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That being in Monte Blanco was her choice.
She took a fortifying breath, and she selected her father’s number.
“Violet,” he said, his tone rough.
“Hi,” she said, not exactly sure what to feel. A sense of relief at hearing his voice, because she had missed him even while she had been angry at him.
At least, missed the way that she had felt about him before.
“Are you all right?”
“It’s a little bit late for you to be concerned about that.”
“Why? I didn’t expect that you would be cut off from communication with me.”
“I haven’t been. I’ve been perfectly able to call and communicate with whoever I wished.”
“You haven’t come back to California. You haven’t been at work. From what I’ve heard you’ve only given minimal instruction to your team. It’s not like you.”
“Well. You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve never been kidnapped before. Neither have I been engaged to be married to two different men in the space of a few weeks. Strangers, at that.”
“I meant to speak to you about this,” he said.
“You meant to speak to me about it?”
“It was never intended to be a surprise. But I lost my nerve when it came to speaking to you after I struck the deal.”
“I can’t imagine why. Were you afraid that I would be angry that you sold me like I was a prized heifer?”
“I figured that if I could position it the right way, you would see why it was a good thing. Being a businesswoman is one thing, Violet, but a princess? A queen?”
“Well, I’m not going to be Queen now. I got knocked down to the spare, rather than the heir.”
“What happened?”
Her father sounded genuinely distressed by that. “Do you really care?”
“It would’ve been better for you to marry Matteo. He is the King.”
“No,” she said, “it wouldn’t be better for me to marry Matteo, because I don’t have any feelings for him.”
“Are you telling me you have feelings for... The other one?”
“Why do you care? You let him take me. You let me be kidnapped and held for reasons of marriage without explaining to me why. Without... Dad, I thought that I was worth more to you than just another card to be dealt from your businessman hand. You would never have done this to Maximus.”
“Well, quite apart from the fact that neither of them would have wanted to marry Maximus...”
“Why not Minerva?”
“It was clear to me from the beginning that Minerva would not have made a good princess. But you...”
“I went on to build my own business. To build my own fortune. You didn’t know that I would do that when you promised me to him at sixteen. And in the last decade you didn’t have the courage to speak to me even one time about it.”
“It won’t impact your ability to run your business. I mean, certainly you’ll have to farm out some of the day-to-day, but you’re mostly a figurehead anyway.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I brainstorm most of the new products. I’m in charge of implementation. I’m not just a figurehead.” Her stomach sank. “But that’s what you think, isn’t it? You think that I’ve only accomplished any of this because of my connection with you.”
It hit her then that her father genuinely thought he had been giving her a gift on some level. That there was nothing of substance that she had accomplished on her own, and nothing that she could.
