Page 53 of Bound

“Yes,” he interjected, fully grimacing with it. “I know. After we turned off Carris’s press conference, I got up to get more gauze and bandages. When I heard your mother’s phone buzzing, I figured out what she had done. I must admit, we had some immediate words about it… But then I realized, in light of the bonsun and his treachery, she might actually be thinking clearer than I about the whole thing.”

“About what whole thing?” Jayd demanded. “Gauze…and bandages? Why?” She huffed. “Paipanne, what on earth is—”

“Jayd?”

Though the interruption was coarse and frail, she automatically corrected her posture. Because that was what she always did when her mother was in the room. Because she recognized it all as the self-comfort it needed to be now, especially as Paipanne winced as if a sword had gouged him straight through.

“Jayd Dawne?” came Maimanne’s new call, containing a strange wince of its own—discernible enough to make Jayd throw a matching look toward her father. “Ardent, where is she? My chér-kik. My beautiful little girl.”

It had become a soft but desperate keen, intensifying Jayd’s scrutiny at her father. He reacted by re-donning his armor—the figurative version of the stuff that she remembered so vividly from her formative years. No. Her whole life.

She had seen chinks in those shields on only three occasions. Once, when he and Evrest had fought bitterly over her college selection. The second time was during his formal abdication of the kingdom’s crown to Ev. The third time was thirty seconds ago.

She was damn glad it was over now.

“Eyes up, bijheur.”

She complied, but not because he had uttered her nickname in Arcadian. Again, it was the urgency in his tone. The implication that he needed her to really hear him. He proved that with the fervent look on his strong, noble face.

“I know you were hurt, Jayd…not being called up here sooner.” He took her hand again, and she wondered when he had switched out his bones for iron rods. But while his grip was glacial, his words were soft and warm. “I am sorry about that. But there are reasons. Good ones.”

“All right.” Jayd reinforced her hold too.

“Like the rest of us, your maimanne was not prepared for the information Carris and Santelle brought to Evrest last week. But unlike everyone, she endured a deeper cut from that blade.”

“Of course,” Jayd concurred. “It finally exposed her mistake.”

She was unprepared for his reaction, which came on a vehement surge. “Not her mistake. “Do not say that again! You were not, have not, nor ever will be a mistake. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she rasped, bowing her head and drilling her resentful glare into the Turkish-carpeted floor. “I hear you.”

He huffed hard but then inhaled slow, visibly restraining himself. “That is a start, I suppose.”

“A start?” She jerked her head back up. “Of what?”

“To you believing me.”

She reared back a little, unsure what was more unsettling: the plea in his voice, or the truth he so accurately nailed with it.

“Yes,” she finally said. “A ‘start’ is an excellent way of looking at things.”

Right now, she could give him no more than that. And was grateful he did not demand it.

“You already know that the Pura were tipped off about all this from a former aide of your mother’s,” Paipanne went on. “An individual Xaria, as well as myself, considered to be a close and dear friend.”

Jayd did not miss the pained creases at the corners of his tight gaze. “You both knew her? This person?” She had no idea why that caused a subtle change in her view of the situation, but it did.

“Yes,” he admitted. “She was a member of our inner circle, so to speak. One of the people we could both rely on to keep our confidences.” The confession led to a new contortion across his face. “There are many skeletons in both our closets. You have probably discerned all that by now. While neither of us are proud of that fact, we have also been aware of the trusted individuals who helped keep those closets closed.”

“Until one of them did not.”

He tipped a small nod. “Until one of them did not.”

Jayd fumed into silence. There was the key to the shift in her perception. Her parents had certainly not been right or smart about their indiscretions, but lately she had learned that sometimes—so many times—the right thing was not the most obvious choice. Everything worsened when things were dragged into the court of public perception, with the media as self-appointed judges and barristers.

The dismal result? Not a damn thing was clear anymore. Not the truths that had always defined her reality, not the perceptions that had always bound her heart. Definitely not the people who had always set the boundaries of her future.

Would they ever be again?