Page 24 of Crown of Thorns
“Si,” he says. “You did grow up—safely—in New England after your parents were assassinated. But you were born in San Juan de Baptista.”
“I-I didn’t know that,” I stutter as my mind reels with all the information he’s just throw in my face like a vat of scalding water.
“Madame,” my uncle, if he’s to be believed, says. “I’m not convinced you know anything. Your papa would be disgusted with you.”
It feels like he’s struck me. A slap across the face would have hurt less than hearing that my father, the one I didn’t get to grow up with, would have hated me.The little girl in me who cried every night, wishing her parents would come back to her with every wish she ever made on every shooting star that passed by her bedroom window, just died.
“I’ll ask you to hold your tongue when you speak to my future queen,” Rhys warns.
I snap out of my mental fog to turn around and watch him approach our little tête-à-tête. I have no idea when he entered the room. Possibly, it was when my entire world—everything I thought I knew—was being tossed on its head. Again.
“Excuse me?” I whisper.
“I am your uncle,” he explains as if I’m slow, which, I guess at this moment, I am. “I am the king of San Juan de Baptista.”
“Allow me to introduce your uncle,” Rhys says as he steps up beside me, placing his warm hand on the small of my back. The act of protection and care is not lost on any of the occupants of this room, least of all me. “How are you, Carlos?”
“I’ve been better,” he answers. “Does she always look like this? I was told she was beautiful.”
“I find her very beautiful.”
“I should hope so,” he laughs. “You’re stuck with her now… Although I guess that’s what mistresses are for. Once you have your heir and all that.”
Both Rhys and I are silent as the joke falls flat. There’s still no trust between us. I know that he wasn’t celibate before he met me, and it wouldn’t be fair tothink that he would have been even when I thought he was just a rich businessman. He’s older than I am and more worldly by far. But after Saoirse presented herself as my fiancé’s lover while sitting at the dining table with another former lover of his, I’m having a hard time believing that he’s either devoted to me or willing to stay that way until he’s dead.
I let out a sigh. “I had thought that Paul or Fran were here,” I admit quietly.
“I see that,” Rhys says. “I’m sorry you hadn’t been told.”
“There seems to be a lot of that going around these halls…”
“I tried to tell you about your family,” Rhys says quietly. “But you didn’t want to know.”
“No, I rejected the conditions that you placed on that knowledge. I was under the impression that my family was dead,” I reply defiantly. “Besides, Paul and Fran are my family.”
“My royal guards?” my real uncle asks. “They are not your family, I am.”
“I don’t know you,” I say, shaking my head. “Paul and Fran raised me. That’s all I know.”
“You dare reject the care that I provided for you?” he snaps. “Your education? Everything you ever wanted?”
“No,” I jump to answer. It’s funny. I haven’t felt this insecure in a long time. Sure, I’m a fish out of water here, but with Rhys, I’m confident in who I am andknow that I have value. This is who I used to be, before Rhys entered my life, when I lived alone in my little New England apartment and spent my time in a quaint bookshop. “I just didn’t know that it was you. Or who you are. I always thought that they were my uncles. I didn’t know who my parents really were.”
“No,” he says with a sigh. “You wouldn’t. Your mother and father thought they could save the world.”
“I thought they were archeologists…”
“No,” he says with a smile. “That was their cover. There is much you don’t know.”
“You have no idea.”
“Perhaps we should dress for dinner,” Rhys suggests. “I’m sure all will be better then, and we can discuss the upcoming coronation arrangements.”
“Good thinking,” my new-to-me uncle says.
Rhys takes me by the arm and leads me out of the room like a gentleman, but it’s just a ruse. There is no gentleman here, only a bossy king who thinks he owns me.
And if I can’t get a grip on my life and soon,he will.
