Page 43 of His Hidden Royal Heirs

Zia squeezed Beau’s hand, turned to her in the dark. “But you can escape. Use my wedding to Cristhian as a diversion.” At least that would make it worth something then. “You can take this asyourfreedom.”

Beau squeezed her hand back. “You know I can’t.”

She didn’t agree with her sister, but she understood to an extent. Beau never knew when a panic attack might hit, which made it harder to be on her own. Especially if she was trying to hide.

“At some point, you have to face yourself, Zia. Not me. Not your babies.You. Long after your children are born and grown, you’ll still be around, and then what? Who will you be when there’s no one left to protect?”

The words made Zia teary-eyed. And scared. Facing herself? When she didn’t understand herself outside of those hard lines she’d grown up bowing under? When the only role that had ever made any sense to her was to protect her sister?

She swallowed at the lump in her throat. “What if I don’t know how?”

Beau’s hand squeezed even tighter. “I guess it’s time we both figured it out.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CRISTHIANDIDNOTsleep well. Too many things working against him. Old memories. New problems. Threats from a king. The look on Zia’s face when he’d insisted they marry.

And though that haunted him most of all, or at least tied with his father’s words repeating in his head like some kind of ominous guilty conscience, he began to make the arrangements.

Maybe Zia would hate him for eternity, but he would protect her. As his father had once protected his mother. She didn’t have to like it or appreciate it for the course of action to be correct.

And if he was concerned that love was clouding his judgment, he set aside for after the wedding. When everything was settled and organized, and he could work through it all and twist it to his specifications. He would notrun awayfrom anything. He would make sure everything...worked. Everything made sense.Everythingprotected.

He needed to find the king to lay out the consequences of his actions. To explain what would happen, and what wouldn’t happen. But the queen had insisted King Rendall was not in their suite, and none of the staff had seen him, so Cristhian searched his own grounds trying not to let frustration take hold.

He was nearing the wing with Zia’s set of rooms, and his mood darkened even further at the thought King Rendall was bothering her. No, this would endnow.

But before he made it to the door to Zia’s suite, the king appeared in the hallway, exiting a mostly unused library.

He stopped, gave Cristhian one disgusted look, then stormed up to him. “I will agree to the wedding. Our lawyers will callyours. Once paternity is proven, everything will be sorted from a financial standpoint.” His scowl turned into something closer to a sneer. “You and Zia will be free from any responsibility to the kingdom of Lille.”

Cristhian could not remember a time in his adulthood when he’d been left as utterly speechless as he was now. He hadn’t even made any of the arrangements that would impress upon the king he needed to agree for Zia’s sake.

What had happened?

The king stormed away before Cristhian could find his voice. Could find any sense in this strange change of heart. He snorted to himself at the idea of King Rendall having a heart.

But then he heard a strange noise. Almost like a gasp. Strangled breathing? He poked his head into the room and saw a figure huddled in a corner amid covered furniture, arms wrapped around her knees.

Zia’s sister. Who was struggling to breathe, clearly. Shaking like a leaf.

No doubt over something the king had done as this was the room he’d come out of all blusteringly angry. Cristhian strode forward.

“What did he do to you?” he demanded.

Beaugonia’s body jerked in surprise, and her head came up with a snap. Her eyes were wild with something he could only call panic. But she shook her head, wiping the tears off her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt, even as her arms shook. “N-n-nothing.”

“This is not nothing.”

No, it was a very large something that had more of his old memories surfacing from wherever in his psyche he’d packed them away as he’d stepped into adulthood.

All those times he’d simply thought his mother...emotional, he supposed, it had been more, hadn’t it? More serious. More...this.

Whatever this was.

And every time his mother had behaved in this way, Cristhian had a clear memory of his father sitting next to her, taking her hand in his. He would press a kiss to her forehead, brush a hand over her hair, then tell her a story in low, calming tones. The same kind he had always delivered bedtime stories with.

As Zia’s sister sat there, shaking and struggling to breathe easily, Cristhian knew he could not leave her. Even to fetch Zia or a staff member. He swallowed, then lowered himself to the ground next to her.

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