Page 130 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

His lip twisted. ‘Are you close to your father, Rosalind?’

She bit down on her lip, eyes clouding. ‘That’s...complicated.’

Sebastian scanned her face. ‘Would you forgive him, if he were to push you out of his life? Is there anything you could do that would cause him to cease seeing you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rosie answered honestly.

‘Yes, you do. It is not how it’s supposed to be. A parent loves their child and advocates for them, no matter what. That, at least, has been my experience.’

‘With your mother, but what about your own father?’

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed and his face jerked a little, as though she’d hit him. ‘What about him?’

‘You don’t see him, nor speak to him.’

‘When my mother left, he told her we were dead to him and left the country. He has been true to his word. At no point in the past twenty-five years has he attempted any communication with me.’

‘Then not all parents fight for their children,’ she pointed out, but sympathy took the sting out of her words. She reached over and put a hand on his leg. ‘I’m sorry about your father. He sounds like a piece of work.’

‘I don’t remember him,’ Sebastian said without emotion, and yet she felt something in the depths of his words, something he was hiding from her, wishing her not to see. ‘To all intents and purposes, Mark was my father.’

‘He died quite recently?’ she prompted, even though she wanted to avoid hurting Sebastian. They were here to get to know one another, and this seemed like something she should understand.

‘Almost two years ago.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly.

‘He was sick and seeing him like that was—’ Sebastian’s eyes probed hers, as if he might find the word he sought buried in her gaze. ‘Difficult. In the end, his death was a relief.’

She flinched a little, though she understood the sentiment. Grieving a mother who lived in a comatose state brought with it a deep understanding of life, death and the grey area in between.

‘Mark raised me, taught me how to ride a bike and shoot hoops, how to drive a car, how to use my mind to win just about any argument I want. He taught me to be patient when I was bursting at the seams with excitement about something, he taught me to appreciate things like art and classical music because, he said, they were a link to history and the past, and the best way to understand ourselves and our futures. And he showed me every day of his life that his family—my mother and I—was his reason for living. He was the very best of men—the fact my grandfather couldn’t see that just shows how blinkered his vision was.’

A lump had formed in Rosie’s throat at this description of his childhood, and yet his criticism of the king made it hard for her to say anything other than, ‘We’ll have to agree to disagree.’

‘You are truly going to keep defending him on this?’

‘I don’t need to defend his actions,’ she demurred.

‘And yet you do, constantly.’

She sighed. ‘I think his commitment to his country is admirable. I think he’s sacrificed a lot, personally, because of his position as king. I think he made hard decisions that cost him dearly, but which he felt were right for the people of Cavalonia.’

‘He was wrong,’ Sebastian replied flatly.

‘The scandal—’ Rosie murmured, but Sebastian interrupted her.

‘Would have blown over. They always do. Look at Fabrizio’s life—he was plagued by scandals and bad behaviour, and yet he was not disinherited.’

‘He was the only heir remaining.’

‘There was me,’ Sebastian contradicted with an intensity to his voice that pulled at Rosie. ‘There was my mother.’

Their eyes locked and the air between them sparked with emotional energy,zap zap zip.

Rosie bit into her lip again, not sure what to say to that. Perhaps Sebastian was right, perhaps the king was. ‘It’s ancient history,’ she said, earning a wry half smile from Sebastian.

‘That was Mark’s point. History is a part of us. You and I are married because of this “ancient history”, and now we are cementing that by trying to fall pregnant. Imagine if my mother had been free to stay, to raise me here, for me to grow as the assumed heir.’

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