Page 33 of Forbidden Royal Vows

But Caius knew that she was a shark and this was how she circled, looking for blood.

“I will come to your wedding,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. “But only on the condition that nobody knows I’m there.”

His mother laughed in obvious incomprehension, and there was nothing about that sound that anyone would describe as insubstantial. “I have no earthly idea what that means.”

“It’s very simple.” He sat back in the old, soft leather couch and stared up at the art on the wall before him, a finely rendered landscape painting. Likely of a view from this house. “I will attend to support you, as your son. But I don’t want the papers to catch wind of it.”

“Darling, the papers don’t catch wind of anything.” Now she sounded like the shark she was, teeth and all. “They follow you around. Surely you know this.”

“Sometimes they follow me around, and sometimes people call them to let them know where I’ll be,” Caius countered. “I’m going to need you to promise me that won’t happen this time.”

“Caius.” When it mattered, apparently, his mother did actually know his name. “This is all very childish. You are a public figure, like it or not. And there’s a certain expectation when it comes to our family. The people have come to require certain things of us. It’s the least we can do to give them that.”

But he was sitting in the September House, in the company of a queen. An actual queen who lived her life for her people. Who had walked away from him for them. Who would do it again.

A woman who did these things for duty, not fame.

“You have my permission, indeed, my encouragement, to seek out that attention all on your own,” he told his mother. “With my compliments.”

“Don’t you dare do this,” his mother seethed at him, and he thought, There she is. It was that instant flip from one face to another that he remembered so well, and he could hear it in her voice. He didn’t have to have eyes on her because he knew exactly what it looked like. One moment, his beautiful mother, all that was lovely and graceful. The next, the monster who wore that shining vision as a costume and was never too far from the surface. “After all I’ve done for you.”

“And what was that again?” Caius asked, making sure he sounded bored.

He wasn’t. Because he supposed there was still that little six-year-old inside him somewhere, wishing he’d had that mama he’d gone looking for. But if the Countess ever got wind of the possibility he might have actual feelings, she would hunt him down and try to eat him alive. That was her favorite pastime.

Caius knew her well enough to know that for a certainty.

But maybe, as he sat in this royal hunting lodge as the Queen’s guilty secret, he was starting to wonder who he was.

“I was in labor for seventy-two thankless hours,” his mother railed at him. He thought she was slipping, or confusing him with his half siblings. Usually she said ninety hours, for the drama. “And raising you was no walk in the park, Caius. Your father was a horrid monster. You can’t imagine the things I suffered!”

“Surely if that’s true, you would have seen it before the wedding and shouldn’t have married him,” Caius drawled, because he had not let her wind him up in a long, long time.

Maybe his father was a monster, too. He had always seemed deeply sad and ineffective to Caius, but then, people were different with their intimate partners. But there was nothing he could do about a marriage she’d left when Caius was small. None of the things she claimed she’d suffered excused her.

And he couldn’t help but notice that she only used her excuses to land what she hoped were mortal blows.

“And this is what I get,” the Countess snarled, switching tacks yet again. “As if it is such a hardship to do the only thing you’ve ever been any good at. Simply show up. Smile. Practice that empty charm of yours that you throw around like confetti.” And she laughed as if she could see him. As if he’d let his guard fall when he knew he hadn’t. She was good at that, too. “That’s all you’ve ever had to do, Caius. No one wants anything from you. No one expects anything from you. You drift through your life as meaningless as the day you were born. All that’s needed from you—ever—is that you stand still long enough for the right pictures to be taken. How can that possibly be a trial? Even for you?”

He didn’t mean to hang up on her. Or he didn’t think he did.

But he found himself staring at the mobile in his hand, the call ended, and a selection of some very unflattering thoughts taking space in his brain.

She’d like that, he knew. She’d like to think she’d gotten to him.

If I could slap you again, she’d said at one of her weddings, I would do it harder, so it taught you something.

In case he’d been tempted to believe that she might harbor regrets. Or have amnesia about her own behavior.

In case he took his sister’s position and tried thinking of her as a flawed human who had used what few, poor tools she had—instead of the shark she had always been and always would be.

Caius could still hear the Queen from the other room. Cool. Commanding. When this was the same woman who had sobbed in his arms only an hour ago, digging her fingernails into his back and leaving her trademark trail of half-moon crescents down the length of his spine.

One of these times, she had said later, sprawled out beside him and panting wildly, you will break me down into too many pieces. They’ll never put me back together again.

But then, at the appointed time, she had risen from the bed without question or any excuses. She had pulled herself together in a flash, requiring no one’s help to put her own pieces back, right where they belonged.

Something deep inside of him seemed to tremble at that, as if the ground beneath his feet was giving way.

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