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‘Okay, have you stolen anything since you’ve been here? Shot anyone?’
She let out a breath. ‘No.’
He smiled, very much enjoying outplaying her. ‘Freddie, sweetheart, the facts are staring you in the face. You’re not a criminal, no matter what you think.’
She was sitting very still, her gaze dropping to her food, the colour fading slowly from her face. He didn’t like that at all, so he reached over the table and took her fingers in his. The tips of them were cold so he lifted them and brought them to his mouth, brushing kisses over them.
‘You need to tell me about your life in the trailer park,’ he said. ‘I want to know everything.’
‘It’s awful.’ But she didn’t pull away. ‘You don’t want to hear it, not really.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Because it’s...dull.’
‘Freddie, nothing about you is dull.’ He searched her face. ‘Unless there’s something else you’re not telling me?’
For some reason she blushed. ‘No. No, there’s nothing.’
‘Are you sure? Seems like there’s something.’
She pulled her hands away and he let her go, watching her, half of him wondering what else she was keeping from him, the other half wondering whether to let this conversation lie and go straight back to bed, where things were simpler. Where there was just his naked body and hers, and there wasn’t this barrier between them. Because there was one, he could feel it. A distance she was putting him at.
‘I’ve told you something already,’ she said. ‘What about you? This can’t be all one way, sir.’
She’d slipped back into work mode, that was obvious.
He didn’t like that. Not at all.
‘You know all about me. Head injury. Can’t read. Can’t write. Emotionally unstable. What else is there to say?’
Her eyes were very dark as she pushed her plate away and then leaned her elbows on the table too, mirroring him. ‘I don’t know anything about your childhood.’
The statement jolted him, though he wasn’t sure why. His childhood had been ideal, so there was no reason to feel as if he’d just put his hand on a live wire. ‘I was brought up at the palace,’ he said lightly. ‘Groomed from an early age to be King. My father was a good man and a wonderful ruler. There’s no hidden trauma, I can assure you.’
‘You don’t talk about your mother much,’ she said carefully.
Again that electric jolt. He ignored it.
‘No, because there’s nothing much to say. She died when I was a year old, so I don’t remember her.’
‘Did your father ever speak of her?’
‘Bits and pieces. A lovely woman, by all accounts. And he loved her very much.’ He reached for his coffee and lifted it, taking another sip. ‘Next question.’
But Freddie only looked at him, as if she could see inside his head. See what lay at the heart of him, not the King his father had wanted or that his mother had given her life for, but the broken man he was inside.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s awful for you.’
‘Is it?’ He couldn’t quite keep the edge out of his voice. ‘You don’t miss what you never had.’
There was a pause.
She was still looking at him, a slight frown on her face, her dark eyes full of a compassion that made his chest feel tight. ‘I heard she had cancer.’
You might as well tell her. There are too many secrets as it is.
That was true. And what did it matter anyway? It was ancient history and a matter of public record. He’d never known his mother so there was no reason for this reluctance.
