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Samsyn pivoted. Planted his feet a little wider apart. Sheez. Even here, a few miles up the coast from Muscle Beach, the guy was a formidable sight when he hit confrontation mode. Nevertheless, his answering tone was mild. “I believe you might be missing the point.”
I rocked back, jabbing a finger. “Good try but no dice. You’re missing mine. Time is going to take care of this; you’ll see. A couple more months out in the jungle, or wherever the hell you’ve sent him, and your little brother will come home ready to settle down and think logically about an acceptable bride.” My dropped gaze fell on my spilled boba cup. As I retrieved it and headed to the trashcan myself, I continued, “And this is the part where your parents can be important.”
“My parents?” His head whipped like I’d said terrorists. “Why the hell—” He pinched it off, clearly deciding on a different tack. “My parents have nothing to contribute to this subject.”
“Are you kidding? They have everything to contribute. What the hell with the glare? You hate saying I’m right?” I refrained from adding asshole, but in another minute, he’d be sticking a perfect landing there without my help.
He sat back down, again with a pretense of relaxation. “I am saying you might not have all the facts.”
“Facts,” I shot back. “Like how Xaria and Ardent are a walking, talking example that pre-arranged marriage can work? That mutual respect and friendship can, over time, become love?”
His pose, with one elbow draped over the back of the bench, hardly shifted. “Who told you that?”
“Shiraz,” I supplied. “On the first day I was in Arcadia. There’s a photo of your mom and dad on his desk. He told me all about the old tradition of The Distinct, and about how the two of them made the situation work.” I sat back down too. “They’re happy, Samsyn.”
“They are a sham, Lucina.”
My turn for the snapping head. Not that my glue gun of a stare altered his granite mien. “Excuse the hell out of me?”
He let his elbow drop—all the way to his knee. Parked his other one the same way, then steepled his fingers. “What I am about to tell you cannot leave this conversation. Not even Shiraz can know.”
“Sure. I mean, fine. Okay.” Since I’d only see Shiraz again on the covers of gossip mags, that was a no-brainer.
His fingers visibly pressed harder to each other. His jaw tautened. “My mother and father…can barely stand being in the same room together.”
“Huh?” Another brainless reaction—though pretty fucking justified.
“They have not slept in the same bed for over ten years,” he stated, keeping his voice low. “Perhaps before that. There have even been whispers that Jayd is not truly of my father’s seed.”
“Shit.” My voice was just as soft. “Are—are you sure?”
“About Jayd’s heritage?” His nostrils flared. “Of course not. I personally discovered my father’s infidelity by accident, when I was eighteen. Not long after that, I learned that her own adultery was just as extensive. After then, I was more aware of the court whisperings, but it was several more years before I had knowledge of that particular gem.” He pushed his hands fully together, stabbing them against the tense line of his lips. “By then, Jayd was starting college, a young woman, and I was running kingdom security. I could only make sure the gossips were bribed into silence and that any evidence of her illegitimacy was found then destroyed.”
“Did you find any?” I leaned forward to ask it.
“No.” The stress in his jaw spread across his face. “But that does not stop me from dreading the day something surfaces.”
“Or from dealing with that daily backache.” I jerked up half a smile in response to his baffled glance. “From hauling the weight of keeping it from her?” I added, with new revelation, “And Evrest and Shiraz too, right?”
He picked up on the allegation in my voice. “She is their sister through and through, in the fabric of their hearts, just as she is in mine,” he explained. “But when secrets fill more ears, they are more at risk of being spilled.” He tugged at a caramel-stained corner of his shorts. “Even when the intention is innocent.”
I nodded, however reluctantly. One look toward the western foothills, where a collection of white letters spelled out H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D, provided all the back-up his statement needed. In this part of the world, no secret was innocent. A lot of intentions weren’t, either.
I finally sat back. As I got busy collecting my jaw off the ground, Samsyn had the nerve to grin through a huff. “You look like a woman enlightened.”
I rolled my head in a figure eight, going for my mental comfort food of snark. “You could sure as fuck say that.”
“Good.” His military precision was back in full glory. “Now you have some accurate intel to inform your decision for a change.”
I unleashed a new glare on him. “Inform what decision? Samsyn, this changes…”
Nothing.
Oh, hell.
It changed everything.
My fade into amazement was filled by his cocky chuckle. “You were saying, Miss Fava?” He waved a regal hand. “Go on. I need to hear this. You were saying, as before then—about not being ‘good enough’, even after learning about all the colorful closet skeletons of our family? Was that the part that did not change? Or maybe it was the story about my parents being the walking advertisements for the success of arranged marriage. Do not leave that shit out. It is my favorite.”
