Page 32 of The Prince's Secret Daughter
Raj carried Angela and led Helen towards the bedrooms, his guards surrounding them until they were behind closed doors. When they were alone, he carried Angela over to the dresser, setting her down on top so they were eye to eye.
“Sweetie, will you tell me exactly what happened this morning? Who gave you those boots?”
Angela stared at the closed doorway, then at her daddy’s serious expression. Her features slowly began to crumble into what he suspected might become a sob.
“I didn’t do it!” she cried out, her tiny hands fisted and curled up against her chest. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Are you going to leave me Daddy? Don’t leave me, Daddy!”
By the time she’d finished, she was in an all-out break down, her tiny body shaking with sobs.
Helen immediately stepped forward, but Raj was already there, lifting Angela into his arms and cradling her against his chest. “I’m not leaving you, love!” he assured her, rubbing a hand over her back. “I’ll never leave you! You’re my little princess and I’ll always be here for you!”
He turned, not sure what to say to ease his daughter’s pain. So he looked to Helen, silently asking her for help.
Helen’s eyes had filled as well, which always happened when her little girl cried. It didn’t matter the issue, Helen couldn’t handle Angela’s tears.
“Honey,” Helen said, stepping forward. She brushed Angela’s hair away from her red face and tried to get through to her. “Sweetie, you didn’t do anything wrong. And even if youhad, your daddy would never leave you. That’s not how your daddy acts. He loves you! He’s loved you from the very moment he met you. He loves everything about you!”
The words slowly got through to Angela and her sobs started to ease, but her features were still crumpled in sadness, her mouth twisted into a frown.
“Really? He won’t leave?”
Helen shook her head. “Not a chance,” she said, reaching up to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear. “He loves you and he wants to be close to you.”
“But…why did we have to play a silent game?”
Raj wasn’t sure how to answer this question. He rubbed Angela’s back as he sat down on the bed, Angela on his lap. “I know you’re not going to fully understand this yet, but sometimes, people try to-” He stopped, not sure how to explain.
“You are a special person, Angela,” Helen interjected, worried that Raj was about to tell a four year old that sometimes people try to hurt him. That wasn’t something that Angela would understand yet and it would haunt her. “And sometimes, people will give you gifts that aren’t really gifts. There are ways to…?” she stopped, then turned back to Raj, needing help.
He stepped up immediately. “They’ll want to…?”
“Put me in a tower?” Angela suggested in a tiny voice.
Helen realized that she was reaching back to all the stories about princesses that she’d been told.
“Yeah,” she finished. “Something like that.”
“But I could be like Princess Fiona, right?” Angela offered, her eyes lighting up with hope, her cheeks still wet with tears. “I could learn to chop up anyone who tries to put me into a tower!” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to be like the princess who falls asleep.” She sighed, shaking her head. “That was just dumb. She should have been stronger. Like Fiona.”
Helen chuckled, nodding her head. “Yeah, I like Fiona better too. Even after she turned green.”
That cleared up the last of Angela’s worries. “But when she’s green, she gets to fart in the swamp!”
Helen gave a startled laughed, nodding again. She turned to look at Raj. He clearly had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. “A green princess who chops people and…” he paused, clearly baffled, “farts in swamps?”
Angela waited for him to understand, but he looked completely clueless.
“It’s a movie,” Helen explained, giving him a reprieve.
That seemed to clear up his confusion and he nodded slowly. “Yes. You should definitely be more like Fiona.”
Angela’s gaze turned serious and, not for the first time, Helen was stunned by how similar her daughter’s expressions were to Raj’s.
“Do you know how to chop people, Daddy?”
Raj again turned to Helen for a translation. “Karate or some form of martial arts. I have no clue what type of martial arts Fiona used in the movie.”
“Ah!” Raj replied, nodding in understanding. Then he looked to Angela. “Yes. I know several different ways to…uh…chop people.”
