Page 87 of Royal Caleva: Luis

Grace nodded, and Luis waited for the signal that she was ready to end the meeting.

It did not come, and he clenched his fists on the desk in front of him.

“That’s why you dragged me in here?” Odette asked after a moment’s silence. “Not to finally meet your real mother? I’m a little offended.”

“You’re not my real mother,” Grace said. “I did want to meet you, though. I needed to see if there was any of you in me. I’m relieved that there is not.” She said it with confidence.

“Time will tell, won’t it?” Odette said. “Now, let me go back to my cell where I don’t have to deal with needy children.”

“I don’t need you,” Grace said. “I have a mother and a father. Unlike you, I am loved.”

“Being loved is overrated.” Odette shifted to stare directly into the camera above Grace’s head for a long moment. Then she leaned forward to focus a malevolent glare on Grace. “Tell your father that I’m remaining silent about being your mother for your sake, not his.” Once again, she flicked a glance at the camera before she sat back. “Also, I plan to stick around to see how you manage as a princess.”

“With the support network I have, I’ll manage just fine,” Grace said as she pushed the button to indicate she was finished with the meeting.

Mikel sent in the two guards. After they unlocked Odette’s shackles from the floor clamps and Odette rose from her chair, Grace also stood.

“Will you come see me again?” Odette asked, her voice curious rather than pleading.

Grace thought a minute. “I don’t think so.”

Relief cascaded through Luis.

“In that case, farewell,” Odette said. “Maybe you’ll come to my funeral.”

Grace shook her head.

The moment the door closed behind Odette, Luis raced into the warden’s office. He examined Grace’s face, finding tears welling in her eyes. “Are you all right, hija mía?” he asked in a gentle voice.

She blinked a few times. “She says she won’t tell the media I’m her daughter ‘right now.’ It’s not worth much, but I think she meant it for the present.”

He touched her arm. “That was well done. But I am concerned with how you felt about meeting her.”

“She was brutally honest. She could have lied and pretended to regret her actions, but maybe this way is better for me. I felt no connection with her at all.” One tear tracked down her cheek.

“I’m so sorry.” He enveloped her in his arms, and she leaned into him with a little sob. He stroked his palm over her hair and murmured words of comfort in Spanish and English.

After a few moments, she pushed away. “I think I should go to Mom. She’ll want to know what happened.”

“Of course,” he said, releasing her with reluctance. He wanted to soothe away all the ugliness of her encounter, but he understood that she needed to see her real mother. The one who loved her and had cared for her all her life.

Eve sat in the back of a bland brown SUV parked in a small, concealed lot beside Caleva’s maximum security prison. The prison looked like a modern corporate headquarters except for the two perimeters of high, electrified fences surrounding it, with access via heavy steel gates staffed by uniformed guards with serious-looking guns. Cameras were everywhere as well. Mikel had told her that no one had ever escaped from CárcelMax, and she believed it. It had given her cold chills to watch Grace disappear into the place through a blank steel door, even though she’d been escorted by four large, scary-looking bodyguards.

Her chills turned icy at the thought of Grace facing her psychopath of a birth mother. Eve wanted to be there so badly, but Grace needed to do this on her own. If Eve had listened in, it would have changed the dynamic of the meeting. Grace had to be able to say what she wanted to without worrying about hurting Eve’s feelings.

Luis and Mikel were monitoring the encounter, so she would have to trust them to take care of her daughter.

But the waiting was killing her. Her fingers cramped, and she unknotted the tense tangle of her hands in her lap to stretch them. Glancing at her watch, she couldn’t believe that only fifteen minutes had passed.

Luis had limited Grace’s meeting with Odette to an hour, but so much damage could be done in that stretch of time. Grace was a strong person, but she had no experience with the kind of horror someone like Odette could inflict. Even worse, Grace would be wondering if she had inherited any of her birth mother’s insanity.

Eve buried her face in her hands with a moan of helplessness.

“Are you all right, señora?” her driver, Enrique, asked.

Eve lifted her head. “Do you have children?”

“Only nieces and nephews, but many of them,” he said.

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