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It was just another security protocol he did by rote.
"We need to talk," Blythe said after he put his phone away.
"No, we don't."
"Could you sound more like a guy right now?" she asked with a wry smile.
"Newsflash, I am a man."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Talking about feelings is not an ancient form of torture."
"Says you." He was pretty sure sitting through another rendition of the this is what's wrong with you and I'm not interested speech would be tortuous.
"Look, Janice isn't just my best friend. She's the only family that matters to me."
"Harsh." Considering both Blythe's parents were still living.
"The truth often is." She looked at him, like she was trying to decide something and then she nodded to herself. "I'm going to tell you something I've only ever shared with her."
"Okay." He had to wonder why she would, but didn't ask because Tor was curious and didn't want Blythe changing her mind about telling him.
And Blythe had to know that any confidences she shared were safe with a prince who'd been raised to never gossip.
"My parents only had me to fulfill a requirement for my father getting his full inheritance." Blythe said the words like she was admitting a shameful secret.
If it was one, it certainly wasn't her shame. "I've heard of codicils like that, but it still surprised me they exist in this day and age." Especially outside of royal families where lineage and the future monarchy were not at stake.
"Yes, well, apparently my grandfather was a very old-fashioned sort of man."
"Apparently? You never met him?"
"He died when my father was still a child. My grandmother has never taken any interest in me, or her own son for that matter, so long as she gets her annual income from the company." Blythe's soft voice was flat, unemotional, but the expression in her chocolate gaze told another story. This part of her history hurt her. "I guess it came naturally to my father. I'm not sure how my mother came by her attitude toward her only child. Her parents were loving, if a bit reserved."
"Were?"
"They died when I was young. I remember them only in bits and pieces."
His own grandparents had been gone before Tor was born and his father had been an only child. His mother's only brother had left Tapt Oyer for university long before Tor's birth and had never returned to the island country.
So, Tor knew what it was like to grow up without any sort of close extended family.
"I used to be jealous of big families," Tor admitted.
Blythe smiled wryly. "I can still be jealous of families where the parents care about their children, but mostly I'm happy for them." She sighed. "Once my parents had me and control of my father's fortune, the only thing that mattered to them was the appearance of the perfect family."
"What does that mean, Blythe?"
"They didn't love me, they provided for me," she said baldly. "Both were wrapped up in their own careers and interests. Their relationship is a distant one, with little demands on either side toward the other. Which is probably the only way it could work for two purely selfish people."
"That's a pretty severe indictment." Though from her description, a fairly accurate one.
"You might think so."
"Not really, from what you've said so far."
She looked at him. "You don't think I'm terrible?"
"For looking at your parents with truth? No. You know them better than probably anyone else. If, as their child, you believe they are selfish, the probably are."
