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Somebody hired to hurt her.
That thought sent a sliver of dread through her body. She wouldn’t show it. After all, what good were layers of makeup if you couldn’t use them to hide your true face?
“I’m not a snob. I’m a prince.”
“Right. Of a country I’ve never heard of.”
“Your American centric viewpoint is hardly my problem, is it, Ms. King? It seems to me that your lack of education does not speak to my authenticity.”
“Yes. Well. That is something you would say.” The car was still moving, farther and farther away from where they had originated. And she supposed that she had to face the fact that this might not be a joke. That this man really thought she was going to go back to his country with him. If that country existed. Really, she had nothing but his word for it, and considering that he seemed to think that she was going to marry his brother, he might be delusional on multiple levels.
“I want to call my dad.”
“You’re welcome to,” he said, handing her the phone.
She snatched it from him and dialed her father’s personal number as quickly as possible. Robert King picked up on the second ring.
“Dad,” she said, launching into her proclamation without preamble. “A madman has bundled me up and put me in his limousine, and he’s claiming that you made a deal with him some decade ago, and I’m supposed to marry his brother?”
“I didn’t make a deal with your dad,” Javier said. “My brother did.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she hissed. And then she sat there, waiting for her father to respond. With shock, she assumed. Yes, she assumed that he would respond with shock. Because of course this was insane. And of course it was the first time her father was hearing such a thing. Because there was no way he had anything to do with this. “So anyway, if you could just tell him that he’s crazy...”
She realized how stupid it was the minute she said that. Because of course her father telling Javier he was crazy wouldn’t likely reinforce it if the act of flinging her into his limousine hadn’t done it.
“Violet...” Her father’s voice was suddenly rough, completely uncharacteristic of the smooth, confident man that she had always looked up to.
Her father was imperfect. She wasn’t blind to that. The fact that he was completely uninvested in her success was obvious to her. When it came to her brother, he was always happy to talk business. But because her business centered around female things, and she herself was a woman, she could never escape the feeling that her father thought it was some kind of hobby. Something insubstantial and less somehow.
But surely he wouldn’t... Surely that didn’t mean he saw her as currency.
“He’s crazy, right?”
“I never thought that he would follow up on this,” her father said. “And when you reached your twenties and he didn’t... I assumed that there would be no recourse.”
“You promised me to a king?”
“It could’ve been worse. I could have promised you to the used car salesman.”
“You can’t just promise someone else to someone else. I’m a person, not a... A cow.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Violet, I honestly didn’t think that...”
“I won’t stand for it. I will not do it. What’s to stop me from jumping out of the car right now—” she looked out the window and saw the scenery flying by at an alarming clip, and she knew that that would keep her from jumping out of the car, but her father didn’t need to know that “—and running for freedom?”
“The businesses. They will go to him.”
“The businesses?”
“Yours and mine. Remember we sheltered yours under mine for taxes and...”
“Maximus’s too?”
Because if he had sheltered her business, surely he had sheltered her brothers as well...
“No,” her father said slowly.
“What’s the real reason you kept mine underneath your corporation? Was it for this?”
