Page 10 of Take My Throne

Chapter Four

The skies are getting lighter in the east as I finally climb back through the window to the rooms I share with Lucas.

“Ivy!” He rushes over to help me into the room. “I thought you were gone for good. I was trying to figure out what I was going to say to your father to explain your disappearance. I think he would have killed me-–and that’s not a figure of speech.”

“Sorry, Lucas. I didn’t mean to worry you.” As I say it, I realise it was true. I thought I didn’t care about Lucas and while it’s true I don’t feel about him the way I feel about Romy, Archer, and Declan, I certainly don’t want anything bad to happen to him. He’s been nothing but nice to me.

“How was Romy? I shouldn’t have hit him that hard. I fucked up.”

I blush. “How did you know I went to see him?”

“I didn’t.” Lucas grins. “I do now though. So, how is he? That bump on the head do any permanent damage?”

“No, he’s going to be fine.” More than fine.

“Good. The last thing this town needs is even more conflict. Maybe now Archer’s got the urge to punch me out of his system we can work together to find a way forward. They’re going to have to accept our marriage sooner or later. I’d like to think we could eventually be friends.”

“Mmm.” I keep my tone noncommittal, but somehow, I can’t see Archer ever being interested in befriending Lucas.

“You know, when I agreed to move to King Town to support your father, I really hoped you’d want to get to know me. I was really looking forward to being a regular teenager for a while, doing things that normal people do. I wanted to compete in the races, go to parties, meet girls, just be normal. I should have known that wouldn’t happen. Like I would ever be that lucky.”

“Sounds like there’s a history there.”

“You could say that.” Lucas laughs bitterly. “My parents died in a car crash when I was three. I don’t remember anything about them, although sometimes when a certain song comes on the radio or I smell a particular perfume I have vague memories of feeling loved and protected. I grew up in foster care.”

“Seriously?” I look at Lucas with a new respect. “I had no idea. I was in the system too. Fun, isn’t it?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Lucas agrees. “You’re part of a family, only not. I always got the impression that I was there under sufferance. The people I stayed with took me to classes with their own children where I got to sit on the side while they had fun. I was only little, but I remember always feeling like I was different, the odd one out.”

“I know that feeling.”

“It all changed when I was eight,” Lucas went on. “That’s when Penelope Donatello walked into my life. She was looking for a boy to adopt and I was exactly what she wanted. I looked like I could have been related to her, so she was able to claim I was her nephew, living with her after the tragic death of her sister. She made it very clear to me that I had to support her lies or I’d be sent straight back to the foster system. I might have been young, but I wasn’t stupid, so I went along with her story. Whenever people asked me about my mother, I started crying so I wouldn’t have to give out any details that could give away the lie and it wasn’t long before they learned not to ask.

“They weren’t the only ones who learned not to ask questions. Penelope was rich. Very rich. We’re talking houses in Monaco, Bermuda, Nice. I had a private tutor as we travelled the world, staying in one exotic location after another.”

“That sounds idyllic,” I say.

“I know, right?” Lucas shakes his head. “Looks can be deceiving. As you’ve seen yourself, money doesn’t mean anything if the person who has it is evil, and that was Penelope. She was one of the nastiest people I’ve ever met. Maybe one day you’ll see the scars on my back from the beating she gave me because I got a merit in my piano exam. She told me that the Donatellos were known for excellence and if I didn’t get top marks in everything I did, she would leave a mark on my body for every grade I dropped. I’m sure you can imagine what my grades were like after that. It’s why I was able to breeze into the Academy and know that I’d be able to keep up with whatever classes you were in. I’m used to being the best at everything because I had no choice. Penelope had her standards and I wasn’t allowed to let them drop.”

“That’s awful!” I gasp.

“That was my life.” Lucas shrugs. “I was Penelope’s little fashion accessory, the one thing which demonstrated to the world that she was perfect. She couldn’t deal with the fact that she wasn’t capable of having children herself. She hated the idea that for all her ambition and money, she still couldn’t have everything, so she took her resentment out on me. It was like she desperately wanted me but she despised me because I reminded her that not even the great Penelope Donatello could conquer Nature.”

“So what happened?” I ask. “Where’s Penelope now?”

“Dead.” Lucas says it without feeling, but I was sure there was a world of conflicting emotions behind that reality. “She died a year ago after a long and painful battle with cancer, another fight she couldn’t win, although she threw everything she had into it. She paid for expensive consultants, alternative therapists, even bought a pharmaceutical cannabis company. If something was supposed to cure cancer, she knew about it, but nothing worked. I always thought that it was her passion for winning that made her live longer than the twelve months the doctors predicted. She spent three years trying to cure herself, but in the end, the cancer took her-–and it wasn’t pleasant. She left everything to me. I have more money than I know what to do with and it’s just as much yours as it is mine.”

“I don’t want your money.” I shake my head.

“I know,” says Lucas sadly. “I know you don’t want anything from me. But I hope that will change in time. What’s mine is yours.” He inhales deeply. “I know you might not believe me, but I wasn’t keen on this wedding either. I don’t need Archaic money.”

“So, why did you go ahead with it?”

“One of the conditions of Penelope’s will was that I marry someone who would help grow the family business,” Lucas says. “If I didn’t, I’d lose everything.”

“So?” I ask. “It’s just money. If it were me, I wouldn’t want anything from someone who’d treated me like that. I tell you something for nothing-–I have absolutely no intention of picking up from where my father leaves off when he dies. I’ll give it all to charity. I don’t care.”

“Don’t you think he knows that?” Lucas asks. “It’s one of the reasons why he approached me to marry you.”

“Why would you care what happens to my father’s fortune?”

“I don’t.” Lucas shrugs. “But I’m not like you. There’s no way I’m going back to the kind of life I had before Penelope adopted me. Money might not buy you happiness but it can certainly rent it for a while. Working with your father, I have the opportunity to build a business which can change the world. When your father asked me if I’d be willing to help him keep you safe from the other Houses and showed me your photo, I had no hesitation. With Penelope’s money and Solomon’s mentorship I can do something which will really make a difference in people’s lives and if that means I have to marry a beautiful woman to do it, I’m okay with that.”

“Even if she’s marrying you against her will?”

Lucas has nothing to say to that.

I don’t know what to make of my new husband. He is such a curious mix of caring and cold. I love the idea of his doing something to help people, but can I believe he really means what he is saying? He could be lying, telling me what he thinks I want to hear to get me to fall for him.

While Lucas is saying all the right things, there is no way I am going to trust him. Not now, and maybe not ever.

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