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He shrugged and shook his head. “I think she was cornered and didn’t see a way out, so she finally told me the truth. Portia is not who she says she is. She’s not a princess. She never was. She claims she found out while trying to dig up protocols for our wedding. Her family fled to the United States right after World War II and assumed the role of royalty. They were impoverished and used their phony status to gain a leg up. Supposedly, Portia’s great-aunt has a diary that confirms all this.”
“Wow, this is...big. Poor Portia. She must’ve been devastated when she found out. I can only imagine how she feels right now.”
He stared at her. “You mean you believe that she didn’t know about this all along?”
“Why wouldn’t I? More importantly, why wouldn’t you?”
“I’ll tell you why. When she came back to Del Sol a couple weeks ago she lied about her reasons for breaking it off. She made up one excuse after another and if I hadn’t gone to LA, I would still believe those lies she’d told. Only when she couldn’t get rid of me any other way, she was forced to reveal the truth.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Maria began shaking her head. “That doesn’t sound like Portia. What did you say to her when you found out?”
“In the beginning I was shell-shocked. And then my methodical mind started working and I said some things out of anger. I practically accused her of being a gold digger. Now that I think back on it, she looked so...lost. She kept saying she was an imposter, and I couldn’t sympathize with her. I wasn’t in the frame of mind. I felt betrayed. She should have come to me with the truth from the beginning.”
“It must’ve been a hard thing for her to admit. To herself, much less to the man she loved. Just think, everything she believed about herself and her life is a lie. If that were me, I wouldn’t know what to do, who to turn to. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to do what she did. It was a hard day for both of you.”
He drew oxygen into his lungs. “I suppose. I still don’t know what to think.”
“What else did she say? How did you part?”
“She pretty much told me off. She said that I expected perfection in everything and that I only loved the idea of her.” He stared into his tumbler at the last gulp of whiskey left. “That’s not true.”
“No?”
He gave Maria a glance. “No,” he assured her. “I loved her.”
“You still love her, Your Majesty. You can’t shut down those emotions so quickly. And what if she still is that woman you fell in love with, without the title of princess in front of her name? What if Portia Lindstrom is the woman for you?”
“How can I believe that when she doesn’t believe it? She didn’t try to defend herself against my accusations. She didn’t try to convince me that I’d been wrong about her.”
“Well, since you asked me for my advice, I’m going to give it to you. I know Portia a little bit, and I’m a pretty good judge of character. I have seen the way she looks at you. The eyes don’t lie. She was deeply in love and happy.”
A lump formed in his throat. In the short weeks that he and Portia had been together, they’d gotten to know each other pretty well. They’d shared an adventure or two, but it went deeper than that and he’d felt they were meant for each other from the very beginning. It was a sense he had, a feeling that clamped onto him and never let go. It wasn’t an overreaction to her beauty or the fact that she was a princess. But that factored into the equation, at least a little bit, because her status meant he was free to seriously pursue her.
“I thought so, too,” he said. “We were good together.”
“Did you ever stop to think that she wasn’t thinking about herself when she broke up with you? Maybe she loved you so much she didn’t want you portrayed in a bad light. A hasty then broken engagement wouldn’t instill much faith in the monarchy you are trying to reestablish. After the big splash announcing your engagement, how would King Juan Carlos appear to the country that trusted his honor? Wouldn’t it make you seem frivolous? Or duped? Or worse yet, impetuous? Seems to me, if I was in that situation, I would do everything in my power to protect the man I loved from scorn and speculation.”
He scrubbed his jaw and sighed. “The last thing she told me was that she would make sure no blame came to rest on my shoulders.”
Maria smiled. “There, you see. Only a woman still in love would say that. She was shielding you from harm. I would bet on it.”
