice.”
Mama dropped her gaze. She placed her sandwich next to mine then swallowed hard, absently searching for answers she didn’t seem ready to give. “Your father was a complicated man.”
“Am I right? Did we lose the farm because he owed the king money? Did King Phillipe take our home?”
Her eyes met mine again. “No. It was nothing like that.” She sighed. “And everything like that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your father owed this country a lot of money. Money he refused to pay for reasons he never shared. The only thing he ever said was that King Phillipe couldn’t be trusted.”
“Why would Dad say that? Something had to happen to make him that way, Mama. He wasn’t a crazy man.”
“I don’t know. It started around the time he had to tear down the old barn. It was like someone flipped a switch. One day he was fine and the next…” She closed her eyes and shook away whatever memories haunted her thoughts. I remembered that day. Dad was a wreck. That barn had been on our farm for decades, maybe even longer. I used to climb up in the loft and listen to the rain on the tin roof. The barn was every bit as much a part of our farm as the house had been. It belonged there. When he tore it down, it was like a piece of us was missing.
“Maybe it was too much. Maybe he lost a part of himself that day. I pleaded with him for years… begged him to do the right thing, but he kept saying he wasn’t giving his hard-earned money to a thief, as though somehow King Phillipe was to blame, but he wouldn’t say any more.”
Mama slid her sandwich back into the plastic Ziploc bag, and I did the same. I supposed neither one of us felt like eating anymore.
“The night of the storm, when your dad saved his life, King Phillipe offered him a pardon. All the tax money, thousands of dollars, wiped clean. He did it as a show of gratitude. He was very generous,” Mama continued.
“But we still lost the farm…”
“Yes. A week later, after we found out Matteo had caught pneumonia from the freezing rain, a man from the cabinet showed up at the hospital. The king had put his offer in writing. And your father ripped it up right in front of him.”
Confusion, anger, and disappointment wrapped around each other, twisting into a tight knot inside my stomach until I could hardly stand the pain.
Why would he refuse something he knew would help our family? He was sick… lying in a hospital bed with tubes breathing for him. He knew he might not get well. Dad was a businessman. Even if he believed he would get better, he had to know the king would take the farm after such a blatant display of disrespect. How could he do that to us?
“Why? Why would he do that?”
Mama took both of my hands, giving them a light squeeze. She shook her head. “I don’t know. I always thought it was because he was so ill. Maybe he wasn’t in his right mind. But now… Now I’m not so sure anymore.” She offered me a small smile. “But by the Grace of God, we’re okay. The king and queen have given us so much to be thankful for, Katarina. They’ve opened their home to us and given us a source of income. Even after everything your father put them through, they’re still grateful for what he did the night of the storm.”
Everything my father put them through.
“Matteo Bellizzi might have been a good father, but he was a piece of shit for a man.”
My mother’s words nearly mirrored those Sutton had said to me the night I’d almost offered my body as a sacrifice, the night I touched him.
It didn’t make sense. My father was a sa
ne man. He was a good man, a man who would sacrifice anything—other than his pride, apparently—for the sake of his family. I’d seen him invite strangers to dinner after church on Sunday. I’d helped him hand out baskets of free produce to people at the farmer’s market. I saw him save a king’s life. Yet, I was beginning to believe I didn’t know him at all.
Fourteen
The room felt smaller, too small for both Mama and me. I’d chased the truth, and when I found it, it suffocated me. I needed air. I needed to breathe.
“I need to go.” I placed our uneaten sandwiches back in the paper bag then rolled it closed. “Thank you.”
Mama’s voice stopped me as I reached the door. “Katarina…” I turned to face her. There was so much anguish in her eyes, so many things left unsaid, but I had heard enough for one day, so I didn’t press. Finally, she smiled wearily. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
On my way down the hall, I rounded a corner and my feet faltered, sending me crashing into a hard chest.
Sutton.
Even with his impeccable suit and picture-perfect face, he looked like I felt—like we were caught at the bottom of a cliff during an avalanche and had spent the last few days running for our lives. Tired. Beaten. Broken. I let my mind go blank for a moment to consider what might have happened to make him look that way.
