Page 5 of Forbidden Bastard
His blood pressure climbed as he remembered the nuns who'd left him for hours hooked to the coat rack when he was still too small to ever do harm. He straightened his spine. “Both of my parents decided they didn’t want to raise me.”
The waiter brought in salads.
Neither said anything as the food was set in front of them. For a first time, one-on-one conversation between them, the silence seemed about right. They had nothing in common really. Once the waiter left, Antonio said, “Our father says he thought you were killed during the revolution.”
When he’d been three and the nun who'd tormented him had left him.
An older woman at the train station during the first battle had ushered him with her, at first thinking he was her grandson. Once they were out of Avce, she'd introduced herself as Clara Belrose and she'd cared for him for the rest of his childhood.
In fact,Clarahad insisted he claim his identity to get his bank account released and access his share of the royal funds, so he had.
Honestly, Clara Belrose was the only reason he wasn’t committing treason. Betraying his birth family could make him very wealthy.
Clara always insisted he was better than he was.
As of yet, he hadn't introduced Clara to anyone in Avce. Not explaining himself made everyone way more interested in him, so Charles kept his personal lifeextremelypersonal. He simply said, “That doesn’t explain my life before the revolution, when I was raised by nuns.”
Antonio dug into his salad and ate a few bites. Charles took that as a cue and ate a little. When they'd finished, Antonio put his fork down. “You seem to have landed on your feet.”
Now they were getting down to business. Antonio folded his hands over his plate. “Yes, I’m good at watching my own back.”
The staff swept the plates off the table and left. Antonio leaned closer and said, “None of us want you working against the crown.”
Yet his lineage alone was a reason people might revolt which was why every revolutionary he’d met for years had hoped to align with him in some way. Perhaps if Clara hadn’t raised him, he’d be way more bitter but she'd taught him differently. Still, silence often earned him more than conversation. He sipped his wine and waited for the servers to bring more food, then said, “I will not be seeking your future, Antonio.”
Antonio's face turned less red but he cut his lamb and stared at him until Charles did the same. Hopefully this would end suspicion about his intentions for Avce, which were none. He followed the custom to eat what the royals served in unison. Antonio calmed down when he saw that Charles would do as bidden. “Our kingdom has survived for two thousand years when most kingdoms disappeared in the folds of time.”
Now came the royal decree. Everyone assumed Charles was their enemy. He straightened. “That’s longwinded. Let’s cut to the chase.”
Antonio put his fork down and acted like this was a negotiation. “Fair enough. How much will your loyalty cost?”
Everyone thought the worst of him, so he might as well ask for the one woman who starred in his dreams every night as the one who got away. “Sheena is not an option?”
Antonio’s nose flared which Charles had learned was how he showed his disdain. “No," he said. "We don’t force happily married people to divorce for royal amusement.”
Might as well remind everyone he wasn’t a good man. It was because of this that the royal bribes continued to appear in his account and he ensured Clara retired in style for taking him in. He scooted his chair back and said, “That’s too bad. She’d have made my price much smaller.”
Antonio leaned closer and it seemed like his half-sibling gazed deep into his soul. “Yet she said you left her, and that you didn’t want her until she married someone else.”
“She misunderstood.” He understood her perfectly.
Sheena had married the man she'd always loved. Charles had never told her who he really was and now that she knew, she’d lined his pocket full of titles and cash.
Embarrassment hadn't hurt either of them in the end. Charles picked up his fork, breaking tradition of waiting for Antonio. “Or she understood perfectly that you are fickle.”
Fair. But unlike every other person in Avce he’d met, he wasn’t convinced that love was the answer to save him. In fact, it sounded rather stupid. “You don’t know me at all.”
Antonio seemed to enjoy his lamb as he ate it all. “True. Do you realize that through you, I’m now related to my royal matchmaker?”
Interesting. “I don’t understand.”
Antonio dropped his napkin over his empty plate. “Your half-sisters, Cassidy and Chelsea, are well liked in Avce.”
A sip of wine cleansed his palate. His half-sister, the royal matchmaker, had sent him an email last month. “Cassidy is known for creating a computer algorithm "guaranteed" to find love.”
Antonio sat back in his chair. “She insists that if you marry the woman with the name she sent you that you’ll be happy and therefore not plotting against us.”
There must be something in the water in Avce where all these grown adults talked about love like it actually cured anything.
