Page 45 of Raul
“No, I’m used to it. My father was a hero to many. People still want to talk to me about him. It keeps him alive in a way.” She ventured deeper, trusting Raul to sympathize. “Except they see him as a courageous rescuer who saved lives. To me, he was the dad who carried me on his shoulders, who took me camping…and whose approval I was always striving to win.” She was still angry with him for dying.
“I understand that. Having a father who is larger than life can be…difficult. You find yourself sharing him with total strangers.” Raul’s voice held nothing but compassion, yet she felt there was pain there too.
“It’s a thousand times worse for you.” She feathered her fingers along his cheekbone. “You share your father with an entire country.”
He turned his head to kiss the inside of her wrist. “Pater has always made sure to be a father to me in private. My old nurse told me that he would create consternation in the nursery when I was a baby because he insisted on feeding me himself once a day. If his schedule kept him late, he would still come and scoop me out of my cradle to sit and rock me while I slept. Knowing that helps when I have to be his subject rather than his child.”
“That is so sweet.” The image of King Luis holding his infant son in his arms in the middle of the night brought a prickle of tears to her eyes. She couldn’t picture her father doing that, but maybe he had. She should ask her mother.
“Now it’s harder for him to be only my father, but he does his best.” Raul took another bite of brownie.
Harder because Raul was the king-in-training, whether he liked it or not. His life was mapped out for him. Even who he was allowed to marry was constrained by his position. If he wanted to rebel against his father, he didn’t have much space to do it in. Her stomach twisted at the thought of such limitations.
“Did you ever want to be something other than a prince?” She took a swallow of champagne and hoped she hadn’t pushed too far. “I mean, I got to choose my career, even though my father made his disapproval clear.”
Raul cut his brownie with deliberation, making a piece that was a perfect square.
“That was too personal,” Erica said quickly. “Don’t answer it.”
“When I was ten, I wanted to be a professionalfutbolplayer, but what kid doesn’t?” He gave a brief smile before he laid his fork on his plate. “I care deeply about Caleva and its people. My position allows me to help them in ways that no one else can. Honestly, I don’t know what else I would want to do.” He madea wry face. “That sounds incredibly hokey, as Grace would say, doesn’t it?”
His voice rang with conviction. He was speaking from his heart.
“It sounds like the commitment I want from my future king.”
He flopped over onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “I’m not like Gabriel. I don’t have a brilliant talent. All I know how to do is be the Prince of Caleva.”
“Then it’s a good thing that you excel at the job.” She felt like she was flying a helicopter without the pedals in this conversation. Her own fault since she had asked the question that started it.
He rolled onto his side to face her again, the angles of his face tight. “My father is always there to save the day. If I fail, no one knows. Sometimes not even I do.”
She swallowed a gasp at the raw honesty of his admission. The confident, charming, charismatic Prince Raul didn’t think he was good at his job.
“Your father would tell you, wouldn’t he?” She grasped at a straw in the face of such self-doubt.
He considered that a moment. “He can’t allow me to fail. The consequences would be too difficult to clean up.”
Now it was as though her helicopter had lost its tail rotor, except that problem she would know how to deal with. This conversation was at a level she was unprepared for.
“I think most Calevans see you and your father as a team. Maybe he’s the senior partner and you’re the junior one, but people feel secure about the country’s future knowing you will be the next king.” Trying to come up with what else she could say to reassure him, she fiddled with one of the buttons on the shirt she wore.Hisshirt.
“Do you really think I can measure up to King Luis IV? The historians are already calling him one of the greatest kings ofCaleva. That’s not at all intimidating.” He balled up a handful of the sheet in his fist.
Mierda!How did she convince him that he would be just as good? She knew nothing about ruling a country. But she wanted to soothe his anxiety away, to make him understand how amazing he already was.
“That’s probably why I chose to fly, not swim. I felt like I couldn’t compete with my heroic father.” And she hated the water. She plucked at the button again. “But you don’t have to compete. You’ll be building on what King Luis has accomplished in his reign. You’ll be taking Caleva into a future that holds God knows what, especially with the speed at which technology is changing the world. You’ll face different challenges that will set you apart from your father.”
That made sense to her.
He released his hold on the sheet. “I have some ideas about technology for Caleva.”
She jumped on that to keep him moving toward the positive. “Talk to your father about them. I bet he’d be thrilled to let you handle that aspect of things.” She hoped. “I’m sure the king is very tech savvy, but he’s…the older generation.” Had she gone too far?
“It’s true that he has no idea how to change the ringtone on his phone.” A flicker of amusement crossed Raul’s face.
“And you know that how?” Relief rushed through her at the lift in his mood.
“When I was about twelve, I thought it would be funny to make his ringtone that song ‘SexyBack.’ He wasn’t happy when it sounded during a meeting with thePortavoz delConsejo.”