He held me by the arms to keep me from falling backward and landing on my butt. Because that would have been the icing on the cake, right?
“Thank you,” I said once I regained my balance. Then I curtsied because heck if I knew proper protocol for barreling into the prince.
“You can stop doing that.”
“Why? Why do you accept respect from others… from strangers even, but refuse it from me?”
His brows pulled together as he narrowed his eyes. “And why do you insist on showing me respect then challenging me in the very same breath?”
Okay, he had a point.
“I don’t know. Maybe because the minute you open your mouth, I remember how little you deserve it?”
Sutton stepped forward, his presence sucking up all the air between us. His scent wrapped around me like silk on smooth skin, all clean, expensive, and sublime. He lifted his hand and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, his hand skimming the side of my face as he did. Heat crept into my fingertips, stopping to simmer in my belly then coursing its way all the way down to my toes.
“I don’t want to fight with you right now, Katie.”
I took a second to revel in his confession. There were so many layers to how it made me feel. I was tired—exhausted actually—and I didn’t have the energy to peel back each one, so I chose the one that caused the least amount of conflict.
“I don’t want to fight with you right now either.”
His gaze fell to my mouth, and for a second, I thought he might kiss me.
“So, what happens now? Are we like… friends?” I asked, emphasis on friends, because I had a feeling we were about two seconds away from diving head-first into a shallow pool.
He slid his hand around my neck, gripping me at the nape and holding me in place, then pressed his forehead against mine. Goosebumps pebbled across my flesh as his thumb traced a lazy circle on the sensitive skin on the back of my neck.
“Something like that,” he said.
We stayed that way, silent and staring, his breath on my face and my body at his mercy, as though both of us were trying to bend time to our will so that we could relish the one moment we felt something other than hatred.
Finally, Sutton pulled back just far enough to stand up straight. His hand fell from my neck then reached out for mine. “Come. There’s something I want to show you.”
There were a hundred reasons why this was a bad idea, whatever this was. A few civil moments didn’t undo years of history. I still wasn’t sure I could trust him, and as if he knew that, he tucked his hands into his pockets and nodded down the hall.
“It’s this way.”
I followed him down the hallway where I’d searched for him a few days ago. Some of the rooms looked familiar. Doors that were closed before were open today. All of it was magnificent.
We stopped in front of a massive arched doorway leading to an equally massive room. I followed Sutton inside.
“You have your library. I have this.” His face lit up. For the first time since meeting him, he looked almost childlike. Like a kid showing off a new toy.
Marble columns spanned floor to ceiling. The walls were a deep gray-blue, the way the sky looked right before a storm. This was his room. It made sense because that’s exactly what he was—that moment before the storm. A beautiful combination of fear and adrenaline. The kind of emotion that walked the line between wanting to take shelter and needing to stand and watch.
His eyes followed me as I walked to the grand piano on the other side of the room.
“Before my father sent me to boarding school in Europe, he gave me two choices: learn to play the piano or speak French.”
I nearly jumped because Sutton’s voice was right behind me. Not close enough to touch but close enough that I felt his presence over every inch of my body. I acknowledged him from the corner of my eye as he leaned one hip against the side of the piano.
Boarding school. It explained so much. My image of the cheerful little boy running through these halls disappeared like fog in the sunlight. No wonder he was disconnected. Most of his life was spent that way, detached from family, sheltered from the world. Everything about boarding school seemed lonely. The word even felt cold as it left his lips. I was suddenly thankful for my normal life, my normal education, and my normal friends. My parents were nowhere near perfect, but at least our family had dinner together at the same table every night of my childhood. Mama made sure of it. Even on the nights when Dad worked late, we waited. Dinner was sacred. Sutton had a lot of things, but he didn’t have that.
I turned to face him. His steel-blue eyes took my breath away. He was calm and content, none of the clenching jaw and narrowed eyes that I’d grown used to. He eyed the piano, trailing a finger across the shiny black instrument in reverence.
