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While the castle was beautiful, the woman standing in front of it was what I was really interested in.
It was Mom. She was dressed in a stunning white gown, her hair in soft, flowing curls over her bare shoulders, a beautiful smile on her face. It was so strange. Not only her surroundings, but her dress and the way she stood. I’d always known Mom as a no-nonsense woman on the go, dressed in comfortable jeans and flats, her hair in a simple ponytail. She’d always put out an effortless sense of style that I’d admired, but never ball-gown-in-front-of-a-damn-castlestyle.
I stared more at the picture, trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing. It was hard to tell, but Mom appeared to be around my age in the photo, in her mid-twenties.
“This is a Photoshop or something,” I declared, shaking my head and handing back the tablet. “A trick.”
Luc glanced at me, swiping the screen. “Not a trick at all. These are actually scans of the original prints which are in my bag, if you’d like to see them.” I stood stunned as he reached into his bag and took out a manila envelope, opening the flap and withdrawing some 8x10s. “Please, sit.” He gestured to the chair I’d been in only moments before. A dumb expression on my face, I slowly sat back down.
He handed me the photos. Sure enough, the one on top was the same as what I’d seen on the screen. Nothing about the photo jumped out as fake. Then again, I was far from a master of spotting such things.
I flipped to the next photo. It was of Mom once again, seated in a gorgeous garden, a chubby, blonde-haired and blue-eyed baby on her lap.
“That’s you,” Luc said. “Believe it or not. This was clearly before the tattoos and piercings.”
His joke managed to snap me a bit out of my daze, and I smiled in spite of myself.
I flipped to another photo. The next was Mom and me again, this time seated on a blanket in a gorgeous green field, the Alps looming overhead, the tops of the mountains tipped with white. Mom wore a simple sundress, looking effortlessly beautiful. I was a little older in that photo, toddler age, and Mom was smiling at me as I held up an apple.
We weren’t the only ones in the picture. A pair of men, both in their twenties and dressed in sharp, dark suits, stood in the distance. They were close enough that I could make out their features, however, and one of them seemed very familiar.
“That’s me, if you can believe it,” Luc said. He placed his fingertip on one of the men. “When I was closer to your age now. Seems like an eternity ago.”
I studied Luc in the photo, noticing how little he seemed to have aged. His hair was tinged with a bit of gray and there were a few wrinkles here and there, but he was still tall and handsome, carrying himself even then with his commanding bearing.
It reminded me of what was making the meeting even more difficult to bear. I’d noticed again how freaking hot Luc was the second I stepped into the coffee shop. He was dressed simply in gray slacks and a white button-up shirt, the top buttons undone and showing off a sculpted chest underneath. A pair of black loafers finished his effortlessly professional look.
God, he was sexy. It was almost unfair—this whole thing was shaping up to be difficult enough to deal with on its own.
I turned to the next photo, this one of Mom in a flowing ball gown in a huge hall. Just like in the other pictures, she looked beautiful. The next photo was of her and a man, both seated on a throne.
“That’s…”
“That’s King Alaric, your father.”
My stomach tightened as I took in the image of the man Luc said was my father. He was tall and well-built and handsome, his hair a close-cropped blonde, a neatly trimmed beard slightly darker in color framing his angular face. He sat with poise, he and Mom reaching over toward one another, taking the other’s hand at the halfway point between the two of them. They both faced the camera, easy, regal smiles on their faces.
I reached over and picked up my pumpkin spice latte, taking a quick sip. I needed a moment before I went to the next photo. When I was ready, I set the drink down and flipped.
This one was of Mom and a tall, handsome man in sharp military regalia, both of them standing under a magnificent altar covered in red and white roses. It was their wedding.
“Red and white are the colors of the Edorian flag,” Luc said.
It was all too much to take. I’d never known my father, never so much as seen a picture of him. But there he was.
My hands were shaking. I pushed the photos back toward Luc, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.
When I was ready, I opened my eyes slowly and spoke.
“This has to be a joke.”
Luc raised an eyebrow. “A joke?”
“A joke. Or a prank. Or something. There’s no way in hell that this is true, that I’m a princess of some obscure little country in Europe. This is something that only happens in the movies! I mean, handsome strangers don’t just show up in women’s lives and tell them that they’re next in line to take over a kingdom.”
Luc kept his eyebrow arched. “Handsome strangers?”
Shit. “It’s, uh, a figure of speech!”
