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The final message was one she was completely unprepared for.
Hello, came an older woman’s voice.This is Catherine Clark. I’m your... Well. I don’t know what to call myself. But I want you to know that I knew. I knew when they brought me the wrong baby, and they told me I was imagining things. That I needed sleep. ButI knew. I loved the daughter I raised. I love her still. And I don’t need anything from you if you don’t wish to give it. But I wanted you to know that... I love you, too. And I missed you when you were gone.
She couldn’t have said how long she sat there after hearing that message, her mobile forgotten in her lap as she stared off into the fire. That simple, quiet message had punched holes through her heart. She could feel it, suddenly filled with all those gaps, except other things flooded in, too.
All the memories she’d set aside or stamped out, because there was no point in wallowing in them.
They flashed through her now. Sobbing out her heart in her bedroom at the age of seven or eight, because once again the Queen had dismissed her for being too noisy. Too loud. Too frightfully common. She’d cried until her eyes were dry and her cheeks hurt from all the salt. And she’d wished, fervently, that she had somehow been adopted. Instead of imagining that she was secretly royalty, the way she understood some girls did, she had wished she could be regular. With a sweet mother who loved her, not a chilly queen who was forever harping on her every last act.
Another flash, sitting with a family when she was eighteen and on the cusp of her own schedule of solo public appearances. She and Esme had visited a family gathered around the bedside of their youngest daughter, who had been suffering from a terrible cancer. But none of them had seemed sad. They had been too busy making each other laugh, holding each other’s hands, telling one another stories. They had been bright and connected and happy, even in the face of the unthinkable.
Esme and Amalia had sat silently in the back of the car that had ushered them home to the palace. Silent, because no one spoke until the Queen did, and Amalia knew by then it was never worth breaking protocol in Esme’s presence. The whole way home Amalia had wondered what it would be like to have a family like that. Where what mattered was that they were together, no matter what.
And all this time, she’d had a real mother. Not a queen. A mother who had called her up, even though they were strangers to each other, just to tell her that she was loved.
She knew Esme would never do such a thing. It would not even occur to her.
If you ask them, a great many commoners have love and happiness, Esme had said once, when Amalia had dared to ask if Esme had loved her husband—supposedly Amalia’s father—the late, lamented Jean Philippe, who had died not long after Amalia was born.What we have is history. A legacy. The purpose of the throne to guide us in all things.
Can’t you have both?Amalia had asked. Too fervently.
Esme had looked at her almost pityingly. Amalia had been twelve and had been reading books she shouldn’t, stealing them from the palace staff and inhaling them under the covers when no one was watching. But all those romantic paperbacks had given her courage. She didn’t look away.
At twelve it had seemed a victory.
No, child, Esme had replied coolly.It is but one of many choices you make in your life. No one can have everything. Only the foolish try.
Thinking back now, Amalia thought that might have been the only time love had been discussed between them. At the time, she had been distraught, because she understood that Esme was telling her that her parents had never loved each other. But she’d also known that meant it was very unlikely thatshewould be permitted to marry for love, should she ever find it.
But Amalia couldn’t imagine why she’d thought love was part of any royal picture, given the fact Esme had never said those words. Amalia hadn’t expected she would. I love youwould have been a weakness, and the Queen was focused solely on making certain her successor was strong and tough. And prepared, for anything and everything.
Love had nothing to do with it.
Yet now Amalia held in her hand a mobile phone that held a message that proved to her that from across the world, the woman who’d given birth to her had no fear at all of love. And no qualm about reaching out to share it.
She thought she ought to celebrate that. Instead, she felt shaken to her core.
And then, suddenly, it was as if the air changed around her. She glanced up, expecting to find the rain had cleared outside. But it was Joaquin who stood there.
He usually dressed for his meetings, always looking the part of the billionaire CEO he was on his various videoconferences. One day, to amuse himself during what he’d told her would be a particularly boring spate of meetings, he’d had her sit in his office with him, perched where he could see her. She had been completely naked. And from time to time he’d scribbled out directions for her. That she should touch herself this way. That she should move around that way. By the time he was finished with his meetings, Amalia was nearly sobbing with frustrated longing and hunger. And he had taken her right there, tossing her across his desk and slamming his way inside her at last. He had thrust once, then twice, before cursing and pulling out again to fumble a condom into place.
She’d been so ready for him that when he thrust home again, she’d screamed, then bucked out her pleasure against him while he sought his own lightning-fast release.
The memory alone made her breath catch.
Today he must have spent more time on the phone instead of a video. He wore a now soaking wet white button-down shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and a pair of dark trousers that seemed to cling to every part of his thighs that she liked best.
“Have you been standing there long?” she asked.
Because there was something about the way he was looking at her. Almost as if he felt haunted.
“Not long,” he replied in his gravelly way.
She remembered this from their first summer together. When she had become so attuned to him that she could feel his voice inside her, as if every syllable was a caress against her tender flesh.
Joaquin did not come closer. And Amalia stayed where she was, because she liked to look at him. And today he was wet from the rain, so that shirt clung to him the way she normally did. He looked like every fantasy she’d ever had.
She almost laughed. Hewasevery fantasy she’d ever had.