“So, which did you choose?” I asked him.
His tongue snaked out to wet his lips, sending a shiver across my flesh. “I chose both.” One corner of his mouth turned up in the beginning of a smile I was so desperate to finally see. “I wanted to know how to use my hands… and my mouth.”
Danger was a tightrope, and we were walking on it. A mile high without a safety net. Part of me wondered if this was all some elaborate trap, a way to get me to admit I’d sent the email or confirm his beliefs that I was like my dad, that I was a rebel against the Crown. But another part of me wondered how something that was a lie could feel so real.
I meant it when I said I didn’t want to fight with him. This twisted game of tug-of-war was beginning to wear me down. My mind was worn out from always wondering what was real and what was a lie, from not knowing the difference between who to trust and who to keep at arm’s length.
“Are you flirting with me, Your Highness?”
He trapped me in his intense gaze. “I don’t flirt.”
“I have the memory of an icing-coated finger that says otherwise.”
“You make me do a lot of things I’ve never done.” My attempt at being playful was met with his usual indifference. Still, something about his words made my stomach flip. He walked around me then slid onto the piano bench. “Like this.” He gently tapped the ivory once, twice, three soft times, as though he were just now remembering what it felt like. “I don’t play for people. Ever.” His admission sounded more like an accusation, like I held him here against his will.
I was about to leave, to tell him this was a mistake. But his fingers coaxed the black and white keys to life, weaving notes together like words in a story we both knew wouldn’t have a happy ending. “Close your eyes.” He let the keys weave more of the story. “Listen with your body. Feel how it starts
off soft, peaceful, and rhythmic…” His voice was calmer now but confident enough to demand obedience. This was Sutton Thorne in his element, and he was beautiful.
My eyes fell closed and I leaned against the piano’s frame. Each time his fingers caressed the keys, I felt it tingle on my skin. Notes—rich, mellow, and dark—resonated from the strings and curled around me.
“Slowly it builds. Faster. Deeper. Your heart races and you hold your breath… waiting for the crescendo…”
The tiny hairs on my arms and neck rose as my skin pebbled. Every cell in my body reached out to him, wanting to be closer to him. It was as though he were touching me with his words… with every stroke… with this song…
“Lean into it. Let it take you. Everything vibrates. The world disappears. It’s just you… and this. Do you feel it?”
The music crept beneath my skin, like liquid fire pouring through my veins and consuming all my senses. Yes, I felt it. I felt him. Everywhere. I blindly gripped one side of the piano, squeezing, clenching, holding onto something, anything. Because there was an edge and my self-control was about to plummet off it.
Then it stopped.
My eyes flew open, and I let out a shaky breath. The air was filled with tension… magnetism… with this imaginary force that swirled around us. Sutton’s expression was unreadable, but I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt it—the want. His clear-blue eyes deepened to a rich sapphire as they drifted to my lips. As if on cue, my tongue darted out to wet my dry mouth.
I swallowed hard. “You’re good at that.” I didn’t specify what that was.
At playing piano. At setting my panties on fire with your stare. At making my insides feel like mush. At making me forget why this is all very, very wrong.
“I’m good at a lot of things.”
After what I just experienced, not a single part of me doubted that was true.
Fifteen
I hadn’t played for anyone other than my parents and that uptight Debussy-wannabe in France. I didn’t play for the attention. I played for myself. Like burning sage or bathing in holy water, exorcising my demons with each stroke of the keys. Sometimes I sat in this room for hours, pounding, then pressing gently, then pounding again. Until my lungs were out of breath and my body glistened with sweat. I loved hearing the soft sounds evolve into something deeper, more powerful, then I’d bring them back down again. I controlled it. My touch controlled it. It was my drug. I brought Katie here because when she ran into me in the hall, she looked every bit as broken and strung out as I felt. I thought if I played for her, then maybe, just maybe, she would let her demons out to play with mine, that we could both be free. Even if only for a moment.
Crown of Thornes : a modern day royal romance Page 10
