Page 21 of His Hidden Royal Heirs

He wouldn’t take that idea from them, but he couldn’t outright lie about it either. “It is...complicated.”

“Ah,” his grandfather said in that world wise way of his. “The kind of complicated that will make us great-grandparents?”

His grandfather had always known how to get right to the point, and even though it twisted something tangled inside him, he smiled. “Yes.”

“Oh,” his grandmother said, so desperately trying to hide her disappointment with enthusiasm. “Well, aren’t we lucky? To have lived this long. You’ll bring everyone to meet us, won’t you?”

“Of course. Once we are able.” His grandparents nodded along, not letting any disdain show through. They never had, no matter what he’d done. “Zia is having twins.”

“Twins? Twins! Robert, do we have any twins in the family?”

“My grandmother was a twin!” his grandfather all but shouted, pride in every word.

Cristhian smiled in spite of himself. “Zia is a twin herself.”

“That’s excellent. She’ll know just how to raise them then. Oh, two great-grandbabies. Aren’t we lucky?” His grandmother beamed over at Grandfather. Disappointment over the nontraditional circumstances quickly and easily left behind.

Cristhian should feel relieved or warmed by their excitement, but there was a strange kind of discomfort twirling around inside him. He couldn’t put his finger on what was causing it, so he just pushed the conversation forward.

“I wanted you to know as it is likely to move forward...quickly. I will keep you updated, of course.”

His grandparents nodded, then looked at each other in that way they had that spoke of some internal communication no one else was privy to.

“May we offer some advice?” his grandmother asked gently. Because she was a gentle woman. Too gentle, perhaps, for the world she’d been thrust into. A famous son. The slings and arrows of their daughter-in-law’s family in the aftermath of such loss.

And yet she had never taken any of that out on Cristhian himself. He held this as a personal guidepost. These people on the screen in front of him, so unlike the world he lived in, and yet, the exact guide he wanted.

“Of course.”

“Your parents loved each other very much,” Grandmother said with a heavy wistfulness and a look away from the screen, no doubt at one of the many pictures she kept of his father.

“Yes, I know.”

She turned back to the screen. “It was the foundation, and why you’re such a good man, despite such...trials.”

He could not quite manage the smile he knew his grandmother wanted. He had not set out to begood, per se, and the thought she might think it settled in a bit like guilt.

“And your father was a good man for the same reason,” Grandfather said firmly. “Love is always the foundation. If you’d take any advice from us, we hope it’s that. With love as a foundation, no matter the tragedies life throws at you, you’ll find a way to endure.”

Cristhian did not want any more tragedies, but he knew his grandparents spoke of their own. One they had weathered, with love.

No, Cristhian didn’t care for that advice, but it was...interesting. So he smiled. Chatted some more about people his grandparents knew. He let them tell all their stories from church, the beauty parlor, the grain elevator coffee shop. These things were foreign in Cristhian’s life, but his grandparents always made it sound like a world he could step into if he ever needed.

Like the foundation his parents had built him, his grandparents had offered an escape hatch—once he’d been old enough to rid himself of his mother’s family’s royal shenanigans. He’d never taken it, still didn’t want to, but something about it being there...meant something.

He tried not to think about Zia, talking about her royal prison. Perhaps she had not been afforded an escape hatch, but she’d found one, hadn’t she? And still, the way he saw it, she cared for her own wants more than their children’s needs.

But his grandparents had raised a good man by loving each other. His parents, the same, if he was to be counted a good man. So, Cristhian supposed, that was the answer to his trouble.

Love.

He would simply make Zia fall in love with him. Then all would fall into place. And be well.

After a post-breakfast nap, Zia felt slightly more herself. She still thought Cristhian was a ridiculous ogre, but she was reminded she had the strength and cleverness to outmaneuver her father. What was Cristhian but a slightly different version of that?

She just needed to pace herself. To think. And didn’t this blizzard that had them stuck here without doctors or ministers give her just that kind of time?

She considered her phone. A missive to Beau would help her think through her options, but it was still risky. Beau was clever enough to outmaneuver their father and his men, but Cristhian complicated things. He was certainly smarter than Father’s men, considering he’d been the only one capable of finding Zia, which meant he might be Beau’s match in terms of sneakiness.

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