Page 61 of Royal Affair
"One of the older maids. She went straight to my mother." The shame of that night burned fresh. "The scandal was contained immediately. Anton was dismissed with a generous severance package and a nondisclosure agreement. But rumors still circulated. The palace staff knew. Certain members of Bellavistan society were suspicious."
"A Certain Member, you mean Viktor Kozlov?"
I nodded, surprised he'd made the connection so quickly. "My mother arranged the engagement shortly after. Viktor was politically advantageous—son of a Russian oligarch with ties to several royal houses. The perfect distraction from my indiscretion. The perfect way to rehabilitate my image."
"But he wasn't what he seemed," James prompted.
"No. In private, he was controlling, possessive. He'd criticize everything—my clothes, my friends, my interests. He monitored my calls, questioned my whereabouts. Small things that grew larger over time."
James's expression darkened. "He hurt you."
"Not physically. Not at first." I wrapped my hands around my water glass. "For three months, I endured it. Told myself it was my duty. That all marriages had challenges."
"What happened to end it?" His voice was tight with controlled anger.
"A palace garden party. Viktor had been drinking heavily. He followed me inside and accused me of flirting with a Spanish diplomat." The memory was vivid—the dim corridor, distant laughter from the garden, Viktor's crushing grip on my arm. "When I denied it, he called me a liar, a slut. That I should learn my place."
James's fingers curled into a fist on the table. "What did you do?"
"I told him the marriage was off. He didn't take it well—pushed me against the wall, said I had no choice." I exhaled shakily. "Then Nikolai appeared—Viktor's cousin. Nikolai pulled him away. There was a scuffle. Viktor was drunk, fell, and hit his head on a marble table."
I closed my eyes, seeing it play out again. The pool of blood. Nikolai's stunned face. My frozen horror.
"He was unconscious, bleeding heavily on an antique Persian rug," I whispered. "While guests drank champagne in the gardens, Viktor lay there barely breathing. For a moment, I thought he was going to die."
The silence that followed was absolute. I stared at my hands, unable to look at James, afraid of what I might see in his eyes.
"Nikolai panicked," I continued when the silence became unbearable. "Said his uncle would blame him, have him killed. He begged for help, and I... I called my mother."
"Queen Sophia covered it up," James concluded, his voice carefully neutral.
I nodded. "Within hours, Viktor was secretly taken to a private medical facility. The marriage was annulled immediately while he recovered. By the time he was well enough to cause trouble, my mother had already arranged his permanent departure from Bellavista with a substantial financial incentive to stay away."
"And Nikolai?"
"My mother paid him to disappear. New identity, money to start over somewhere far away." I finally looked up, meeting James's gaze. "But Nikolai was Viktor's cousin, and family loyalty ran deep. When Viktor was murdered years later, Nikolai became convinced that Evangeline had arranged it - that she'd been planning Viktor's death all along, using the palace incident as cover. He believed she'd waited years for the perfect moment to eliminate the one person who knew her darkest secret. That's why he came after me in Luxembourg - he thought I was a calculated killer who'd escaped justice."
"You thought it was over until the threats started," James said.
"Until the threats started, until Nikolai himself kidnapped me." I shrugged helplessly. "All I know is that for five years, I've lived with this secret. Knowing that a man was nearly killed because of me, that I was part of covering it up."
"Not because of you," James said firmly, reaching across the table to cover my hand with his. The contact startled me—his first touch since Bellavista. "Viktor was injured because he was violent. Because he attacked you. It was an accident, Evangeline. Not your fault."
"I found traces of something in the security files when I first took this assignment," James admitted. "Medical records that were heavily redacted, travel documents that didn't make sense. But the palace security was so tight, I couldn't piece together what had actually happened. I knew there was a covered-up incident, but not the details."
The conviction in his voice broke something inside me. Tears spilled down my cheeks. "I still see his face sometimes. Still hear the sound of his head hitting that table. All that blood..."
James's hand tightened over mine. "You survived a deviant and I say that because he was not a man—his main objective was to hurt you, break you down, making you fully dependent on him. Never apologize for escaping, for surviving. Do you understand?"
James was quiet for a long moment, his training warring with his emotions. I could see him processing everything - the implications, his duty as a security professional, his feelings for me.
"I should report this," he said finally. "Any involvement in a death, even accidental, should be investigated properly. It's what I've been trained to do."
My heart stopped. "Will you?"
He studied my face, and I could see the exact moment he made his choice. "No," he said firmly. "Because you were the victim, not the perpetrator. Viktor's death wasn't your fault - it was the result of his family's criminal activities years later. And the real crime was what he did to you in that palace."
I looked up through my tears, struck by the fierce protectiveness in his expression. "You're not disgusted by what I did? By the cover-up?"
