Page 18 of Her Royal Daddy
Jesus Christ, not again. I rubbed my face again.
“My doctors are the best in their fields, but even so, there’s not much more they can do.”
Emotions were at war within me—anger at a disease I knew too well, bereavement at the knowledge that I would soon lose the father I had only just gained and wasn’t even sure I really wanted to know, and dread mounting upon dread at whatever he was about to say next. I knew there had to be more. His words were like an oncoming train, and I was tied to the tracks.
“You are heir to my throne, Mazi. Osei needs you.”
“Jesus Christ!” I erupted out of my chair, walking myself in a tight, frustrated circle only to find myself once more back in front of the table, hands braced against the edge, leaning heavily upon it as the full weight and implication of what he was saying sank in.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked him. Across the table from me, Norah was still sitting there, her eyes huge and her mouth hanging open. In sharp contrast, my father’s mouth was closed. If anything, he looked rejected, but that only made me angry all over again. He’d spent my entire life not bothering to let me know of his existence and now, all of a sudden I was his heir? If this was an honor, I didn’t want it. Any of it. And I especially didn’t want Norah to know. “You should have waited to talk to me about this in private. This is personal family”—my voice was hard and biting; I couldn’t believe I was actually using that word—“business and never should have been done in front of her.”
“You dare lecture the ki—” Jax said hotly, but my father cut him off.
“No, it’s all right,” he said, patting the air as if that alone might soothe the volatility in the room, all of which was coming from me. “He has a right to be upset.”
Damn right I did.
“This is a lot of take in,” he added.
It certainly was.
“And, perhaps,” my father admitted with a nod, “I should have waited to discuss this in private.”
Damn straight.
Points for all three go to me, because I was right. So, why did being right suddenly make me feel like an ass?
My father looked at me, all the sympathy of a parent tempered by the responsibilities of a king as he softly scolded, “But you are not making this easy and I don’t have a lot of time left.”
And there it was. I sank back into my seat, Osei’s biggest ass and already regretting it. I could feel it, the weight of an entire country resting on my shoulders, and across the table from me, the girl of my dreams knew it.
“Norah,” my father continued, “is here because it is her job to be. I have hired her as our family’s royal correspondent. For the next year, her job includes bridging the gap between our family and the rest of the world. Not only will she be in charge of heading all important media events involving our family, but it is her responsibility to find ways to create—how do they say it these days?—a buzz about our country, hopefully in a way that will boost our economy and keep us on the tourism map. She will visit local businesses, take in the beautiful scenery, and write things designed to reintroduce Osei back to the world as a place people will want to come and see.”
My baby girl was a reporter, I had hooked up with her at the most sensationally controversial moment of my life.
Right on the heels of that thought came another. She would be in Osei for a year. Suddenly, staying longer than a month didn’t seem like quite the hardship. But then I made the mistake of glancing at her only to find every ounce of anger I’d just gone through alive and well on her face, and directed at me.
Swallowing past the instant tightness in my throat, I forced myself to focus on more important issues. “Is my presence here in Osei and my relationship to you part of what she’s going to be reporting on?”
“Yes, assuming, of course, that things work out the way I am hoping and you agree to take your rightful place as the crown prince.”
My rightful place?
“You don’t have any other children?” It was a question I’d been meaning to ask ever since I got his letter.
“My wife, Irina, God rest her soul, was unable to have children. We were very happy for many years, but...” Pausing, my father swallowed, a sheen of watery tears filling his eyes. He blinked them back, refusing to let them fall. “Children were a blessing sorely missing from our very full lives.”
“A father was a blessing sorely missing from mine.” I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help echoing those very bitter words back at him.
I regretted them almost immediately.
I wasn’t anybody’s prince. Combing my fingers back through my hair, I stifled a sigh over my own complete inability to stop being bitter about this. There were so many things I wanted to say, questions I wanted to ask. And yet, I could barely keep myself civil. I wasn’t ready to rehash the past, especially not with Norah sitting there taking notes on my most private and personal thoughts.
I glared at the table, the decision I had to make already smothering me. It should never have been this heavy. They made Hallmark movies with plots like this, for heaven’s sake. New York stripper turns long-lost prince? Hell, yeah, what was the problem? Except it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t what I wanted, and yet I had everything to gain by giving into this and nothing—literally, nothing—to lose.
I could pay off all my mother’s remaining debts and never dance again.
Unless of course Osei was impoverished and I just didn’t know it yet. In which case, I’d not only have my mother’s medical bills, but my father’s now too. I’d definitely still be stripping, I’d just have a fancier moniker and wear a crown while I did it.
